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Primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) is a condition that causes your ovaries to stop working as well as they should before age 40.
As a result, your body doesn’t produce a normal amount of the hormone estrogen, causing your periods to become irregular or stop. People with POI often have a hard time becoming pregnant.
In this article, we’ll define POI and explain its symptoms, treatment, and more.
POI is sometimes also called premature ovarian failure, although this term is falling out of favor.
It happens when your ovaries no longer produce the typical amount of estrogen. Your periods may become harder to predict or stop altogether. Your body also may not release eggs regularly, which can lead to infertility or difficulty becoming pregnant.
If you have POI, you may still have some periods and you can still become pregnant with your own eggs. In fact, 5 to 10 percent of women with POI become pregnant naturally.
Around 1 in every 100 women will develop POI. The possibility increases if you have an autoimmune disorder. Researchers estimate that autoimmune conditions are present in 4 to 30 percent of POI cases.
The symptoms of POI are similar to the those you’d expect with menopause or perimenopause. They include:
Fertility problems are common with POI. That’s because the disorder can drastically reduce your body’s ability to produce and release eggs.
Low levels of reproductive hormones mean that many of your follicles — the structures in your reproductive system that mature into eggs — won’t get the signal to start egg production, or won’t respond normally to that signal.
Egg production may not stop altogether, though. Around 25 percent of women with POI will continue to ovulate for some period of time.
These symptoms can be caused by a number of conditions, so a healthcare professional will want to rule out more common causes before diagnosing you with POI. Here’s what to expect during your diagnostic appointment:
Your gynecologist may not be able to determine exactly what’s caused your ovaries to stop working properly. Research has identified several factors that can cause POI, including:
People between ages 35 and 40 are at a higher risk of developing POI than younger people, but the condition does sometimes occur at younger ages. People who’ve had ovarian surgery or cancer treatments are also at a higher risk of POI, as are those with a family history of POI.
A diagnosis of POI can be really hard to process. If you’ve just been told you have this condition, you may be dealing with a whirlwind of emotion — sadness, anger, anxiety, dread — or you may be experiencing a sense of numbness that often follows difficult health news.
Although this is a difficult diagnosis, there is some good news: Treatments can help raise your hormone levels to relieve some of your symptoms, and if you want to become pregnant, there are treatment options available to help you, like hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and counseling.
Treatments may vary on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the severity of your symptoms and how many eggs you may have left.
Whether you want to become pregnant right now or not, your gynecologist may recommend treatment with estrogen, or estrogen and progesterone together, if you still have your uterus. Replacing these hormones can relieve some of your symptoms, including:
Although there are some risks associated with HRT, the potential benefits generally outweigh the risks for younger women. HRT can help to prevent bone loss and cardiovascular problems in younger people as well.
It’s completely normal to notice emotional swings with POI. It’s not uncommon for people to experience depression and anxiety, especially if you were planning to become pregnant at some point.
Even without fertility complications, the symptoms of POI closely mimic menopause symptoms, including depression and anxiety. It may be helpful to share your experiences either with a therapist or a group of others with similar diagnoses.
It’s important to be aware that POI can cause some complications down the line. You may want to talk with a healthcare professional about these possible outcomes:
POI is a condition that changes your body’s ability to produce estrogen, which leads to irregular periods, lower egg production, and fertility difficulties.
This condition is most often caused by genetic differences, autoimmune conditions, or exposure to toxins, like chemotherapy and radiation for cancer treatment.
The menopause-like symptoms of POI can be treated with HRT, but replacing estrogen and progesterone won’t necessarily resolve fertility issues.
If you have POI, you may need to talk with your gynecologist or an infertility specialist about in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other ways to conceive, like with donor eggs.
If you’ve been diagnosed with POI, you’ll need to take good care of your overall health, as a number of other conditions — some of them serious — can develop alongside this disorder.
You may also experience some emotional upheaval with this diagnosis, so look for sources of support as you decide on a treatment plan and a path forward.
Last medically reviewed on July 27, 2021
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