Being a woman is challenging. Period. Let me rewrite the sentence. Being a woman is challenging, especially because you have to deal with your hormone levels and your period. It’s a love/hate relationship that only the feminine part of the world is given to understand.
If I had to define it in two words I’d call it sort of Stockholm Syndrome, because when it’s there, your period hurts so much you look forward to be free from it - asap.But, when it’s time to see those spots on your undies, and they’re not there, you just don’t know what to think. And you feel confused like you’re 12 and you get on the helter-skelter for the first time, sweating from your hands in a mix of curiosity and fear, and you compulsively wonder “Wtf, Where is my period?”
Reasons are very variable, it could be you’re going to experience maternity soon, or that you’re stressed enough to make your ovaries go crazy. But it could also depend on a physical condition, or on weight issues. What’s certain is you can’t keep yourself from wondering why and making the most disparate conjectures.
We tried to condense the 12 thoughts you may have when Aunt Flo is not coming at the expected time, and backed them with some useful info to help you understand if you’re doing a good job with your concerns, or if your period is is just a bit offended for how you treated it last month.
12 What Do I Name The Baby?
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Surprisingly, this is one of the most exciting activities to do when you’re prego.But why should you think about that, when you’re just late? Because, even if you’re desperately fighting against the thought you could be expecting, in spite of all your plans and projects, the idea of holding that little bug into your arms is so sweet. So your mind starts floating in the names cloud, wondering if the double letter as the name initials will actually make the baby more successful in life. After all, that’s what Kris Jenner had in mind when she planned to name her three major daughters Kim, Kourtney, and Khloé. Or maybe she just loves the letter K?
11 How Do I Tell Him?
Asking yourself how to deliver the news is another thought that suddenly comes to your mind when Aunt Flo doesn’t come at the expected time. Here’s how the process goes, actually:
If you’re involved in a relationship you mentally plan a good and possibly romantic way to tell him about the delay. You’ll probably entrust Pinterest to research something like “100 Creative Ways To Tell Him Your Period Is Late And You Don’t Know What To Think”, right?
The second possibility is you’re more the Samantha Jones kind of girl or you consider yourself free as a bird. In this case, you’ll more likely have to brush up some maths and pinpoint a certain date, then skim through your last calls/whatsapp messages to find out who’s the man …and call him.
10 Maybe It’s Just The Seasonal Change
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It’s not unusual to feel crazy like a monkey when your cycle isn’t coming, especially if it’s winter. But, if depression symptoms are proven to be related to changing season and the lack of sunlight, there’s no proof about period delays due to seasonal changes.
Instead, there’s another factor that could influence your cycle punctuality, and it’s traveling across timezones. In fact, while estrogen and progesterone fluctuations affect your circadian rhythm advancement and delay, conditioning your mood, and traveling across timezones has a direct impact on the production of melatonin.
Since your brain produces melatonin to regulate your body's day/night rhythm, when you travel to different time zones, melatonin levels start to fluctuate, messing up your biological clock, and your period.
9 What About My Diet?
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Yes, it could be. In fact, there are evidences about how high fat diets and obesity could stop your eggs from being released. Since your period is mostly managed by estrogens, which are stored into animal fats, when you eat a lot of those fats, you store new estrogens, that can ultimately result in an estrogen overload, causing your ovaries to mess up your cycle and your egg release. In the same way, if you’re overweight, you’re likely storing too many fat cells, which result in exceeding estrogen levels, which can bring to infrequent and heavier periods, not to mention, they could finally result in endometriosis issues.
8 Do I Have An Eating Disorder?
Are you underweight? If your body mass index is too low, you could experience missed periods. Women under serious eating disorders, like anorexia or bulimia, are prone to experience pauses from their cycle. Science says, it’s a way your body protects itself from becoming prego.
In fact, when your body is too weak to go through pregnancy, due to the excessive stress eating disorders cause, it just prevents itself from ovulating. And since without ovulation, you don’t produce enough estrogens, you can’t build a uterine lining and have a period.
