Mysterious Period!

[bluesuitcase.livejournal.com]

So...I'm confused!
I've been on FemconFe since April of 2007, and since then I have never, ever missed a pill or failed to take it at the same time each day. I am sexually active with a monogamous partner, and we always use condoms.
Once, I skipped the placebo week, since it coincided with vacation. I had no problems.
I did it again on January 25, because I was visiting my boyfriend for his birthday. [We're college freshmen in a LDR], and I didn't have any issues. Again, I just started my new pack of pills.
Two days ago, though, I started spotting a brownish color. Since then it has gotten heavier and has been turning redder, and now it just resembles a period.
Has this ever happened to you? I'm not sure what to do... make an appointment with the gynecologist on campus? Stop taking the pills and start my placebo week?

On a side note...I've always wondered how one on the pill knows whether she's pregnant. The period is a "fake one," no? It's a period without ovulation? So, if one were pregnant, would she still get these fake periods?

Thank you so much for the help!

Comments

[lunarflame.livejournal.com]

So, just to clairify, did you skip 2 periods in a row? Or were these on two seperate occasions.

Generally, if your body needs to have a period, it will. continuosuly taking active pills will only keep you period-free for so long...so you're likely having normal, breakthrough bleeding if I understand your situation correctly.

[queensugar.livejournal.com]

Honestly, this isn't so mysterious: you're having breakthrough bleeding from skipping your last placebo week. Even though you did it once without any bleeding, the bottom line is that not all women can successfully skip every period on a given brand of HBC. Some times you won't bleed, some times you will.

I do not believe you need to see a gynecologist if you do not wish to, unless there's any other symptoms. It's extremely common to bleed after attempting to skip a period.

If you want, you can stop taking active pills now and have a placebo week of no longer than seven days before starting a new pack without compromising your protection. That may reset the bleeding, but it also may further confuse your body's bleed schedule -- it's sort of hard to know.

As far as your last question -- the pregnancy hormone that tells your body not to bleed still works if you're on HBC. It's actually not that dissimilar of a process to if you're NOT on HBC.

Basically, the way a "real" menstrual cycle works is that the body continues producing hormones for some time after ovulation. At the end of this phase (called the luteal phase), it stops producing these hormones. The drop in hormones at the end of the luteal phase triggers menstruation if a pregnancy has not occured.

If a pregnancy has occured, the pregnancy hormone created by the implanted egg is triggering the production of hormones so that hormone levels do not drop, or do not do so significantly... and your body does not get a signal to bleed.

That's really the same thing as would happen in a pregnancy that happened while on HBC -- the artificial hormones would be removed, but your body would be making its own that instruct your body not to bleed.

[wats-she-smokin.livejournal.com]

the same exact, i mean to a "t", thing happened to me this month. except that this is my second month on femconfe after being switched from another bc pill. i thought that it was simply because of the adjustment to another pill that this happened. then again the person that commented it before me seems to have explained everything very well. I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone.