My name is Dr. Karyn Eilber, and I'm a urologist who specializes in urogynecology, which is the treatment of women's pelvic floor disorders. I'm here to answer questions submitted by the plusOne community, and one of the questions is, what is perimenopause?

To answer that question, it's important to know what menopause is. Menopause for women who still have a uterus is defined as no period or menstrual cycle for a consecutive 12 months.

So if you have no periods for 10 months, but then you have one, you're not technically in menopause, you're actually in something which is referred to as perimenopause.

And simply stated, perimenopause are the years leading up to menopause. This can sometimes start as early as a woman's late thirties.

Symptoms of perimenopause are those symptoms that are associated with menopause itself. Some women will have irregular periods, feeling brain fog, not just feeling themselves, maybe even low libido.

So perimenopause, while it's leading up to menopause, isn't necessarily a defined state, but it can be a vague array of symptoms that can occur over many years.

Keep following if you want to hear the answer to the next question.