Anyway, being underweight in itself, doesn’t seem to be the only cause of too low estrogen levels. Medicine explains it’s more related to rapid changes of your body mass index.
7 Maybe I’m Ill?
Another thought that usually comes to mind when your period’s late is you may be sick.It could be a metabolism problem, like a thyroid imbalance or some other chronic disease. Since the thyroid gland is responsible for your metabolism functioning, a thyroid irregularity could result in missed periods, and other issues. The thyroid gland is located in the neck and it manages many things going on in your body, so any kind of thyroid imbalance, like hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, can suddenly result in missed periods and other symptoms, that you may want to check with a doctor.
6 Should I Get A Test?
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Home pregnancy tests are a good idea if you’re really concerned about your delay. They can tell with a high confidence level if you’re expecting or not and if you’re storing the pregnancy hormone in your urine.
In fact, they measure the presence of hCG, the human chorionic gonadotropin, a peculiar hormone we produce the moment a fertilized egg installs in the uterus. Since hCG levels tend to rise rapidly when you’re prego, doing the test after six or seven days of delay, can tell you if you really need to come back to point 12 or if you should just look further.
5 It’s Just That I’m Too Stressed!
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As we mentioned before, stressing your body and your mind, can bring you to a cycle breakdown. Stressful events, job burnout, and heavy breakups can prevent your hormones to regulate your normal functions, since they directly affect the hypothalamic area of your brain, causing your period to mess up. The hypothalamus, is where a bunch of hormones are managed, and too much stress can cause what doctors call “hypothalamic amenorrhea”, a phenomenon which prevents your body from being able to procreate. That’s also a reason why if you’re too stressed it’s more difficult for you to conceive a baby, so calm down and get in a zen habit!
4 Or Maybe I’m On Premature Menopause?
Among the many thoughts going on in your mind when your period is delayed, there’s certainly the fear to be on premature menopause. And honestly, thinking that your eggs are finished is not exactly the same feeling you experience when you want to make a omelet but the egg department of your fridge is empty! On the other hand, science says premature menopause is not so common, so you shouldn’t really worry about it for a simple delay. But, if you go through recurrently missed periods along with night sweats, hot flashes, and dryness of your hoo-ha, then it may be the case, and you should call the gyno.
3 Maybe My Ovaries Are Over?
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More frequently than premature menopause, it seems doctors diagnose an ovary issue caused by hormone imbalances that prevent ovaries to ovulate. It’s the PCOS, or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, caused by altered levels of testosterone, estrogens, and progesterone.
PCOS can cause missed periods and, due to altered testosterone levels, it usually comes with other symptoms like strange hair growth in unexpected areas, like on your chest or the face, and hair loss from the scalp. This syndrome may present itself at various degrees, so it’s not said your ovaries are over until a real doctor makes a real diagnosis.
2 I Got Cramps, Do They Already Kick On The First Week?
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You may be prego and have cramps or your cycle may just be delayed and you either can experience cramps. But they surely don’t come from your supposed baby kicking from inside, if you’re just a couple of days late. Even though cramps without menses often occur during early pregnancy, when the uterus begins to prepare the embryo’s implantation, they could also be a sign that you’re just ovulating.
In fact, sometimes, your cycle simply decides to delay, and you get cramps without periods just because you’re still ovulating. In these cases, the period usually occurs after a pair of weeks from the ovulation. That said, can we conclude cramps are not a distinctive symptom of pregnancy?
1 Aunt Flo Finally Arrived. God Bless! …Or Not?
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And when it finally comes, what do you think? Well, it surely depends on your hopes and dreams, and where you are in your life. Sometimes, a scary thought of unexpected pregnancy just turns into secret joy and concealed hope, so the day Aunt Flo finally comes, you feel relieved, but also a bit disappointed.
On the other hand, this just might not be the right time and place for such an event to happen, and you’re so happy that you forget to bring your pads to work..! Anyway, I can tell one thing for sure: when your period comes you hate it, and when it’s late you crave it. Aunt Flo is surely male.
sources: webmd.com, health.com, womenshealthmag.com, md-health.com
