Clearblue Launched An At-Home Menopause Test: What It Is & How To Use It

Believe it or not, detecting pregnancy hasn't always been as easy as peeing on a stick. Before the release of Warner-Chilcott's "early pregnancy test" (e.p.t.) in 1976, it was impossible to test for pregnancy from your own home. These days, it's hard to imagine life without the convenience and privacy of these tests.

Clearblue launched the first ever at-home product that can indicate a woman's current stage of menopause via a follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) test, and it's called the Clearblue Menopause Stage Indicator. The test isn't quite as simple as a pregnancy test, but it's as close as possible given the complexity of menopause stages.

Up until now, it's been difficult for women to know what stage of menopause they're in. Figuring out whether you're in premenopause, early perimenopause, late perimenopause, or postmenopause has been a guessing game of matching your symptoms to information found online. While some doctors offer menopause tests, they aren't always available.

"The menopausal transition can be a 'black box' for many women, associated with vague emotional, physical, and mental changes that could be overlooked during our busy lives," explains reproductive endocrinologist on the Clearblue Advisory Board Suruchi Thakore, M.D., OB/GYN. 

While hot flashes and night sweats may be the two most common symptoms of menopause, they're only a small part of the picture. In fact, there are over 30 symptoms that stem from these hormonal shifts, including things like brain fog, libido shifts, anxiety, joint pain, bloating, insomnia, and many more—hence, why misdiagnoses happen often.

Doctors may see these experiences, especially those pertaining to mental health like anxiety and depression, as diagnoses rather than symptoms, which may lead to putting a Band-Aid over the concern but never truly addressing the root cause.

This is similar to the eye-opening experience of learning about your typical cycle phases after starting your period—gaining reassurance that those short but strong mood swings you feel before your period are normal. Or that your boost of energy during the follicular phase line up with your hormone fluctuations.

"This product empowers women by helping them understand the potential cause of these symptoms and start the important conversation with their health care providers for management," Thakore says.

Due to the social stigmas and lack of education around menopause, many people think this process begins when you're 50 or older—and for some women, that's true. However, perimenopause can begin as early as mid-30s.

Heads up: The results of this test aren't just yes or no like pregnancy tests. Instead, the test will tell you if you're in premenopause, early perimenopause, late perimenopause, or postmenopause—and women can use the accompanying app to better understand their results.

Once you have your results from the at-home test, you can print out the report (or download it to your phone) to share with your health care provider. They can then confirm your menopause stage via further testing.

It's pretty crazy to think that until the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Revitalization Act of 1993, women were not required to be included in clinical trialsfor health testing. Some restrictions were motivated by protecting the potential of a fetus even if women were not pregnant; others related to the risk of complicating data with women's fluctuating hormones.

Luckily, women's health research is slowly but surely advancing. In recent years, there's been more light thrown on women's top health concerns, ranging from birth control side effects to the nuances of Alzheimer's risk in women1, effective postpartum depression treatment2 options, and so much more. Now, menopause is finally starting to gain more attention too.

This test serves as a useful tool to help women navigate menopause—a stage of life that's definitely not discussed as often or as openly as it should be, causing confusion, shame, and fear around normal bodily function. 

Given that more than a million women in the U.S. experience menopause each year, it's about time we start really talking about menopause both in medical settings and social discourse.