(no subject)

[llz.livejournal.com]

hey, i'm a teenage girl, and since i started my period 4 years ago it's NEVER been regular.. varying from 24 days to 54.. my mom can predict the exact day hers will be coming so i don't know if there's something wrong with me

		Average Cycle Length is 34 Days

Oct 27, 2005

52 days.

Dec 17, 2005

Oct 3, 2005

24 days.

Oct 26, 2005

Sept 1, 2005

32 days.

Oct 2, 2005

Aug 6, 2005

26 days.

Aug 31, 2005

July 7, 2005

30 days.

Aug 5, 2005

June 3, 2005

34 days.

July 6, 2005

April 10, 2005

54 days.

June 2, 2005

March 6, 2005

35 days.

April 9, 2005

Jan 29, 2005

36 days.

March 5, 2005

Dec 16, 2004

44 days.

Jan 28, 2005

Nov 11, 2004

35 days.

Dec 15, 2004

Oct 16, 2004

26 days.

Nov 10, 2004

Sept 19, 2004

27 days.

Oct 15, 2004

Aug 15, 2004

35 days.

Sept 18, 2004

July 16, 2004

30 days.

Aug 14, 2004

granted, for the monstrous 50-day cycles, i do get spotting on a day in the middle when it would make sense for my period to start.. but it's just one day of light spotting (for example, i got this on Nov 27, 2005).

Comments

[spiritualorchid.livejournal.com]

It's very common for a teenage girl to have an irregular cycle because her body is still changing. You're fine. :)

[crazykittylady.livejournal.com]

it's possible you're not ovulating regularly yet.

you could start charting (taking your basal body temperature), at the very least, that could help you in predicting your period. Usually, you start bleeding around 2 weeks after you ovulate.

[fixx.livejournal.com]

What the previous two people said ... and...

It is my impression that irregular cycles can be brought on by stress, diet (bad or changing diet) and weight loss.

In my experience being a teen offers enough stress by itself. Teens also tend not to have the best diets often affecting their weight as well.

I'm sort of surprised you have not being offered birth control pills as a means of regulating your period. I'm not recommending this, I'm just saying that a lot of GYN's seem to do that these days including with teen girls, which to me sort of seems like a bad idea.

[sulingsi.livejournal.com]

well, it's a good idea in the sense that it's the only thing that can be done to regulate periods other than just waiting it out.

when i was 13 i had a very heavy period that lasted for 6 months. it was awful, i used to cry about it all the time and think i was dying and i didn't want to tell anyone. when i found out that all i had to do was get on birth control pills and i could have fixed it from day 1, it was so embarassing. heavy, uncontrollable periods can cause young women who are already likely to be anemic to become very anemic. therefore, regulating periods by hormones can be an important health measure. it's also good for women or girls with painful periods caused by endometriosis, because hormonal birth control is one of the treatments. it's cheap and easy as medical treatments go.

so there are quite a few good reasons why GYNs do this. trust me, it is a wonderful thing for some people, including for me when i needed it!

[sofiaviolet]

My periods varied like that. I started at thirteen and was put on the pill at seventeen, by my own request. I was supposed to take birt control for six months to try to demonstrate to my body that a regular cycle was a good thing, but I have continued to take it because I started having sex.

If you're comfortable with hormones, you could try that, taking the pill either for a specific duration or long-term. If not, I suggest learning a bit about fertility awareness method and trying to keep detailed records of your cycles.

[sulingsi.livejournal.com]

unfortunately, fertility awareness and basal body temperature charting don't work very well for people with irregular cycles, because oftentimes the reason they have irregular cycles is because they are not actually ovulating. "anovulatory cycles" are very common among young women.

[sulingsi.livejournal.com]

hello... what everyone else said is true, i just wanted to second it. the only way for a young person to regulate periods is to either wait til you get older, or get on hormones. so take your pick! :-)

most likely, give yourself another 5 or 10 years and you'll be setting your clock by your period, just like your mom. but everyone is different.

[helenabucket.livejournal.com]

I had irregular periods for the longest time. I got my first one when I was 11, and they came every two months for a couple of years! My mother figured that maybe one of my ovaries hadn't gotten the message yet. ;-)

It's normal to be REALLY irregular right at first, and as for the predicting when it's going to come thing...I gave up a long time ago. I always keep "protection" with me, and I'm always sort of surprised. Sure, my periods are regular, but I don't chart it like it's the flood cycle on the Nile Delta. I'm not FARMING or anything. Sheesh, it's just my period.

Maybe BCP is the thing for you. A cool side benefit of Ortho TriCyclen is that it does wonders for hormonal acne. If you can remember to take a pill every day, this could fix your problem.

[llz.livejournal.com]

hey, thanks everyone for the replies =)

i don't think i'll really do anything about it, i'm the type of person who wouldn't even bother charting their period if not for something easy like cyclespage.com, haha.. so knowing when it'll come doesn't matter to me, just checking that i wasn't missing half an ovary or anything. my mom's pretty conservative, she'd think that putting me on birth control were equivalent to saying, "go ahead, sleep around!" plus a patch/pill/jelly-ring-thing-you-stick-up-there is more hassle than the unpredictable cycle itself..

thanks again y'all