PERIOD MATH |
The length of the monthly cycle varies. Usually, during the first 5 to 7 years after your first menstrual period, the cycles are more irregular and the interval between them is longer than for cycles later in life. Typically, during your twenties and thirties, the cycles become increasingly shorter and more regular. When a woman enters her forties, the cycles begin to lengthen again.
So, how do you know if you're cycle is normal? An average cycle length is 28 days, but if your cycle lasts anywhere between ~24 to 35 days, it's considered normal. A normal period flow lasts anywhere from 4 to 6 days, causes an average blood loss of 25-60 ml, and can be light, moderate, or heavy. Flow lasting longer than one week and blood loss of more than 80 ml are considered abnormal. Also, passing the occasional blood clot is normal.
By convention, the 28-day cycle is considered the ideal cycle. (Only 10-15% of cycles last exactly 28 days.) This doesn't mean that if your cycle isn't exactly 28 days there's something wrong with you; 28 days is just an average. [Not to mention that it makes the math simple--in a 28-day cycle, ovulation happens at the halfway mark, on the 14th day.] Also, by convention, the first day of bleeding is considered the start of the cycle, and is denoted as Day 1; the period lasts for 5 days (in an ideal cycle), or from Day 1 to Day 5; and the cycle ends on Day 28. Of course, real life doesn't always conform to conventions: if you're cycle isn't 28 days, how do you number the days of your cycle? Let's use an example to illustrate.
Say your period starts on the tenth of the month, your bleeding lasts for 4 days, and your cycle length is 30 days.
The day the bleeding starts, the tenth of the month, is Day 1 of your cycle. The blood flow days are Day 1 through Day 4, or the tenth through the thirteenth of the month. Your cycle ends on Day 30, or the ninth of next month.
One more useful calculation: your ovulation day. (Ovulation = the release of the egg from the ovary.) In an ideal, 28-day cycle, ovulation happens on day 14. Obviously, if you're cycle isn't 28 days, that doesn't help you. Fortunately, ovulation day is remarkably constant from woman to woman, and you can calculate your probable ovulation date based on the length of your monthly cycle. Here's one helpful way to think of the monthly cycle: a cycle divided into two intervals. The first interval (preovulatory) lasts from the end of your period to ovulation. The second interval (postovulatory) lasts from ovulation to the start of your next period. The preovulatory interval can vary widely; it may last for four days, or nine days, depending on the length of your cycle. In contrast, the postovulatory interval tends to be fairly constant at 14 days, regardless of how many days your cycle lasts. Crystal clear, right? You can now calculate your ovulation day, even in your sleep if you have to. [Huh? - ed. Now you know how I feel when someone tries to explain tech-related stuff to me.] Let's go through this step-by-step:
First, you need to track your cycle. Mark the day your period starts; this is Day 1 of your cycle. Then count the number of days until your next period; this is your cycle length. Do this for about three cycles in a row (more than three is fine, less, not so much). [The reason you need a minimum of three months is because cycle length might not always be the same each month. After three consecutive months you should be able to see a cycle length pattern.] Once your fourth period starts, count forward from Day 1 the number of days in your cycle length and mark that date. Then, from that day, count backwards fourteen days. This is your presumptive ovulation day. [You never count forwards, from the start of your period, because the preovulatory interval varies in length. You count backwards, because the postovulatory interval is fairly consistent at 14 days.]
For example, let's say your cycle lasts 24 days and your best friend's last 31 days. Both of you will most likely ovulate 14 days before the start of the next period. For you, this means ovulation is on Day 10 of your cycle (24 - 14 = 10), while for your friend, ovulation happens on Day 17 of her cycle (31 - 14 = 17).
Keeping track of your monthly cycle isn't useful just for planning a pregnancy. It's also beneficial if you plan to manage your period. In particular, it's useful if you plan to use period control occasionally, like for a scheduled event. If you know you have an upcoming event (vacation, exams, business trip) and you don't want to have a menstrual period around that date, the best time to suppress your real or fake period is about three months in advance. The advantage: it lowers the likelihood of nuisance side effects, like breakthrough bleeding/spotting.
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thank you for this! this is the most straightforward and clear explanation I have ever found (about "period math"). |
Questions to Ask About Excessive Menstrual Bleeding
Excessive menstrual bleeding is an important health issue for women.
