QuestionHello!
I am hoping you can help answer some questions for me. I discontinued Yasmin birth control last month after 10 years of uninterrupted use. Since the reason for stopping the pill is to start trying for a baby, my OBGYN had me take 400mg of Progesterone daily for 10 days starting approx. 2 weeks after my last withdrawal bleed during the week of birth control placebo pills in order to "jump start" my cycle since I'd been on birth control for so long. I am 35 years old. Her goal was to induce the first period off the birth control pills. It has been 10 days since my last progesterone pill and I have not gotten a real period. I had regular cycles before going on the pill.
Two days after I stopped taking the progesterone pills I had a fairly heavy amount of dark brown blood, (enough for 2 full tampons) but it ended by that afternoon and nothing since.
My question is: was the day of dark brown blood my period? If it wasn't, was this too early to take the progesterone? Could my natural hormones not be leveled off enough yet for the progesterone to work? I've had my hormones tested a few times over the last few years and they are always in the normal ranges. However I've beeon on birth control during the tests- I took the tests during the placebo week of pills.
As a side note, while on birth control (about 4 years ago) I lost a lot of weight from undereating/overexercicing but quickly gained it back. Since then Ive been seeing a dietician who said that I've still been overtraining and undereating, and it has only been a few months since I have toned down the exercise and have been eating appropriately. I am a healthy weight and BMI (138lbs, 5'5). I have no symptoms of anything, I feel great and exactly the same as when I was on birth control: no acne, hair growth/loss, weight loss/gain, etc. I have been off of birth control for 6 weeks now.
Can you advise on what could be happening and what next steps should be? I'd like to just wait and see what my body does naturally but since I'm 35 and have no children yet, I also don't want to waste a lot of time...
Thank you so much! (sorry for the long message, I wanted to provide you with all of the necessary info)
AnswerDear Laurie,
Thanks for your questions. Yes, I think the best thing would be to let you body go natural. I'm glad you went off birth control but I'm not sure I would have recommended taking the progesterone. But I see what the doctor was probably aiming for. Every time you take hormones, you can throw your body off its regular cycle. Also, I really can't tell you if that was your period. Has anything happened since you posted the question to me? Let me know any updates. You can email me at CHERYL51@aol.com and hope to hear from you soon.
Diane Cheryl
