Your Menstrual Cycle and PCOS

Is PCOS Causing Your Menstrual Challenges?

Begin by watching the video above.

Does the unpredictability of your periods complicate your life, making you feel trapped? Do you cope with heavy or painful periods? Perhaps you aren’t menstruating at all and worry what this means for your fertility and overall health?

Women with PCOS report a variety of different menstrual symptoms, including absent or infrequent periods, irregular menstrual flow (either very heavy or very light), extreme cramping, bloating, or even nausea.1,2

Are you dealing with the frustrating and sometimes devastating symptoms of PCOS?

If you’re not sure, take the PCOS Quiz and find out.

Menstrual problems can be frustrating and painful and can disrupt your daily activities. But even worse, irregular menstruation can be a warning sign of more serious health concerns, such as infertility.

Just how does PCOS cause menstrual difficulties? Often, women with PCOS are failing to ovulate, or release an egg, also known as anovulation. When the egg is not released, it can form a small cyst in the ovary. Over time, many of these cysts can develop. The term ‘polycystic ovaries’ is used to describe this and is what gives this disorder its name. Ovulatory failure can lead to all of the menstrual symptoms described by women with PCOS. Menstrual irregularities can be the tip of the iceberg.

PCOS MenstruaI Irregularities Iceberg

I’m so glad you’re here. Information is power, and doing something about it changes lives.

Learn about the All Natural Hormone Solution for PCOS

One of the hallmark symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome is irregular menstrual cycles: either they’re missing altogether, they come inconsistently, they might be very heavy or very light, and there may be no ovulation. In general they are very unpredictable and sometimes very painful. If you do have a cycle, the PMS symptoms can be horrible.

In just a moment I’ll share why your cycle is not regular – you’ll be surprised at what you learn.

Here’s a quick overview of menstruation terms:

  • Amenorrhea is when you have no cycle at all.
  • Dysmenorrhea is when you have painful periods.
  • Oligomenorrhea is when you have less than 6-8 periods per year.
  • Anovulation is no ovulation.
  • Menorrhagia is when you have unusually heavy or long menstrual periods.

Then there are combinations of these. Here are more in-depth descriptions.

Anovulation — Also known as an anovulatory cycle, occurs when you bleed, but your ovaries do not release an egg. Such cycles are a warning sign of infertility. If you experience these cycles regularly, you may have difficulty conceiving.1 The most common symptom is no menstruation. But anovulatory cycles can still include a light period.

Amenorrhea — Amenorrhea means the absence of menstruation. When a woman does not begin menstruating by age 16, it is called primary amenorrhea. This is a well-known symptom of PCOS in adolescents.2 Secondary amenorrhea occurs when a woman, who originally had periods on her own, has no menstruation for six months or more and is not pregnant.6 This is also common in women with PCOS.

Oligomenorrhea — This is characterized by infrequent, unpredictable menstruation. Cycles may be widely and irregularly spaced. Periods may range from very light to very heavy. This might or might not be accompanied by excessive pain, cramping, bloating, and discomfort. Irregular menstruation is also a classic symptom of PCOS.2 Nine or fewer menstrual cycles per year is a common diagnostic criterion for PCOS.

Dysmenorrhea — Severe menstrual cramps/pain/bloating is referred to as dysmenorrhea.

Abnormal menstrual bleeding — This means any events such as an extremely heavy flow, a prolonged period lasting longer than ten days, and bleeding between cycles, all of which can be signs of PCOS.

.A common medical treatment for regulating menstrual cycles in general is the birth control pill. But using the birth control pill is not the answer and causes more harm. While birth control pills may make you feel like you’re having a more normal cycle, that’s far from the truth. Birth control pills are a chemical drug that further imbalance your hormones putting you at greater risk for weight gain, depression, irritability, hair loss, high blood pressure, digestive problems and even cancer. And they suppress ovulation – the exact opposite of what you want.

Hormonal birth control DOES NOT regulate your cycle. A bleed when you’re taking the pill are not periods. Hormonal birth control methods contain synthetic hormones that are designed to completely shut down your own hormone production, and they work for birth control because they suppress ovulation.

Hormonal birth control = NO ovulation. Read more about birth control.

Many women with PCOS have been put on many different types of hormonal birth control only to figure out years later that they made their health situation much worse, not better.

