emmybuns696
Jun 12, 2008, 09:58 PM
I've been having a very weird bleeding cycle recently:
I started out my most recent cycle on May 25 with dark brown (occasionally pink when I wiped), clotty spotting, which has never happened to me before this month in the entire 7 years I've had my period. I then moved on to my regular bleeding cycle on June 2, and also began taking Loestrin 1.5 that was prescribed to me by my gynecologist around mid-May. Since then, I experienced my regular cycle up until around June 8, at which point I noticed that the dark brown spotting that I always experience at the end of my period was still going. It finally stopped today, June 12. That's a total of 18 days of bleeding in some form or another.
I'm not experiencing any sort of dizzy spells (some slight nausea two days this week, but it's gone within 10 minutes of it's onset if I drink seltzer), severe pain in my abdomen, or any heavy bleeding, so I think I can rule out any sort of life-threatening hemhorrage. My question: Do many women experience changes in their cycle like this throughout their lives? Is this natural, or should I be worried about something like ovarian cysts (of which my family has a long history)? I had a pelvic exam and PAP smear at my mid-May gyno appointment, and everything came back healthy. She would have felt if I had any sort of cyst growing, right?
So, overarching question: should I talk to my gyno about this now, or do you think I could wait to see if the same thing happens with my cycle again next month? Could the extended bleeding be my body adjusting to the birth control pills?
Sidenote about birth control: About how long does it take for the body to adjust to the point where I will be able to predict my period by the amount of pills I have left, i.e. around when will I be able to have a regular cycle based on the pills themselves?
I started out my most recent cycle on May 25 with dark brown (occasionally pink when I wiped), clotty spotting, which has never happened to me before this month in the entire 7 years I've had my period. I then moved on to my regular bleeding cycle on June 2, and also began taking Loestrin 1.5 that was prescribed to me by my gynecologist around mid-May. Since then, I experienced my regular cycle up until around June 8, at which point I noticed that the dark brown spotting that I always experience at the end of my period was still going. It finally stopped today, June 12. That's a total of 18 days of bleeding in some form or another.
I'm not experiencing any sort of dizzy spells (some slight nausea two days this week, but it's gone within 10 minutes of it's onset if I drink seltzer), severe pain in my abdomen, or any heavy bleeding, so I think I can rule out any sort of life-threatening hemhorrage. My question: Do many women experience changes in their cycle like this throughout their lives? Is this natural, or should I be worried about something like ovarian cysts (of which my family has a long history)? I had a pelvic exam and PAP smear at my mid-May gyno appointment, and everything came back healthy. She would have felt if I had any sort of cyst growing, right?
So, overarching question: should I talk to my gyno about this now, or do you think I could wait to see if the same thing happens with my cycle again next month? Could the extended bleeding be my body adjusting to the birth control pills?
Sidenote about birth control: About how long does it take for the body to adjust to the point where I will be able to predict my period by the amount of pills I have left, i.e. around when will I be able to have a regular cycle based on the pills themselves?