Checklist
Perimenopause symptoms checklist
Forty-seven symptoms across seven areas, laid out to be scanned rather than scored. Tick what applies and copy the result for your appointment. It runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you tick is stored or sent anywhere, and there is no email gate in front of it.
Free. No email required. No signup required. Takes about 2 minutes. Scored entirely in your browser: your answers are never stored or sent anywhere. Your score is shown next to the average for your age band.
The checklist
Tick anything you have noticed in the last few months. There is no score and no wrong number: the point is to have the list in front of you rather than trying to remember it in a ten minute appointment.
How to use it in an appointment
- Tick first, edit laterGo through quickly and tick anything you recognise. Second-guessing whether a symptom counts is how the list ends up shorter than the truth.
- Take the whole list, not the worst threePeople instinctively lead with their most severe symptom. The pattern across areas is what distinguishes the transition from a single condition, and it is the part most often left out.
- Add your cycle datesThe list covers symptoms. It does not cover your bleeding pattern, and that carries more weight than any symptom for staging. Bring the length of your recent cycles and the longest gap you have had.
- Say how long it has been going onDuration changes the differential. Six weeks and two years point at different things, and the checklist cannot capture that on its own.
If you want the same information scored and staged rather than just listed, our two-minute check weights sixteen of these symptoms across four domains, reads your cycle pattern against the STRAW+10 stages, and produces a printable summary written in the language a clinician recognises.
Why breadth matters more than severity
Almost every symptom on this list has other explanations. Fatigue alone could be a dozen things. Joint pain alone could be a dozen more. What makes the transition a plausible explanation is not any single item being severe; it is several unrelated systems changing at once, in someone whose cycle is also changing.
That is why the readout counts how many areas you have ticked in rather than just how many boxes. Four ticks spread across four areas is a more interesting pattern than eight ticks in one, and it is the version a clinician can do something with.
It is also why this page is a checklist rather than a score. A number invites the question of whether it is high enough. A list invites the question of what else is going on, which is the better question here.
What is not on the list, and why
Two deliberate omissions worth explaining.
There is no bleeding red flag on the tickable list. Heavy bleeding, bleeding between periods, bleeding after sex and any bleeding after twelve months without a period all need an in-person assessment rather than a tick box, so they are written out in full below instead of being buried among forty-seven other items.
There are also no symptoms here that only make sense with a test behind them. Anything requiring a blood result is not something you can tick from your own experience, and no hormone test settles perimenopause anyway, so including them would imply a precision this list does not have.
What needs a clinician rather than a checklist
- Any bleeding after twelve months with no periodThis is postmenopausal bleeding and is assessed promptly regardless of how light it is. It is frequently something benign, which is a reason to check rather than a reason to wait.
- Heavy or prolonged bleedingSoaking through protection hourly, passing large clots, or bleeding that lasts noticeably longer than usual. Heavy bleeding is common in the transition and still merits assessment, not least because it causes iron deficiency.
- Bleeding between periods or after sexA change in pattern is what is being assessed, rather than the amount alone.
- Symptoms starting before 40Menopausal symptoms before 40 are investigated as premature ovarian insufficiency, which is diagnosed and managed differently and needs an in-person work-up.
- Thoughts of harming yourselfContact your doctor or an urgent helpline today. That is more important than anything on this list and is not something to work out from a checklist.
None of these routes carries a sponsored link, here or anywhere on this site.
Sources
The symptom categories follow those named in UK national guidance, expanded with the commonly reported symptoms that guidance does not enumerate. The staging references are to STRAW+10.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Menopause: identification and management. NICE guideline NG23, published November 2015, last updated November 2024. Recommendation 1.2.2 names changes in menstrual cycle, vasomotor symptoms, genitourinary symptoms, effects on mood, musculoskeletal symptoms and sexual difficulties as commonly associated with menopause.
- Harlow SD, Gass M, Hall JE, et al. Executive summary of the Stages of Reproductive Aging Workshop +10: addressing the unfinished agenda of staging reproductive aging. Menopause 2012;19(4):387 to 395.
Common questions
What is on a perimenopause symptoms checklist?
This one covers 47 symptoms across seven areas: heat and temperature, periods and bleeding, mood and mind, sleep and energy, body, skin and hair and senses, and bladder and sex. UK guidance names cycle changes, vasomotor symptoms, genitourinary symptoms, mood effects, musculoskeletal symptoms and sexual difficulties as the commonly associated categories, and the rest are widely reported additions.
How many perimenopause symptoms are there?
There is no official count, which is why published lists range from about 30 to over 100. The number depends entirely on how finely you split categories. What matters clinically is not the total but the breadth: several unrelated systems changing at once, in someone whose cycle is also changing, is the pattern that points at the transition.
How many symptoms do you need to have perimenopause?
There is no threshold, and no symptom count identifies perimenopause. UK guidance identifies it in otherwise healthy women aged 45 and over from recently started vasomotor symptoms together with a change in the menstrual cycle, without laboratory tests. Your bleeding pattern carries more weight than the length of your symptom list.
Is there a free perimenopause checklist I can print?
This one is free, needs no email and no signup, and ticking it takes about a minute. The copy button puts your ticked list on your clipboard so you can paste it into notes, a document, or a message to yourself. Everything runs in your browser, so nothing you tick is stored or sent anywhere.
What symptoms of perimenopause need a doctor?
Any bleeding after twelve months without a period, bleeding that is unusually heavy or prolonged, bleeding between periods or after sex, and menopausal symptoms starting before 40 all need in-person assessment rather than a checklist. So do thoughts of harming yourself, which need same-day help.
Should I use a checklist or take the quiz?
They do different jobs. The checklist is for recognising and recording what you are experiencing in your own words. The check scores sixteen weighted symptoms across four domains, reads your cycle pattern against the STRAW+10 stages, and gives you a stage and a printable summary. Many people find the checklist easier to start with and the check more useful to hand over.
Turn the list into something staged
A checklist records what you have. The check weights it, reads your cycle pattern against the staging criteria, and prints a summary in the language a clinician recognises.
Ticking forty things does not make you a hypochondriac. It makes you someone with a pattern.
Take the 2-minute checkFree, no email, no signup. Scored entirely in your browser. Screening, not diagnosis.