For The Teen Who No Longer Wants A Period
A reader asks how best to advise her child who wants to stop getting a monthly period.
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My very active 12.5-year-old daughter hates getting her period, which she began having twoyears ago. When can young women begin to use hormonal birth control methods that reduce the number of periods they have each year? Are there reasons young women should wait until they are older?
Jessica Jimenez, Texas
What If My Daughter Has Pcos How Do Birth Control Pills Help
If your child has PCOS, youre probably already aware that PCOS can cause irregular menstrual cycles, excess hair growth, and acne. One of the treatments prescribed for PCOS are birth control pills , because the hormones in the pill regulate menstrual cycles. Birth control pills allow the endometrial lining to be shed. Because birth control pills cause teens to menstruate regularly and shed the endometrial lining on time, they reduce the risk of endometrial cancer. Birth control pills also improve acne and lessen excess hair growth, which is another reason they are used to treat PCOS.
Your Cycle On The Pill
Most birth control pills contain synthetic versions of estrogen and progesterone, and they work by stopping ovulation. At first, the pill gives a steady dose of estrogen with no peak — so thereâs no signal for your ovaries to release an egg.
Then the pill starts delivering a fixed level of progesterone to stop the uterine lining from growing.
Finally, most pills have a week of placebos, which make hormone levels fall and your period start. Itâs actually called withdrawal bleeding when youâre on the pill because itâs a reaction to the loss of hormones.
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Is It Safe To Skip Your Period
It was once thought that using birth control to skip a period would cause all sorts of problems in the long-run. Women were told not to skip their periods because its unnatural, unhealthy, and may cause fertility issues, breast cancer, or cervical cancer. Thats the whole reason why traditional birth control pills were originally designed to mimic the female hormone cycle.
Now, we know that this is not true. Most doctors agree that it is perfectly safe to skip your period using hormonal contraceptives. While youre on the pill, your uterine lining is not building up, so theres no real reason for it to shed each month. Besides, you dont even get a real period when youre on birth control youre just skipping or delaying the withdrawal bleed.
Is There Any Way My Child Can Lower Her Risk Of Getting Blood Clots While Taking The Pill
Make sure you let your child know if any of their blood relatives have had blood clots, especially when they were young . There are other factors that can contribute to the likelihood of whether a teen develops blood clots such as a diagnosis of Factor V Leiden, trauma, or surgery, being overweight and smoking.
If your child smokes, encourage them to quit. If they are planning a flight or long car ride , remind them to get up and walk around and drink lots of fluids to lessen the risk of blood clots. If they are having surgery , talk to their health care provider about whether they should go off the Pill 3-4 weeks before the surgery.
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What To Expect After Having A Non
Some women experience side effects for three to six months after getting their IUD inserted. Some of these side effects include pain before your period, heavier bleeding, and cramps. As mentioned before, over-the-counter pain medication can help you manage your discomfort.
For most women, these side effects dont last forever. As your body gets used to the copper IUD, you are likely to notice fewer negative side effects.
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Are Oral Contraceptive Pills Effective
When oral contraceptive pills are taken as prescribed, they are 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. When OCPs are missed for one day or not taken at the same time every day, they are 91 percent effective.
Conditions that reduce the effectiveness of OCPs include
- Forgetting to take OCPs for two or more days
- Diarrhea or vomiting for more than 48 hours
- Taking medications such as certain human immunodeficiency virus medicines, certain anti-seizure medicines, the antifungal griseofulvin, the antibiotic rifampin and St. Johns wort
Condoms have to be used as a backup during these conditions. Different birth control methods have to be considered. These medications have to be taken long term.
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You May Have Some Hair Loss
If you dealt with hormonal-related hair loss before you went on birth control, going off of birth control might bring it back. This switch could trigger telogen effluvium, a temporary condition that causes your hair to shed. Thankfully, telogen effluvium doesn’t last forever, subsiding usually within six months, and stress is also a factor. However, this isn’t super common. Most women won’t see a significant net effect on their hair after stopping birth control pills,” Josh Klein, MD, chief medical officer at Extend Fertility in New York City previously told Health.