At least one in five women bleed so heavily during their periods they have to put their normal lives on hold.
The medical term for this condition is "menorrhagia," meaning periods that are too heavy or that go on longer than the typical seven-day menstrual cycle. It is more common in women over 35 as hormonal levels shift during the perimenopausal phase. However, heavy menstrual bleeding can occur at any age. Heavy menstrual bleeding is more than an inconvenience. It is also the most common cause of iron-related deficiency in women, and, if it's heavy enough, can even require hospitalization and blood transfusions.
If you experience heavy bleeding during your periods, your health care professional will conduct tests to rule out underlying problems like fibroids, uterine cancer, an infection or endometriosis. If you don't have any of these conditions, then your bleeding is likely caused by hormonal imbalances. There are several treatments available for heavy menstrual bleeding, ranging from over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, oral contraceptives and minimally invasive surgery that preserve the uterus, to hysterectomy, that removes the uterus. Talk with your health care professional about heavy menstrual bleeding. Here is a list of questions to ask at your next office visit.
1) Do you consider the amount of menstrual bleeding I'm experiencing abnormal?
2) What tests do you need to conduct to diagnose symptoms and why are you doing them?
3) Is this heavy bleeding affecting my iron level? What can you do about that?
4) Why are you recommending this particular treatment option for my heavy bleeding? If that doesn't work, what do you recommend next?
5) What are the disadvantages and risks associated with each recommended treatment?
6) Even if you find a problem like fibroids or endometriosis causing my abnormal uterine bleeding, is it possible to avoid a hysterectomy?
7) Am I a candidate for endometrial ablation? What is the success rate for the technique you use? What kind of complications have you encountered? For more in-depth information about abnormal menstrual bleeding -- diagnosis, treatment, test your knowledge quiz and more -- visit www.healthywomen.org.
Link to article:
http://www.healthywomen.org/articles/qtaemb_nwhrc.html
Balaning hormones. Here is part of it. The last sentence if very important. No wonder I never had any problems in the past with oral birth control. Levonrgestrel is what the IUD uses.
"To restore balance: If you're not already taking birth control pills, consider starting. "Oral contraceptives lower levels of free testosterone — the type that's floating around in your blood and causing blemishes — by 50 percent," says Redmond. If you're on the Pill and it's not helping your skin, it may be the formulation. Redmond's top complexion-clearing picks: Ortho Tri-Cyclen and Yasmin, both of which have higher levels of estrogen and lower levels of androgen than certain other pills. Also, avoid any made with levonorgestrel, such as Alesse and Levlite. This synthetic form of progesterone mimics testosterone's effects and may cause breakouts."
Here is the address of the whole article.
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/feeling-hormonal.
Abortifacients
American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Changes Definition, By
J. C. Willke MD
Contraception,
abortifacient--what's the difference? Well, on the face of it, it's rather simple. A contraceptive, properly so-called, prevents human life from beginning. The laws of our land permit contraceptive use in all 50 states. Certain types are sold only on prescription, others without prescriptions over the counter. Substantial portions of our federal tax monies in the last two decades have been spent for the promotion of contraceptive education and contraceptive use--particularly among teenage and poverty groups. An abortifacient can also be simply defined. It is a drug or device which causes an abortion within the first one or two weeks of a human's life. An abortifacient acts after human life has begun and produces a micro-abortion. The Roe vs. Wade and more recent Casey Supreme Court decisions, which legalized abortion in all of our states, for social reasons, for the full nine months of pregnancy, obviously also legalized it in the very first weeks. Abortifacients, which had been outlawed in every state since the Civil War, are now legal in every state. So far, so simple. But now we get into a cloudy area. The intrauterine device is advertised in our medical journals as a "contraceptive." The morning-after pill, or shot, is advertised as a "contraceptive." The contraceptive pill, which also at times produces micro-abortions, is also advertised as a "contraceptive." So is the new Norplant. To say the least, this blurs the distinction between contraceptives and abortifacients, and confuses people. In the early 1960's, officials from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology teamed up with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and they simply redefined the word "conception." They said it would no longer be the time of union of sperm and ovum, but rather would be the time, one week later, when this new human plants inside the lining of the mother's womb. "Fertilization" would still be the word used