TTC after BC iregular cycles 6 months after stopping

Hi Everyone,

I am hoping to get a bit of advice. I stopped taking BC beginning of March 2008 and have had extremely irregular periods ever since. I had been on BC for approx 4.5 years and prior to that i had extremely regular cycle of 29 days. I am 26 years old. Since stopping BC In march i have had a 34 day cycle, 63 day cycle, 38 day cycle & i am still waiting for my next which is now 41 days and counting. I have as of this week begun charting as i believe that this is my only way of knowing if and when i am ovulating.

Has anyone else had experience similar to this coming off BC? Should i be seeing my GP about it or just give my body some more time to readjust?

Would be great to here what others have to say.

Kylnor

Yep, normal. It can take a while for things to become regular again after the pill. I had been taking it for 6-7yrs and when I stopped it took me 9 months to fall pregnant and in that time my cycle was never regular and it had been before the pill. What helped me was Acupuncture. He was able to help me ovulate earlier and I got pregnant the first cycle seeing him. Unfortunately it ended in miscarriage but I went back to my AP and was pregnant first cycle again.
Hope that helps :)

hi Kylnor,
Irregular cycles are completely normal coming off BC and will most likely return to normal given time and healthy lifestyle. From the info you provide acupuncture and herbs would undoubtably help to regulate your cycle more rapidly, feel free to PM me to share more info.

Thanks for the reassurance and advice Sara & Justin, I will definatley look further into the accupuncture & herbs. If anybody has any useful links etc would appreciate them!

you could also try Vitex...it's an herb highly prescribed in Europe to regulate a women's cycles and help with PMS. It's slow acting so it can take a few months to kick in. It's worth a try though...I've heard of many women having success with it and becoming pregnant after taking it. I've been taking it for 2 months and still have very long cycles so I'm going to try acupuncture, but I'm still taking Vitex for now as it does take time. I'm hoping it will kick in soon for me!!

I was on the pill for around 10 years the first time and a couple of years the second time. I had 28 day cycles before and after the 10 year usage. The second time round I also had fairly regular cycles (within a couple of dys of 28 days).

For sure use charting. It's very helpful for pinpointing when you are fertile and in my case I suspected I was pregnant earlier than a HPT could work due to two and three day temp dips in successful cycles. It was great cos I knew I could test early and most likely I'd get a positive.

Be careful about using Vitex as has been suggested. I was on it to help with mood swings and I had two early miscarriages whilst on it. I went off it and the next pregnancy was successful. There's heaps of annecdotal evidence on the net that it causes early m/c. Just use a search engine with Vitex and miscarriage and you'll see what I mean. A few days after I'd stop taking it I would miscarry. You can't continue to take it whilst pregnant so it's a catch 22.