For the first 20 years of my post-pubescent life, I had very irregular periods and probably averaged 4 a year. Finally got a diagnosis of PCOS in 2009. Since this February, probably as a result of getting my blood sugar/insulin levels under control and thus getting the PCOS under control, I have been having a period every month.
This sucks.
I feel like a kid again: “Are you kidding me? I have to go through all this every month?” I thought I had fallen into a pattern of a period every 35 days, but this month came four days early, so who knows?
What I don’t understand is why some months’ periods are really light and done with in about four days, and others are really heavy and last 7-8 days. What’s going on in there?
Edit: I’m hesitant to post this, because I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself, but the one upside to all this bleeding is that I basically no longer have cramps. Like, almost none…maybe once in a while I’ll want to take an Aleve one day out of the month, but that’s it. Right now it’s day three and I don’t feel a thing. It almost makes me paranoid – I don’t trust this absence of pain!
What might be going on is anovulatory periods - that’s when you aren’t having a “real” (I know, 4 days of bleeding sure feels real!) period because you didn’t ovulate this month. So your period isn’t triggered by the drop of progesterone, but rather the increase in estrogen.
Real periods happen when progesterone drops 12 days or so after ovulation. In a normal month, your estrogen builds and builds, and then after you ovulate, you start making progesterone for about 12 days, and then you stop making progesterone if you’re not pregnant. This drop is progesterone widens the gap between your estrogen (which has still been building) and progesterone, and you bleed.
If you don’t ovulate, there’s no progesterone, but the estrogen keeps building and building and when it gets high enough, it causes it’s own bleeding. It doesn’t entirely slough off the uterine lining, but it can cause anything from light spotting to 3-4 days of a light period.
But because the uterine lining doesn’t all slough off, your next “real” period (preceded by an ovulation and under the influence of falling progesterone) will probably be heavier and clottier, with the remnants of last month’s uterine lining and this month’s as well.
My OB wouldn’t write it in my records but she gave me the dietary tools to help w/ the nutritional control of PMDD as best I can; here’s the foods to avoid during your luteal phase (though if you avoid them all the time you’re better off in the long run anyhow). She still recommended CBT so that I could have some coping skills when the dysphoria creeps in anyway.
I wish someone had told me about PMDDwhen I was 20, my life would be so different now.
I don’t have PMDD, but I know something really bad goes on in my brain as my estrogen drops before my period. I’m kind of worried about menopause because with each month, it seems like I get more and more of a sneak preview of the hell that might arrive later in life.
I used to look forward to menopause, but not now. Now I’m afraid and wondering if I should start on hormone treatment as soon as I turn 40. I never thought I’d find myself in my mid-30s trying to figure out if or how I can afford to retire when The Change happens. But here I am, crunching the numbers and thinking about it.
That’s so damn depressing. Spotting at 66. I’m 47 and I cannot WAIT to go through menopause. I’m so tired of the whole monthly bleed. I, too, am childless so this has just been ridiculous for too many years now. 35 frickin’ years. Think about that, ladies! 35 years of bleeding and birth control. Guys have NO CLUE!
Actually, I’d pay someone to hysterectomy me!
Yep and yep. That is gross to the max. Who the hell came up with that idea? PREgnant MAre’s uRINe. I get it.
Dunno. Impossible to tell unless you’ve been tracking your temperature or using an ovulation kit. It’s possible they’ve been anovulatory, or it’s possible you just have a very quick self cleaning uterus! If it’s always been the same for you, I wouldn’t worry about it, unless you’re trying to conceive and having trouble.
It’s the “this month is way lighter than last month” ones you gotta watch out for…those patterns tend to include anovulatory periods, which mean you may ovulate “on your period”, and those women are the ones we sometimes see get pregnant when they’re bleeding!
At almost 37 years old, I’m now anovulatory about every other month (which I know because I do track temps, and there’s no peak in temperature half the time), which means one of my ovaries has probably decided it’s done now. (Ovaries tend to switch ovulation back and forth, right one month and left the next, but not always.)