for the time of union of sperm and ovum. The interesting thing was though that no one knew of this change except an inner circle of medical and drug people. And so what has happened? Well, just what they planned. Today a physician can truthfully call the IUD a "contraceptive," and mean that it prevents implantation in the wall of the uterus, while his patient, hearing him use the word, "contraception," will understand it to mean "the prevention of the union of sperm and ovum." And so, presto! An abortifacient is called a "contraceptive," and everybody is fooled. A classic example of double speak, or the perversion of language. That slight of hand definition change happened 30 years ago. Today only a few physicians know that many so-called contraceptives really act as abortifacients. ******************************************************
by J.C. Willke MD
The intrauterine device, or IUD, has been widely used for over three decades. Its use in recent years, however, declined sharply, and for good reason. Why? Well, one very medical and one very ethical reason. The ethical and moral reason? It is not a contraceptive. It is an abortifacient. What is the IUD? It's a small plastic device that is inserted up into a woman's womb from below. Once inserted, 50 to 75 percent will remain inside of her until removed. The other 25 to 50 percent will be spontaneously expelled or will have to be removed because of cramping, bleeding or infection. Most scientific papers have agreed that in as many as 95 percent of the cases it does not prevent fertilization. What it does do is prevent the implantation, at one week of life, of the tiny new human into the nutrient lining of the mother's womb. Because with that in place, this little boy or girl cannot implant, he or she dies and passes from the mother's body. So, even though your doctor may call an IUD a contraceptive, remember, it does not prevent fertilization. It does cause the death of the tiny new human at one week of life in a micro-abortion, and for this reason, few Christian women will allow one to be inserted into them. What's the second reason for the decline of the use of the IUD? A very sound medical one. These devices have caused infection and inflammation of the female organs. The most damaging effect of this is to the woman's tubes. It can result in scarring and blockage of her tubes, sometimes permanent sterility.
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Tubal Pregnancies
Women who have IUDs in their wombs have a sharply higher percentage of ectopic or tubal pregnancies than those who don't. Tubal pregnancy rates and resultant maternal deaths have gone up several-fold in the last three decades. These are the very same years that have seen the widespread use of IUDs. Why is this? Well, the first reason is one that almost all medical authorities agree upon. Intrauterine devices cause a distressingly high incidence of infections of the female organs. These infections often cause scarring and partial blockage of the tubes. Women with scarred, damaged or partly blocked tubes have many more tubal pregnancies than women with normal tubes. Well so far, so good. Or maybe I should say, so far, so bad. There's another reason that is never mentioned but seems to be simple common sense. We know that even in entirely normal women who have normal tubes and who do absolutely nothing to prevent or change the process, even in these women there's a certain small percentage of those whose babies just don't make it to the womb, but rather implant in one of her tubes. If a woman is wearing an IUD, she's killing off the babies who do make it to her womb. But of course, none of those who decide to stop en route and plant in her tube are killed. So there should be a far higher incidence of tubal pregnancies in such women.
There is another thing about IUDs that is terribly distressing to me, and not many parents know about this. Many family planning clinics, like Planned Parenthood and others, are mostly supported with your tax dollars through the Federal Title X Family Planning Program. Most of these clinics can and often do insert these medically hazardous devices into the wombs of unmarried minor girls, and they are not required to notify the parents, much less ask their permission. Even though the girl, in most states, is a minor, is dependent, and is living at home. President Reagan once attempted to require that the parents of such unemancipated minors be notified before dispensing or inserting medically hazardous birth control pills or such devices. The Democrat Congress did not agree. I remember treating one 16-year-old girl, who came to me with a 104o fever and severe pelvic pain. She had had one of these devices inserted into her without her parents' knowledge, and by such a clinic. When her symptoms became bad, she'd gone back to them. Their advice and treatment? Take aspirin and get some rest. She came to me. She had a severe infection of her female organs and was on the verge of what could have been a fatal blood poisoning. I removed the device, and fortunately was able to cure the infection. I'm afraid, however, that it might have made her sterile. But, because of her wishes and of the present law, I could not tell her parents. If she's never able to have a baby, her parents may never know why.