irregular periods. Takes several days before actually have any considerable amount of flow.

I am wondering if my menstrual symptoms are normal to premenopause.  I've heard people say they have heavy periods.  I am taking three or four days before I start having any flow at all.  I start with a brown discharge and then after a day or two I will see red only when I wipe (I don't even get anything on my liners).  After three, four, five days I begin to have more flow, which becomes heavy for a few days then tapers off again.  I can go 7 to 10 days with these symptoms.  My stomach hurts and I have back pain as well, depressed and don't feel good.  I just turned 40.  I have been doing this for awhile.  Family has told me that my grandmother went through menopause very early in life, my mother was just a teenager (12 or 13 years old) when my grandmother went through the change.  Can you look at relatives and start about the same time they did.  My mother and her sisters all had hysterectomies, so I can only look at what my grandmother did.  Also, I am really embarassed at the fact for the last 5 or so years that I have had issues with holding my bladder.  Is this normal at a "young" age?  Lately I have tingling on my left side of my head near my ear.  I noticed someone else complained with this.  What do you think?