STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

the pill--spotting?

Collette · Chanel

I'm going through the exact same thing. The first month I spotted/bled for 2 weeks straight and now only 2 weeks later it's starting all over again. I hate it. I'm going off and back to my old birth control. I'd rather have a full period once a month than this spotting all the time. My Dr. said it's one of the side effects the first year you are on Seasonale. It's not worth it to me.

Elle · Hermes

It's extremely normal to spot as your body adjusts to an extended cycle! I was on Seasonale for over a year, and the first two cycles I spotted here and there (but still much less bleeding than there would have been having 3 normal periods in that same time). After that, my body totally adjusted and it was BLISSFUL! Totally worth it after that IMO. But then again, I have long periods (7 days), so it was a huge change from spending a quarter of every month on my period. If you're periods are usually light and/or short I don't know if they benefits are as great.

FWIW, my 'spotting' consisted of about 2 (non-consecutive) weeks of pantyliner-worthiness each 'cycle'. After the first two cycles, so 6 months, my spotting went away and I was left with a single period every 3 months.

I would suggest getting out your calendar and calculating when you would have had a regular period - I wouldn't be suprised if your spotting corresponded with that, in which case for now you're no worse off then you would be on a normal pill. It sounds like this is still your first pack of Seasonale, so I would just give your body a little more time to make the adjustment.

HTH!

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

that TOTALLY helps--that's exactly what I'm having! If this is typical for this pill, then I will just stick with it because I definitely want the 4 periods per year cycle, so I will wait till things even out. Thanks!

JoceyBaby23 · Gucci

I switched to Seasonale and i experienced the same thing. With that pill, you are much more likely to see this your first year. www.seasonale.com has some good info.

blubirde · Chanel

I'm on seasonale too and I'm experiencing the same thing. The first 3 months I had absolutely NO spotting, which was wonderful. This month I've been spotting for the past 3 weeks, mainly during sex (sorry if that's TMI). But my period starts next week so maybe that has something to do with it. The spotting I have is nothing serious. I've had to use a tampon like twice and just used a pantyliner the rest of the time. Definitately nothing like a real period.

My gyn said for the first 6 months, that's the way it would be (spotting) but that after that, it's good to go. My first 3 months were so wonderful that as long as the spotting goes away, I'm sticking with Seasonale my entire life, if possible.

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

yeah, I don't know if you guys have heard this, but I read or heard a long time ago that some research suggests having fewer periods can be very good for women and can protect against certain kinds of cancers, I think breast cancer in particular. The theory is that high levels of certain hormones somehow play a role in the development of breast cancer, and having a menstrual cycle every month means those hormones are constantly surging up and down. Apparently researchers have found that women who spend most of their fertile years actually being pregnant, as might be the case in what, for lack of a less insulting word, I have to call a "primitive" society where infant mortality is high and you need to be pregnant nine times to raise four or five healthy children, have much lower rates of breast cancer than women who spend most of their fertile years having menstrual periods. I don't know why pregnancy hormone levels appear not to have the cancer-causing effect that menstrual hormone levels, so, but that's what I read. Who knows if that is true, but I figure it certainly can't hurt... there's no medical reason it's necessary to have a period every month... it would be nice to do without it, and if it protects me against cancer, so much the better!

Elle · Hermes

I'd read that it slightly decreased your chances of ovarian/uterine/cervical cancer, simply from less wear and tear. The pill (and pregnancy for that matter) prevents the body from having to cycle, and that's where the benefit is.

Also, woman today have a significantly higher number of reproductive years than in generations past. It's been attributed to better diets, having children later in life, longer life expectancies, etc. As opposed to women in previous centuries/generations, who started their periods later, had irregular periods, where pregnant a significant percentage of their adult lives, and died much younger - many before menopause. I'd like to see some stats on the number of periods a woman has in her lifetime now, compared to what woman used to have in a lifetime. What if it's twice as many? That means our reproductive systems do the work of two lifetimes in one!

Just for kicks, I figured it out my own stats: If you add up all the periods I've had in my 11.5 years of menstruation, it comes out to 2.6 years (136 periods total, or 953 days). Yikes!

-- Edited by LMonet at 18:30, 2005-11-08

NCshopper · Hermes

LMonet wrote:

I'd read that it slightly decreased your chances of ovarian/uterine/cervical cancer, simply from less wear and tear. The pill (and pregnancy for that matter) prevents the body from having to cycle, and that's where the benefit is.

I've heard this too and this is one of the main reasons I'm on the pill (aside from absolutely NOT wanting to get pregnant right now). My grandmother died from ovarian cancer and it's hard to detect, so I figure it's worth it to do what I can to prevent it.

From what I understand, when the ovary releases the egg, it creates a little tear and more cells are produced to repair that tear in the ovary for the next 28 days or so. Creating the new cells increases the chance that one of those cells may be cancerous. So, with the pill, you don't ovulate and have very little wear and tear on the ovaries.

blubirde · Chanel

My gyno told me having fewer periods reduces the risk of certain cancers (I can't remember which ones) b/c of less trauma to the uterus and ovaries. Makes sense to me. Another plus for seasonale (or any pill taken consecutively).

Grace · Dooney & Bourke

Just a side note...you don't have to be on Seasonal to skip periods. If you find one pill to work better for you, you can probably skip placebos with the one that works.

Elle · Hermes

Grace wrote:

Just a side note...you don't have to be on Seasonal to skip periods. If you find one pill to work better for you, you can probably skip placebos with the one that works.

Not necessarily true. I like Alesse alot and asked my gyn if I could take that the same way as Seasonale (which is really freaking expensive!) and she said sure because all Seasonale is is regular monophasic pills packaged up together. Alesse is very low dose (higher doses make me sick, though I was fine on Seasonale) and I spotted THE ENTIRE TIME. I'm talking 3 months of CONTINUOUS spotting. Once I gave up on it, it screwed up my cycles for the next 3 months that I took it the 'regular' way too! For someone who is absolutely not prone to spotting, it was freaky as well as inconvenient. Your results may vary of course, but if you try supressing with a low-dose pill it may just not be enough hormones to do the job.