Please help - Weird period for the first time, TTC, tired and confused.

[Anonygal]

Hi there,

Apologies for the long post but I couldn’t tell you have much it would mean to me for your thoughts and opinions.

Another cycle passed, and another failed month TTC. Quite a few tears, tiredness and increasing jealousy of pregnant friends.

I’ve now had blood work at Drs and it shows higher than normal prolactin so I’m now waiting to hear from Endocrinologist for an appointment but everything takes so long and I’m so tired already.

Anyway, I’ve got a few questions I’ve tried to unsuccessfully Google but wondered your thoughts:

I consistently get quite bad cramps on day of period or a few hours before. They used to be pretty severe, back when I knew nothing about the female body, and just accepted lying on the floor being sick and in pain (oh 18 year old me - now 33 and just figuring stuff out after quite a long time TTC!).

Anyway, I’ve also suffered from very bad headaches (I’ve been to the doctors many times about this, one even tried to prescribe me paracetamol at £9 a prescription!) but no doctor ever has suggested it’s hormones (how wild is that!). It’s only through TTC and tracking in Flo that I can see my headaches are around 10 days before my period and last 1-3 days and usually have 2 peaks. I think that this is when I must ovulate and it’s the surge of oestrogen.

I used to have irregular periods, and when I was 17 went for an ultrasound which suggested cysts on my ovaries. This wasn’t pursued any further. Now my periods are regular every 35-36 days, but they last 1-2 days max.

The blood work tests I have don’t suggest polycystic ovaries, I’m not overweight, and there didn’t seem to be any thyroid issues.

A few things I’m worried about:

• my periods only lasting 1-2 days
• my Ovulation seeming to be quite close to period (I have tried to use OPKs but they don’t seem to work as within a few days all say positive (digital static smiley) even when I’m doing multiple at once and staging them by starting new sets on different days to double check, or the strip ones that never seem to say positive (never a really dark line). We now DTD pretty much every other day throughout my cycle but the reason I think I ovulate 9-10 days before period is because of headache. I’ve tried temping but also seems very inconsistent and impossible to tell. Seems to be around 36.10 the entire month, apart from for a few days after period where it goes to 35.80

Finally, this month, a couple of days ago (day 33/34 of cycle) I started to have dark brown discharge, quite stringy, and then quite watery. I obviously got excited thinking maybe implantation bleed, but negative in all tests. I’ve never had this before.

This month I had absolutely no cramps, and no boob pain which I usually get a couple of days before period. However today my period started. I’ve also never ever had no cramps before.

I’ve tried to Google all this but can’t quite find any advice covering everything I’m looking for.

does anyone have any advice on the above?

thanks so much if you made it this far. I’m waiting to see dr, but if anyone has any thoughts, suggestions, opinions, please please let me know!

xxx

I don't have experience with this but I know high prolactin can cause headaches, give unusual/irregular periods, and prevent ovulation. Hopefully the Endocrinologist can help you get to the bottom of this!

Hey! I’m by no means an expert but if you’re not getting an LH surge on your ovulation strips and you’re not detecting an obvious temperature rise during the second half of your cycle then I’d say that you’re maybe not ovulating.

Have you had hormone blood tests at 7dpo? To see if your progesterone level suggests you’ve ovulated xx

Hi there, thanks for getting back to me.

so I’ve had 2 sets of blood tests, one privately (Hertility) on day 3 of my cycle, and another with my GP that was on day 21 (of my 35/36 day cycle).

The GP did serum progesterone level and according to my results on my NHS app it was <2 nmol/L.

But when I spoke to the GP, was told my results were ok apart from Prolactin, so don’t really know how to interpret this. I told her it was day 21 of 35 day cycle, and she said perhaps have a progesterone test a week before your period. But then I got a text from the GP surgery saying there was no need for a progesterone test again.

I’m thinking maybe I’m not ovulation, despite the huge and intense migraines about 10 days before my period.

the worrying thing this month though is that my period lasted maybe 1 day and was dark brown and stringy, and then just stopped. It’s been 1-2 days for a while now but usually always bright red blood with lots of cramps and sore boobs. But this month no pain whatsoever.