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NOT According to Plan
Why Irregularity Happens and What You Can Do to Help
By Heather Johnson Durocher
A specialist can provide the best care for these women as they try to conceive, says Dr. Kenneth Gelman, a reproductive endocrinologist with the Center for Endocrine and Diabetes Care in Hollywood, Fla. "There's very good medication for women with these problems," Dr. Gelman says, adding that irregular cycles are the most common problem he deals with every day.
Who has irregular cycles, and why? Dr. Bayer says these women typically fall into one of three categories:
- They're athletes or have reduced body weights. Diet and exercise may alter hormones, leading to cycle irregularities.
- They're experiencing impending ovarian failure, which often signals the onset of menopause. The average age of menopause is 50, but it can occur much earlier.
- They have chronic anovulation, meaning they don't ovulate and may or may not have periods, or anovulatory bleeding. Women who are overweight, are pre-menopausal, show signs of overproduction of male hormones or who have certain medical conditions often are anovulatory.
Melissa Allen of Apache Junction, Ariz., had been trying to get pregnant for a year when she was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Symptoms of the syndrome, which affects an estimated 6 to 10 percent of all women and is a leading cause of infertility, include irregular periods.
"When we started trying to conceive, I really thought nothing of my irregular cycles," Allen says. "I didn't know a thing about anovulation and was sure that f you menstruated then you had to ovulate. I was devastated when I learned that wasn't the case. [The PCOS diagnosis] was the explanation for my irregular cycles but it certainly didn't give me any peace."
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