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Menstrual
Problems
Irregular
Periods
I am on my
school's gymnastics team in the winter, and then I do track in the spring. I
started having my periods four years ago. Everybody says eventually they will
become regular, but so far, they haven't. I have had a couple of accidents in
school already, when my period started unexpectedly and I had to go home and
change clothes. We have these stupid white bodysuits for gymnastics, and I'm
scared that one of these days my period is going to start and everybody is
going to see it. Is there any way to make my periods become regular so I'll
know when to expect them?
It is normal during your teen
years to have irregular periods for a while, but four years is somewhat of a
long time for your body not to have started settling down. One way of
regulating your periods is taking birth control pills. I don't recommend this
for everyone. You would have to have a physical first, to see if there are
any underlying problems that need to be fixed before considering this step.
I am
nineteen and my periods stopped six months ago. I know I'm not pregnant. Does
this happen sometimes, or is something wrong?
It's hard to tell, without
examining you, what the problem might be. The main reason for periods
stopping at your age, other than pregnancy, is anorexia. This doesn't
necessarily mean that you have been intentionally starving yourself. There is
such a thing as sports anorexia, which occurs when you exercise so much that
you lose too much body fat for your body to work normally. You should
schedule a physical to get to the heart of the matter.
PMS/PMDD
I have
really bad PMS. It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Right before my period my
personality seems to change. Nothing I take seems to help. Can anything be
done to stop it?
PMS can be very debilitating.
Research in recent years has shown that some women who have been thought to
have been suffering from serious PMS have in fact had a somewhat different
disease, called PMDD--premenstrual dysphoric
disorder. PMDD has all the symptoms of PMS, except that it is so severe that
it interferes with everyday living during the luteal
phase of the menstrual cycle (the week or two before your period).
In women with PMDD, the regular
medications for PMS don't work. A new medication called Sarafem was
recently approved by the FDA for the treatment of PMDD. It has the same
molecular structure as Prozac, so your
doctor may give you either one. Originally, it was thought that Sarafem, like Prozac, would be prescribed by
psychiatrists, but gynecologists are now treating patients for PMDD as well
as PMS.
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