Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Missed Period But Not Pregnant

My period is a week late this month. I have quite a regular menstrual cycle. As this worries me, I bought a home pregnancy test kit last night but it was negative. This worries me even more. Missed period, but NOT pregnant. Since the urine pregnancy test is quite accurate that maybe I have some other reason for missed period.

After googling the net for the whole night, I am now relieve a bit. As missing a period or two is absolutely common and normal, even for those who has very regular menstrual cycle.

Missing a menstrual period is a lot more common than most people realize. This is often called amenorrhea, the technical word for absence of menstrual periods.

There are various reasons for the period to be late / missed and the pregnancy test to be negative.

Stress is major cause of missed or delayed periods. Stress interferes with the normal hormonal signals from your brain and it can block ovulation. This causes the cycle to become irregular.

Being overweight or underweight can also interfere with your normal menstrual cycle.

Birth control pills or DepoProvera may make periods disappear too. It is okay to not have periods when you are taking these medications.

In most women, premature menopause is a very remote possibility. A measurement of the FSH blood level on the third day of your cycle will give clues as to whether you should consider menopause as a probable cause.

Some other characteristic causes of missed periods include undergoing any major changes in your life, such as moving, starting a new job, or changed eating or exercise habits.

Being told the above possibilities of my delayed period, I will wait for another week before repeat the pregnancy test again. My instincts tell me that the change of my eating habits might be the culprit of the delayed / missed period.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for you information. I too am late this month and had a negative pregnancy test result. I've been googling all day trying to find answers. I have been under a great deal of stress the last couple of months and have been very irregular cause of it.

You really made me feel relieved that things are ok.