Birth Control Pills And Mini
Birth control pills are hormonal contraceptives. They contain either a combination of estrogen and progestin , or just progestin .
Women whose main reason for taking birth control pills is to manage heavy periods often choose to take the mini-pill. The low-dose progestin-only mini-pill is taken every day, without any breaks. This usually causes menstrual bleeding to become irregular, and sometimes women may even stop getting their period.
Combination pills are mainly used as contraceptives. Most women take the combination pill for 21 days per cycle. The bleeding starts during the seven-day break that follows. Low-dose combination pills can be taken continuously too. Then the woman usually stops getting her period completely, and only has light spotting at the most.
But combination pills have not yet been approved for continuous use in Germany. So if they are used in this way it is considered to be off-label use . Its important to discuss the possible consequences of this type of use with your doctor.
The possible side effects of birth control pills include fluid retention, headaches and breast tenderness. The combination pill in particular increases the likelihood of blood clots , so women who have a greater risk of thrombosis are advised not to take it.
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What Are No Period Birth Control Pills
Combination birth control pills are often the most common way to stop periods.
Thats because the schedule you use to take them can result in fewer periods or no periods at all.
For example, you may continually take a pill containing estrogen and progestin every day until you decide not to.
Or you might take so-called active pills for a few months straight before having a break. During your break, you might take inactive pills that contain no hormones for a week.
Other forms of birth control can have no period effects but theres often less of a guarantee.
How To Relieve Period Cramps Fast
Period cramps are so common we might assume theyre just a part of life. About 9 out of 10 women have them. They can be annoying or downright painful, and usually last for a few days. Your doctor might refer to them as menstrual cramps just know were talking about the same thing!
Period cramps can feel different for everyone, and you may feel mild to severe pain during your time of month, also known as your menstrual cycle. Sometimes, the pain can interrupt your daily routine or just make you feel lousy in general.
Period cramps seem to arrive at the most inconvenient time. If you need to get rid of them fast, here are some quick ways that help women conquer cramps :
- Pain reliever medicine like Ibuprofen or acetaminophen *
- Warm heating pad or compress on the belly
- Warm bath to help increase blood flow and ease pain
- Lying down with a pillow under the knees
- Exercise and stretching
- Rest and relaxation
*Note: Before you take any new medication, read the directions, and take as directed. We recommend you speak with your nurse or doctor if youre currently on other medicines, have a health condition, or are not sure if this medication is safe for you.
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Youre In A New Relationship
Beginnings of new relationships are exciting, fun, and passionate. Unpredictability and spontaneity are some of the best things about the honeymoon phase. If you dont want to be caught in a situation where you have to say, Uh…its that time of the month, so lets hold off for tonight, then you may want to ask your doctor about using birth control to skip your period.
Is It Natural To Stop Your Menstrual Period
Theres not actually a biological reason to have a period.
Having a period is natural and can be an indicator of overall health. But stopping it shouldnt be seen as an unnatural thing to do.
Plus, if youre already taking hormonal birth control, its worth remembering that the period youre having is just withdrawal bleeding.
So, in effect, youre already stopping your menstrual period.
2014 research review found that it was safe to stop periods with birth control.
No study has found adverse effects of using an extended or continuous birth control schedule. In fact, some doctors say you can suppress your period for a long time if you want to.
However, there havent been any long-term studies on this. And Planned Parenthood adds that combination pills can come with a slightly increased risk of things like strokes, blood clots, and liver tumors.
Of course, it may also be more difficult to detect pregnancy if youre not having a period.
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If You Just Cant With Your Period Anymore Talk To Your Doctor About The Options At Your Disposal
Dont wait until youre looking to stop your period for a specific window of time, like for a wedding or vacation. Try to give yourself some lead timeif you can give yourself three months, thats better than the month before, Dr. Shirazian says. The longer youre trying methods to stop your period, the more likely they are to give you no bleeding.
