[identity profile] dissolut.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] vaginapagina
I'm one of those people with ridiculously erratic menstrual cycles. Within the past nine years, I've experienced brief regularity, which gets my hopes up, but never lasts beyond five months. It's annoying, especially as I seem to experience long stretches of PMS-y symptoms, such as irrational bad moods, sore breasts and strange sensations in my uterus without any results.

I went for a check-up about a year ago - an ultrasound detected fibroids and other assorted growths in my uterus, but according to the gynae, it wasn't an abnormal occurrence.

At this point, I haven't had it since mid-July. The July period was, itself, delayed by two months. I'm sexually active and always use condoms - if it doesn't arrive by this weekend I will probably purchase a pregnancy test, but I am fairly sure I'm not enceinte, and it's just the old irregularity acting up.

Are any of you in a similar situation? I feel somewhat in need of female solidarity, and hugs. Do you know of any natural methods to regulate your periods? The most obvious option would be for me to go on the pill, but I really don't like the idea of messing around with my hormones, and I've been warned against it because my immediate family history has several incidences of cancer.

Date: 2008-09-20 07:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] paperispatient.livejournal.com
I feel like I pretty much could've written your first paragraph. My cycle would get regular for a little while and then get all wonky again and I'd sometimes PMS for like two weeks, which was awful because I got insomnia, mood swings and depression. I chose to remedy this by going on HBC and stacking it, my thinking being that 1. I'll know when my period will be and 2. if I have to PMS, I can deal with it happening once every three months and for a shorter period of time. Some women who go on HBC and then go off it find that their periods stay regular - I know that happened with my mom, she was really irregular until she went on the pill in her late twenties and ever since going off it when she and my dad decided to have me, she's been regular. So that could be something to think about, going on it for just a little while - but it could also just as easily mess your cycle up even more, and I doubt there's any way to tell what the result would be beforehand.

I don't have anything to suggest with regard to natural ways to regulate your period, I just wanted to offer warm fuzzies and say that you're totally not alone and I feel your pain. :)

edited for word choice

Date: 2008-09-20 08:02 pm (UTC)
archangelbeth: An egyptian-inspired eye, centered between feathered wings. (Eye in the Pyrawings)
From: [personal profile] archangelbeth
Have you had your thyroid tested? One of the un-realized symptoms of my undiagnosed hypothyroidism (I was only diagnosed after it got pretty bad, after I had a kid) was irregular periods. The things that you should be looking at are TSH, free T3, and free T4. (You also need to get the numbers and check them online. There are still doctors and labs who will say TSH as high as 6 is "within normal range" when all the more modern ones end off somewhere between 2 and 4...) I know it's my pet hobby-horse, but it's worth checking for.

If you are hypothyroid... Well, I'm basically like a diabetic, in my case. My body doesn't produce enough thyroid medication hormone, so I need to take my little green pill the way a diabetic needs to take insulin. It's not an "unnatural" "medication" so much as a replacement for what my body should be doing and is slacking off on. (Stoopid thyroid. O:p)

While my periods are not clockwork, and I've skipped a month about once a year (and this year had a couple extra ones), they are much more regular than they used to be, showing up roughly once a month instead of very, very, very roughly once in a month and a half, give or take a couple weeks, with the occasional 2-monther.

Another thing you might want to look into would be PCOS, but others know more than I about that!

Luck!
Edited Date: 2008-09-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

Re: edited for word choice

Date: 2008-09-21 07:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sotepetsenu.livejournal.com
Woooo, hypothyroids unite!

Yeah, I was irregular like crazy at the beginning, and my periods had only just started to get some regularity to them when my thyroid started to descend, and they went crazy again. I went on the BCP about... 6 months before my hypothyroidism was diagnosed (I slept for two days, near straight!). Now, about 4 years later, I've been off of the birth control pill for about 4 months. My first two periods off the pill were regular... and then nothing. Not looking forward to them starting up again. My doctor told me that because my periods were so irregular before the pill, they probably weren't going to be perfectly regular after going off, which is annoying to me as I'd like to start FAM as a contraceptive method.

*hugs* I found that taking evening primrose oil as a supplement helped keep my periods from being as bad, if not more regular. Sometimes when I'm late, I take parsley tea to try and stimulate the period into happening, but that doesn't work perfectly for me. I'm also trying raspberry leaf tea to try to make the period less harsh when it does decide to show up.

*ponder ponder* Mayhaps check out iron levels? I found that eating my iron-rich foods like dark leafy greens (KALE! NOM!) to keep iron levels up was good in that maybe my body was holding off on periods to keep me from becoming anaemic. I've never been anaemic, but my iron levels were sometimes low enough to warrant being checked on just in case.

And I agree with poster above, if you get your thyroid levels checked, make sure you know exactly what your levels are. If the doc says they're normal, get the number anyway, as some say '6' is normal. I don't feel normal unless my thyroid is borderline hyperthyroidic with my medication, 6 was my level when I slept for two days (and it dropped lower than that afterwards even though I started supplementing!) There are some people who can have thyroid levels as low as 6 and feel normal, and there are other people who will have levels of 1.5 and feel like crap that has been flung off a stick at a brick wall.

If it's really bothering you, the pill could work for you. My 'periods' were completely regular on the pill, and I also started stacking so that my period cycles were 7 weeks long instead of 4. However, I am trying to be more natural, and my fibromyalgia has improved so much since going off the pill, that I wonder what the full extent of hormonal manipulation was happening on the pill.

Anwhooo, more hugs! And luck!

Date: 2008-09-21 01:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] plasticpepper.livejournal.com
Mine's pretty ridiculous too. It's not so bad that I think there's anything wrong, but it is obnoxious. Mine is a little more regular, it's just weird - my cycles average something like 35 days and occasionally go longer than that...my last one was 54 or something. And I bleed for 8-10 of those days. It's like everything is just way longer for me. And my cycle is never the same length, so I have NO clue when it's going to show up, which sucks. And like you said, the PMS-y symptoms often show up around the time you'd expect the period and just hang out until it actually arrives.

I'm pretty confident that this is just normal for me, so I don't really worry about it, but yeah, it's ANNOYING! I'm planning to go on the pill soon, and I don't really have any other solutions for you. But at least I'm someone else with annoying cycles! Don't you just hate when you see other girls saying they bleed for 3-4 days and their cycle is a clockwork 30 days or whatever? :)

Date: 2008-09-21 01:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ihatepi314.livejournal.com
if i have sex mine goes wack.. it's so weird. i'm thirteen days late, no sense in tracking it. my body is setting a record though, two months ago it was ten days late. i must spend a hundred bucks a year on pregnancy tests... that always come back negative!

Date: 2008-09-21 03:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] foulmouthangel.livejournal.com
I so feel your pain. I've been completely random and irregular since my first period. Severe cramps, heavy flow, bad clotting- even throwing up when I was younger. I had PCOS and endo- which hormonal BC hasn't ever really done anything for. I've been trying different combos of herbal stuff lately.

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