I’m 54. You’d think menopause would be happening soon, but no…Mom went through it at 57, sister is finally through with it at 58. I have the Seven Days From Hell, and sometimes, a Bonus Period two weeks later! I asked for an ablation…gyno said no, because I have fibroids, which are apparently why I bleed so much more these days than in the past. Can’t take birth control pills because my blood pressure (until a month ago) was way, way too high and my doctor doesn’t want me to have a stroke. Then my hematologist (I think that’s what she is) said last month that I need to consider a hysterectomy because I am severely anemic, and the fibroids mean I could have another five years of bleeding. I really wanted to get through this with all my bits intact, but I’m starting to be tempted.
There are at least three days of my period when I can soak through a Super-Plus tampon AND an Overnight pad with wings (yes, I have to wear both…can we complicate things with a rectocele which fills with blood and sends some out the back way? So much fun!) every one to two hours. Fortunately my boss is tolerant of the fifteen minute bathroom breaks, the cases of Cottonelle wipes and the hoarding of paper sandwich bags. The only way I can get any sleep at night on those nights is to use, yes, I admit it, an adult diaper. What a relief that is! Since I don’t wear tampons at night (I grew up during the Toxic Shock Syndrome heyday) I wear an Overnight pad, the panties I hate and the Depends, and my sheets are finally safe and I don’t need the towel, which is So uncomfortable.
Oh, and my gyno said my rashes of the past were from the BRAND of pads I was using…Always brand uses chemicals that, while great for absorbency, are not friendly to the girl bits. Since I switched to Kotex, I’ve had no redness or rash…one small victory!
I have a gyno appointment in September where we will discuss Curing Anemia Through Surgery…lol…CATS!
Oh I just got an email. If anyone is interested in trying either a divacup or washable cotton pads, PM me for the discount code from the vendor. I don’t think I can post it here if I interpert the rules correctly.
WhyNot, thank you for that ovary switching and possibly quitting thing! That just might explain the varying heaviness month-to-month (I could track my temps but am quite lazy really) and I’m 35 so it’s possible the same sort of stuff is starting to sometimes happen to me. Heavy plus clots plus cramps if I don’t catch them quick enough with the ibuprofen make me a very unhappy person. If there’s a reason, though, that helps.
Clots are really hideously gross. I never got big ones until the last year or two.
Yeah. Same here. It’s the slithery ones that really get to me. I should NOT be able to feel that! :eek: (Another benefit to the menstrual cup I didn’t realize until I had to use pads again.)
Just to make this TMI thread that much more TMI, please recall that vibrators were not so long ago prescribed for ‘hysteria’ and ‘menstrual conditions’. I’ll just leave that statement there and let you draw your own conclusions and pictures around it, let you ponder what possible benefits medical science thought could be derived from the application of said devices.
I am 4 years past my last cycle. I have not needed any estrogen therapy or any thing. I too was on depo shots for awhile which stopped my periods. however when I stopped the shots it was a nightmare. I had increibly heavy periods that were unprdictable in duration and timing, fortunately that didn’t last real long but could also be the menopause kicking in. I have to say I don’t miss it at all.
I had one peiod so bad that I was bleeding through a tampon and a pad everyhour and I couldn’t leave work (huge clots and bad bad cramps too), I fortuneatly wore black pants and sat on a black plastic chair so it wasn’t bad until I was called into the owners office where he had white chairs. I sat with the least amount of my person actually on the chair that I could manage. no one comented on my strange behavior so I guess I made it through ok. But jeez louise that was a bad day.
On my 50th birthdaywhich coincided with the last day of my cycle I looked down and said enough already. Amusingly enough that was it. I don’t look my age and the doctors are still trying to give me pregnancy tests.
Iiiinteresting. And a bummer, because I thought that my now-regular periods meant that my parts were finally, finally starting to work right. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t want kids, anyway.
Actually orgasm is fairly good for relieving low level cramping.
Though I agree, I hated the slithery clots. I had to deal with 20 years of the Navy gyno basically refusing to do anything about my PCOS driven hell periods, even the time where I had a period for almost 2 years straight. Take iron …:dubious::mad: great suggestion. They wouldn’t even give me BC to control the problem, I had a tubal ligation … so I bought them online for about 8 years until I got a civilian OB GYN who finally gave me norethindrone, and finally was going to do an ablation until we discovered the tumor on the left ovary that got me a Blessed Hysterectomy [cue angelic choruses and twinkly lights] at 49 so I didn’t have to wait until my 60s for menopause [my mom’s side bleed into their mid to late 60s, oh frabdgious joy :rolleyes:]