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Stress Is Messing With Your Body
You already know that stress can mess with your body in a lot of ways. While the usual day-to-day annoyances arent enough to throw your hormones out of whack, Dr. Choi says that major life stressorsfor example, grieving over a loss or suffering from depressioncan do just that. She also points out that overexercising can also wreak havoc on your period because of the stress it puts on your body physically.
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How To Skip Your Period Without Birth Control
Well start by saying that none of the natural methods mentioned below are proven scientifically to delay or stop your period from coming. That said, some women swear by these methods, and if youre not going the birth control route anyway, you really have nothing to lose by trying them.
- Apple cider vinegar
A week before your period is meant to arrive, start consuming three teaspoons of apple cider vinegar three times a day. People claim that this can delay your period for about a week.
Empty a packet of gelatin into a cup with warm water and mix to dissolve well. Drink immediately. This may delay your period for a few hours.
Lemon may delay your period or lighten your flow. Cut a lemon up into wedges and chew or suck on it to keep Aunt Flo at bay.
Lentils are considered a traditional remedy for warding off a period. First, fry the lentils until they become soft and then grind them into a powder. Use the powder to make a soup by simply adding hot water. Eat the soup on an empty stomach every morning starting a week before the first day of your expected period.
There are so many wonderful things about being a woman, but some may argue that having a monthly period is not one of them. There are a lot of reasons that women may choose to skip their periods medical, social, or personal.
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Taming The Cycle: How Does The Pill Work
Almost 50 years ago the combined oral contraceptive pill was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in preventing pregnancy, ushering in a new era of hormonally-based birth control. Now, in addition to the original Pill women can chose from an overwhelming variety of oral contraceptives, from different hormone combinations and doses to different Pill schedules that result in skipping or stopping menstruation entirely. Most of us have heard that the Pill contains hormones that suppress ovulation, but how does this really work? And with the recent marketing of Lybrel a Pill designed to stop menstrual cycling entirely we might wonder how far we can reasonably take this hormonal control. Simply put, how does the mechanism of oral contraceptives guide us in their use, and what are the repercussions of eliminating menstruation?
The story of how the Pill was engineered to suppress ovulation is one of the first examples of researchers using naturally occurring hormones to re-direct normal human biology. As far back as the 1920s, scientists had determined that transplanting ovaries from pregnant rabbits into other fertile rabbits prevented pregnancy, and by the mid-1940s it was known that the hormone Progesterone was responsible for this effect. Researchers then wondered: What is the role of Progesterone and other hormones in regulating normal reproductive biology, and could this knowledge be safely used to suppress ovulation in humans?
You Could Lose Some Vitamin D
A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that many women experience a drop in vitamin D levels when they stop taking birth control pills. This is especially problematic for women who are trying to conceive, since vitamin D helps support the fetal skeleton in pregnancy. When talking to your doctor about going off birth control, ask about ways to increase your daily vitamin D intake.
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Consume Lots Of Vitamin C
Taking a diet that is rich in vitamin C will help in reducing the amounts of progesterone hormone present in the body. When this occurs, it assists in breaking down uterine lining much faster, which translates to a reduced length of your menstrual cycle.
The home remedy can also be used in easing discomforts associated with the menstruation.
Vitamin C has also been known to assist your body to absorb more iron, as well as strengthen your blood vessels.
- You have to try and incorporate more foods that are rich in vitamin C into your diet. Some of the best vitamin C sources include papayas, lemons, peas, oranges, tomatoes, bell peppers, grapefruits, dark leafy greens, berries, broccoli, and kiwi.
- Vitamin C may also be taken as a supplement, but this should only occur after consultations with your primary health care provider. Overdosing on vitamin C supplements may lead to side effects like insomnia, stomach upsets, and diarrhea.
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You Could Experience Breast Tenderness
Many women report achy breasts before their period, thanks to the spike of progesterone that stimulates breast milk glands. Birth control can be used to treat breast tenderness, so going off it could bring the sensitivity back.
However, breast tenderness can also be a side effect of being on birth control, Guirlaine Agnant, MD, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital in Mount Vernon, New York, previously told Health. So if you were dealing with tenderness while on birth control, stopping will bring back normal breast tissue, and no tenderness should be experienced.
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