Pre-mature menopause ?

A friend of mine in her early 20's, who suffers from endo, has recently been told she has started the menopause early. Can endo cause this? Her doc says it's likely due to stess and her ovaries may have just stopped functioning due to trauma from endo... they're doing more tests...This really scares me! I'm 19, only a couple of years younger than her, and I am really worried for my future and about fertility. Has anyone else experienced this? :S My poor friend is devastated as she's always felt her purpose in life is to be a mother, and of course I want to be able to have my own children one day too. Is there a certain age it's best to start trying before things like this take their toll?

[Impatient]

Premature menopause is VERY rare even in endo ladies. Just because your friend possibly has signs of it beginning to happen in no way has any bearing on your own health. Please don't worry about it happening to you too. The odds that two random people who know each other both getting it are so remote I would bet my mortgage on it that you won't also have that happen to you. You have far more chance of winning the lottery.

It is a genetic trait not related to endo. Having chemo or ovaries removed can cause it too, but naturally occuring failure is down to genes ...not stress. Endo itself won't cause that, but the treatments for endo (being cancer treatments too) can cause it in some rare cases.

If you don't have endo treated by ovary removal or GNRH drug therapy and no female family hostory of menopause before the age of 40, then it would be most unlikely you would come anywhere near facing the same situation as your friend.

Even if you do have raging endo on the ovaries it doesn't necessarily force your body in to a state of early menopause by any means.

[Hidden in reply to Impatient]

Thanks so much you have put me at so much more ease! I was really freaking out!