A regular menstrual cycle is different for every women. Anywhere from 21-35 days between periods is considered normal, and even 45 days is considered “normal” if you’re still in your teens. When your cycle is not regular or “normal” it’s because your body is in flight or fight mode a lot of the time due to stress so it shuts down processes in the body that are not key to survival – in this case your menstrual cycle. Here’s a quick example: female athletes often lose their menstrual cycle altogether due to intense training that causes high stress to the body along with very low body fat. The body doesn’t have enough resources to have a menstrual cycle. This is also what happens with PCOS. Your body does not have the resources to have a regular menstrual cycle.

What Complications Could You Experience?

Menstrual difficulties are a frustrating symptom of PCOS and can interfere with daily life for women suffering from them. Unpredictable cycles, heavy menstrual flows, and excruciating pain can make it hard for women to engage in life and can make them feel trapped, frustrated and self-conscious. Left untreated, women can later face problems with fertility, pregnancy, endometriosis, pelvic pain, or cancer.

If you are struggling to cope with menstrual problems related to your PCOS, you are Healthy Livingprobably searching for a way to manage your menstrual cycle. Finding an effective solution for your menstrual issues not only benefits your health, but can truly change your life by restoring normalcy and predictability. Medical researchers agree that the first, best treatment for PCOS symptoms is choosing a healthy lifestyle for you, complete with the right food, exercise, sleep, nutrients, cravings awareness, support community and addressing your hormone deal-breakers.

How to Get Started

The key is being investigative to understand what is stressing your body out – what is keeping your hormones in fight or flight mode instead of rest and digest mode.

Here are 3 ways to get your menstrual cycle back on track:

  1. Replace missing nutrients,
  2. Learn what to eat and how to eat to support YOUR body,
  3. Identify the stressors in your life that are keeping your health stuck – I call them the “hormone deal-breakers”

There are many underlying factors that cause the many different symptoms of PCOS including an irregular menstrual cycle. I call them Hormone Deal-Breakers™. These are stressors that create imbalances in your body that over time create sometimes devastating symptoms.

Hormone Deal-Breakers™ Include

  • Nutrient deficiencies – your body is lacking vital nutrients for its daily needs (this includes anemias)
  • The wrong diet (food) for you
  • The wrong exercise or type of movement for you
  • Inadequate rest and sleep for you
  • Toxins from many different places both internal and external including toxic relationships
  • Low thyroid function
  • Low adrenal function
  • Lack of support
  • Sluggish or fatty liver
  • Bacterial, viral or fungal infections
  • Poor microbiome (gut bacteria) balance
  • You’re just too busy
  • Negative thoughts
  • Your body’s ability to detoxify
  • Poor fat metabolism
  • And your genetics

And so much more. Anything that stresses your body emotionally or physically will throw you into hormone imbalance, and pretty quickly. The stress hormone cortisol rises and stays high, and the blood sugar hormone insulin also rises and can stay high causing your cells to become resistant to insulin. When cortisol and insulin are chronically elevated your body remains in the fight or flight state for too long causing many other hormone imbalances. One of them is the inability of your body to make progesterone.

Your body is amazing. When given the right support it will magically return to its natural rhythms.

Maybe you want to start a family or maybe you just want to feel good. Whatever your reason you can take charge of your health right now because there is no medical cure.

I show you how to do this with the PCOS 5-Element System, the only program in the world that shows you step-by-step how to support your body to have a regular menstrual cycle. Learn more about the All Natural Hormone Solution for PCOS right here and I’ll show you how to get your menstrual cycle back on track. We’ve helped thousands of women get their cycle regulated and now it’s your turn.


Next Steps

  1. Take the PCOS Quiz!  Get your score and assess your hormone health risks.
  2. Join our Facebook Sisterhood Group Pose your questions to this group of like-minded women. Get the answers to your questions and the support you need.
  3. Checkout the Hormone Reset. Guided Practices to eliminate anxiety, lose weight and boost energy.

We are committed to helping women reverse their symptoms of hormone imbalance – a major cause of excess weight gain, adult acne, unwanted facial hair, depression, anxiety, and heartbreaking female infertility.

©Insulite Health empowers women with hormone imbalance to transform their lives through a process of healing with the Natural Hormone Solution  –a complete solution for helping women reverse the symptoms hormone imbalance..