As International Women's Day happened this week, and it’s Women’s History Month, I thought that today I would talk about something which often isn’t discussed enough. I’m going to talk to you about period problems, specifically my own experience with period problems and how long they can take to be diagnosed.
Trigger Warning: I will be discussing periods and my cycles.
When growing up and starting secondary school, I, like many others, expected my periods to start slow but eventually build up to a frequent and regular cycle. At least this is what you’re taught, but when you’re at school you don’t often get taught about potential issues you may come across. My cycles were infrequent and rare from the beginning, sometimes I’d have 2 cycles in 6 months and sometimes I’d go over a year without a cycle.
When I got to the age of about 15 I decided that I should ask my mum to take me to a doctor as everyone I knew had a frequent cycle and mine just weren't happening. She agreed, and we also discussed that I seemed to have more hair on my body than most, and it was darker, so I went to the doctor. I was sent for some blood tests to check my hormone levels and I was also passed on to a specialist consultant. When we got the results back they said that I lacked oestrogen, and I had a bit more testosterone than the average girl, but nothing worrying.
Now, oestrogen affects your periods but it also affects your bone density, which can be a real problem.
At the time I was slightly underweight so my lack of periods and oestrogen was pinned to that. I was asked to put on a bit of weight and come back when I had to see if that kick started my body to have periods. I did just that, gained the weight and nothing happened. The consultant got me to have an ultrasound to check my ovaries and to go for an MRI scan to check my pituitary glands.
A slight side note- my Mum had a brain tumour in her pituitary glands when I was in primary school. She is absolutely fine now, but the consultant is also my Mum’s consultant and he wanted to check nothing had been passed on genetically.
I had the ultrasound at 16/17, but I didn’t clock how serious it was until the night before, I was about to find out if I was fertile or not and whether I could have children. Luckily I am fertile and there was nothing wrong with my eggs, but I will need hormone treatment in order to get pregnant. The MRI scan came back fine too. The reason for my lack of periods was soon pinned to stress because of school and exams. I was told to take the contraceptive pill for a year and then stop taking it for a year, to see if that would help my body realise it needed to produce more oestrogen. I did that for around 3 or 4 years and nothing, my body still did not produce periods naturally.
Last year the consultant said we should move on to hormonal treatment as taking the contraceptive pill until menopause wouldn’t be good for my health. I am now taking tablets which provide me with oestrogen and yet I still don’t bleed. To this day I don’t have a diagnosis, it could be Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), it could be down to a genetic predisposition or it could be one of two other diagnoses with very medical names.
It’s been nearly 6 years and I still don’t know what causes my period problems. It’s not ‘lucky’ that I don’t get periods, because if I want to get pregnant I have to plan it and even that could come with complications that I may not find out until I try.
The reason that I wanted to share my story with you is to open the conversation and remove the stigma around talking about periods. If girls were taught more about periods and how to spot when something is wrong, maybe they could get diagnosed earlier. If girls are encouraged to talk about periods and seek support from a doctor if they’re experiencing issues, they could start getting tested sooner. Periods are natural, period problems are normal and we need to be discussing them more, to raise awareness.