I’m on Depo, with the same results-- no periods. Best goddam thing that ever happened to me.
“Clear your sinuses?” What the hell? I know we treat the ads like a fart in church, but that one just boggles me.
One more thing to look up - menopause patch. I’m looking forward to no more periods, but if I get much more bitchy/angry/weird, I might explode.
Bitchy/angry/weird didn’t even scratch the surface with me. I’m normally pretty OK with the hormonal stuff. But when the Big M kicked in, keeee-rist. It was fucking scary. Like “two-headed monster” scary.
Actually, she started on Halloween, skipped November, and has been right on schedule ever since.
I know it’s an old wives’ tale about females who live together having co-ordinating periods, but in my case, mine starts a few days after my daughter’s. I’ve also noticed that there’s fewer heavy days…I think I’m down to about one, then I’m done usually in five or so days.
My family is too repressed to ever talk about such things, so I have no idea if I ever synchronized with my mother or sister while I was living at home.
i always thought that poem about wearing purple and red as an old lady was a bit off.
should be:
when i’m an old lady i’ll wear white. any day i want… white. no worries, white.
Oh the joys of being female. Fortunately I’ve yet to have the scare of a late period–I’ve been extremely regular ever since my first, and at any rate, ye good ol’ PMS warns me sufficiently in advance that I know it’s coming (Often far enough in advance that I wind up looking forward to my monthly just so the PMS will end). There’s been two exceptions to that though, one when I was 15 and one last year, where I had two periods with a week in between. The first one really sucked, because I was away at a week-long French camp, didn’t have any pads with me since I wasn’t due for about three more weeks, and no one else had any either. Plenty of tampons though :smack: I’m still not sure how I managed until that week was over.
The only good thing I can say is at least my cycle is a bit longer than a month, so I don’t have to deal with it quite as often 
After those weird teenage years, Aunt Flo settled down to visiting every six to eight (or more) weeks. I loved that. Then in my early thirties I got hyperplasia, where part of the disposable lining insists on staying stuck to the womb. I bled for two weeks before I went to a doctor. The medication fixed the problem but also made Aunt Flo decide I couldn’t live without her for longer than 28 days. Thanks, Flo, But really, if you never came again, I’d survive. Honestly!
Don’t you hate that feeling when you wake up in the morning? The feeling that the moment you move, the dam will break? Most often it does, too. Arrrgh!
Have you tried manganese? I’ve heard that the lack of it is what causes the cramps in the first place. In my mid-thirties, when I heard this, I looked for a multi-vitamin with a high manganese ratio. I got Centrum. Nowadays, though, there are many more woman-oriented multi-vitamins to chose from. Plus, you can get manganese by itself if you want. Within a month or two, my cramps were almost nothing and now I rarely have any cramps at all. YMMV, of course, but it’s worth checking out. According to this site, it’s also supposed to be good for migraines too. Check out the dysmennorhea link there too.
I’m not the only one who dreads the sitting-up gush? Thank Og! At least thanks to the hormonal BC I’ve had up to now (switching to Nuvaring this next cycle, so who knows what’s going to happen to Aunt Flo…she is more than free to get lighter if she wants!) she only stays around a day or so, with some spotting for a day or so afterwards.
Tikki, I hadn’t tried manganese, but given that I’m willing to give anything a try in my quest to be pain free, I will. Thanks for the tip.
Featherlou, up until you mentioned it, I’d never heard of endometrial ablation before. What does it involve? Its never been even mentioned to me as an option before.
Apologies for the late reply, but was at the SO’s over the weekend, and I really don’t think that Bonzer would want to be seen posting to this thread! 
This site describes endometrial ablation. It sounds like it is becoming a common alternative to hysterectomies for heavy and/or prolonged periods.
The worst moment I ever had was with a stomach flu:
sitting on the pot for diarrhea, that turned my stomach so bad I had to stand up and vomit, and the force of that made my nose start bleeding; if I had also been dealing with The Flow I would have self-destructed
High school graduation: white dress, white robe, white stockings and shoes, and of course my period. Tampon plus several layers of pads to staunch my paranoia about walking up onto the stage in front of all those people. All clear, whew.
Two things.
Flo is… six days late today, and counting. Uh oh.
Secondly, a year of post-Depo menstrual wackiness taught me that hydrogen peroxide will take bloodstains out of anything.
{{{MixieArmadillo}}}
Hope she eventually comes to visit you…
Thanks, Anne. No sign yet, and still a little too early for a test. Sigh.
And here’s hoping that ‘eventually’ is something sooner than 9 months from now.
The last time Aunt Flo came to visit was in late October or early November–that was the time when I had the Yeast Infection From Hell (from taking two antibiotics for two weeks). Since I’ve been going through menopause for about four years now (and I’m not yet 40!), I’ve noticed that my periods are much less of a mess on the rare occasions that I have them. Oh, but not that last one! I thought I was going to need a transfusion before it was over. And I was already in pain from the infection AND on a clear liquid diet for my diverticulitis. Oh, yes–that was a fun week!
Well, still no visit from Aunt Flo for me. (So those white pants survived just fine.) So now I’ve been off Depo more than a month and nuttin’. Not that I really want it, but it’d be nice to know when it’s coming and not have this weird waiting game. Plus, once I get my period again, I can start on a different BC. Nuvaring this time. It’d really be nice to get started on that. Where are you Aunt Flo?? Why are you always around when we don’t want you and never around when we do? Argh!
I had kind of a saga between Depo use and having periods again. I switched from Depo to the Nuva Ring for about eight months, figuring that the estrogen might induce periods. Nothin. I switched to a pill (Ortho Cyclen) to bump up the estrogen and see if that would make me bleed, that was perhaps the worst two months of my life. Still nothing. I got a diaphragm and went completely non-hormonal, and had a period my first month off. HRMPH. I’ve been menstruating regularly ever since.
[unsolicited advice]You can start a birth control method immediately, there’s no reason to wait until you have a period. It might take you a year or more to start periods, and you can absolutely get pregnant in that time, so do be very careful about using barrier methods if you’re wanting to avoid pregnancy. Anyway, if you’re wanting to start the Nuva Ring, you don’t need to wait for a period to start it. [/unsolicited advice]