There ’s Now an At-Home Menopause Test, But Does Anyone Need It?

COVID-19 changed many things about medicine, not the least of which is how we think about do-it-yourself testing. Before the pandemic, health experts weren’t convinced people would accept, much less embrace, the utility of testing themselves at home for SARS-CoV-2. Pregnancy tests pretty much dominated the at-home testing landscape, although a few recent additions, for conditions like HIV and Alzheimer‘s, have appeared on pharmacy shelves, albeit with varying levels of confidence from the medical community. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Now Clearblue, the company that makes pregnancy and fertility self-testing kits, launched a DIY test for menopause. The kit, available for $29.99 at major retail pharmacies, requires women to test their urine every other day for a total of 10 days and detects changing levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). Over the 10 day span, the Menopause Stage Indicator test monitors a woman’s changing levels of FSH and, based on general levels of these hormones calibrated by age, informs her about which stage of menopause she might find herself—premenopause, early perimenopause, late perimenopause or post menopause. Among women’s reproductive conditions, fertility receives the lion’s share of attention, at least in the public domain. Most women of menopausal age aren’t aware that their changing bodies, and the symptoms that accompany those changes—such as hot flashes, night sweat...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news