Why am I having the longest period ever?

October 19, 2009 8:14 AM

This is going to be gross: I'm a 25 year old female. Until now I have had extremely regular periods which last 6 days with a 12-18 hour gap on day 5 (no idea why). I am not on any kind of birth control and have not been on any kind of birth control for over a year. This month's period began on the standard day, except now I'm going on my 14th straight day of bleeding.

The bleeding tapered to very light and brown around day 9. Since then it has been bright red with tissue. I worked out Saturday morning and noticed it was extremely heavy and ... tissue-ier afterwards, but that could be coincidence. I'm having standard, low-level cramps type pain recently. I had sex on Friday (condoms) and noticed no ladypart related pain at the time but the condom was bright red afterward. It was really unnerving.

I have already scheduled a doctor's appointment. I'm just trying to figure out what this could be in the interim. Please help.

posted by anonymous to health & fitness (11 comments total)

Be prepared to for your doctor to give you the "let's wait and see" line. When menstrual irregularities start, doctors seem to want to get a few months of data to see if symptoms are changing. In my case, it was a year of really strange periods (leading up to bleeding for 6 weeks at a time) and a severely bloated belly, that finally kick-started some serious diagnostics (ultra-sound, MRI).

It could be a lot of things... most of them fairly benign.
posted by kimdog at 8:34 AM on October 19, 2009

Since you're sexually active, it's possible that you're having a miscarriage. This can happen early enough that you wouldn't have known you were pregnant.

It's also possible that stress, diet, or other life circumstances are messing with your hormones.

If you feel fine otherwise, I'd say try not to worry until you can see your doctor. If, however, you get a fever, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or have any other symptoms that worry you, I'd go immediately to an urgent care center or the ER, because those could be symptoms of an infection or that the blood loss is causing problems.
posted by decathecting at 8:36 AM on October 19, 2009 [3 favorites]

I used to have two periods a month, much as you describe. [sarcasm] It was deeeelightful [/sarcasm]. At the time, they put me on Depoprovera to regulate my cycle which then got rid of the periods altogether as Depo will often do (and not having them at all was a very non-sarcastic delightful!!!). Anyhooo, I went off Depo a while ago after reading bad things about it and now I find that I'm back to having only one period... so whatever was going on appears to have settled down over the years.

Moral of the story, don't be surprised if they tell you to go on some form of birth control to regulate it. I tend to prefer finding the causes for things rather than treating the symptoms, but sometimes they just don't know what causes irregular periods so chemical regulation is the path taken. What you're going through isn't all that uncommon, though.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:57 AM on October 19, 2009

My first thought was early miscarriage as well. Hope the doctor can give you some reassurances.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 9:18 AM on October 19, 2009

You mention bright red blood. When this happened to me, it turned that stress had caused my body to 'forget to ovulate'. Since there was no egg to release, the uterine lining kept building up and needed to shed over about two weeks.

Stress can wreak havoc on your system.
posted by politikitty at 10:11 AM on October 19, 2009

I'm sure your doctor will check everything out, but I had bleeding like this once and it turned out I was shedding an ovarian cyst. Bright-red blood, lots of bits and pieces of tissue.

Make sure you tell your doctor exactly what you've been putting up with; don't be fobbed off like I was, when he told me, "Oh, it's just a heavy period!"
posted by vickyverky at 11:21 AM on October 19, 2009

I'd try to not worry about possible cysts and miscarriages. Ovaries can be weird sometimes, especially with stress (mental and/or physical, sometimes just exercising more than usual). If you're like me and the other women I know who have had irregular periods (both too few and too many/too long), your doctor will probably put you on hormonal birth control and things will straighten out.
posted by dreamyshade at 12:01 PM on October 19, 2009

(Not to say that it can't be something else though — I hope your doctor is thorough and considers cysts and other problems as well as my unscientific weird ovaries.)
posted by dreamyshade at 12:04 PM on October 19, 2009

Data point:

I've had skipped and double-periods during stressful times.

My experience with early miscarriage was heavily painful, and it was a huge dump of blood and tissue that tapered off pretty quickly.
posted by moira at 12:40 PM on October 19, 2009

Bright red blood can also be a sign of proper hydration. Drinking extra water can cause a color change and make the blood seem "brighter." I sometimes use this as a measure to see if I'm drinking enough water. Not much of a comfort at the moment, I'm sure.
posted by medea42 at 7:42 PM on October 19, 2009

Depending on your age and if you are school, there is some evidence that the other women around you can cause changes in your period.

I'm 40-ish and have had my tubes tied, so I don't use hormonal birth control. I do work at a university, and every autumn semester, I see changes in my cycle. Sometimes it's shorter and sometimes it's longer. It evens out over time, thankfully. I use this site to keep track and that helps me know what to expect in the long run.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of things it could be. Thankfully, most of them are mostly harmless, like stress or sleep changes or grief, well, pretty much anything. Have you been otherwise not feeling well lately?

Hope you're feeling better soon.
posted by lilywing13 at 1:26 AM on October 20, 2009