Periods, eating disorders and overtraining

kshama2001

ceiswyn wrote: »

BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »

What we’ve evolved to do with our GP is to actually go down to the practice and queue outside at 8am until they open the doors in the morning to try to get an appointment because, as you say, you can dial and redial for over an hour and by the time you do get through all the appointments that they are ‘releasing’ that day are taken! My daughter once counted 433 attempts before she got through!

Obviously, I don’t know about your doctors but can you make an appointment for some future date, they must have some you can book ahead for routine matters rather than on the day ‘emergencies’ as it were. Or maybe a practice nurse would be good enough, at those appointments are a little easier to get in my experience.

If you’ve been without periods for over a year I would think they might want to check your hormone levels and do some other blood work just to rule out other causes. I would give it some thought, anyway, although I do understand how it’s easy to feel that the whole process of getting to see someone is offputting.

1) I work an hour away from home and get there by public transport. Therefore in order to walk into the practice to make an appointment, I would need to take time off work. I am clearly not going to do that.

2) Trying to make an appointment for a future date, or with a practice nurse, still requires me to be able to get through to appointments. The last time I tried, I started at number 20 in the phone queue and after twenty minutes had got down to number 15. I cannot spend that amount of time on my mobile phone in a phone queue during working hours.

3) Thanks for the suggestions on how to manage my GP, but I would prefer it if you could just take my word that it's sufficiently difficult and time-consuming that I would really rather not do it if I'm not likely to get much value out of it.

ETA: Oh, and my last period was in December or January - I don't recall which - which would make it 8 or 9 months.

I hear ya - I'm in the US and with the VA. I went through a bunch of rigmarole for my knee (twice), and hip, and now that my elbow is acting up think I'm just going to go to an acupuncturist. (Not that I'm recommending that for you - I'm just commiserating about how sometimes it can take so long to accomplish so little.)

In my 30s when I became a full time yoga teacher and also had a very active lifestyle, my periods slowed to about once every 3 months for a while, but I eased back and they came back.

ceiswyn

Sounds like I should keep an eye out for osteoporosis, but that’s fairly slow to develop and I do a fair bit of strength work so I’m not immediately concerned about that. If I carry on getting no periods after my charity hike is done and my training eases up, I will have another go at getting to my GP

Cahgetsfit

up until now the overtraining part of your question hasn't been addressed.

What do you mean by overtraining?

And how much of a calorie deficit are you on?

Usually a very large deficit along with lots of training causes period loss - look at those bodybuilder people - MANY of them lose their periods. Do you eat that little and train that much?

You mention binge eating so i'm assuming that would be a 'no' for the undereating part.

I don't know and can't give advice, but yeah, I tend to agree with others that making a future-dated appointment at some time with a GP is probably the best thing to do. Could be so many things, menopause included.

As for hormone control, I use old skool copper IUD coz I, like you, cannot function with added hormones in my system. Copper IUD = bleeding like a stuck pig unfortunately. I'm a bit anti-hormonal birth control LOL (but just because of my experiences, which are not a reflection of the majority of the population)

ceiswyn

I'm in maintenance, but generally eating in a slight (250 kcal) deficit to try to compensate for the binge eating. Using a Cunning New Strategy I'm now two weeks out from my last binge and have lost about a pound to just squeak back into my preferred weight range.

I think my training routine is actually fairly reasonable:
Sunday: A 14-16 mile strenuous hike with the Ramblers Association
Monday: About 5 miles of general walking, plus a BodyBalance class
Tuesday: 5 miles of walking, plus a Barre Fit class
Wednesday: Official Rest Day - generally about 3 miles of walking
Thursday: 5 miles of walking, plus a BodyPump class
Friday: 5 miles of walking, maybe a BodyCombat class if I feel energetic
Saturday: 3+ miles of walking, BodyPump, BodyBalance
However fitting that around full-time work, commuting by train, and living alone with an incontinent cat leaves me very little time to rest. Thursdays are the worst: BodyPump finishes at 7:30pm, and given the need to shower, walk to the train station etc I leave the house at 8.15am and it's 9.30pm by the time I get home, never mind eat dinner, feed the cat, do any necessary carpet scrubbing, or anything else I need to do. I suspect tiredness may be a factor as well, and I intend to rethink my schedule a bit after the charity hike in mid-September.

Pipsqueak1965

How long have your periods stopped for? Like they said - perimenopause can make them very irregular (I up to 10 months without one, then they come back again).

ceiswyn

Pipsqueak1965 wrote: »

How long have your periods stopped for? Like they said - perimenopause can make them very irregular (I up to 10 months without one, then they come back again).

As I said, the last one was in Dec or Jan - I can't remember which.

If this is early menopause (though that still seems unlikely to me given my family history and lack of any other menopausal symptoms), then all I can say is that I am OK with that

Hannahwalksfar

Judging by that you’re not actually having a rest day as you walk on that day.

Fuzzipeg

Osteoporosis was my first thought/fear though your activity levels will combat this. Osteoporosis could be caused by low human growth hormone, that comes off the thyroid t3 production rather than the t4. low t3 can be related to both eating disorders/mental health problems and the kind of periods you mentioned. Getting diagnosed is a mine field because of "standard numbers", not considering levels which are comfortable for the individual.

From personal experience I would also be concerned about early onset endometrial changes which also can cause less frequent but extremely heavy periods. The treatment for this I have seen is progesterone in situe. This was given to a friend of mine and she no longer has the cellular changes, in a matter of weeks, which beats hands down the problems of a total hysterectomy. Progesterone is needed to balance the oestrogen at the, may be luteal stage of the cycle which causes the sheading of the uterine lining.

I envy your energy or stamina or is it determination. Best wishes for the Charity Hike in September. I hope you will be able to allow yourself time to recuperate in your training schedule before your event, I would hate for you to be unable to participate. You work so hard, for something unplanned to get in the way. This happened to my daughter when she was about to do her first marathon run, she has done the Moon Walk a couple of times.

ceiswyn

Hannahwalksfar wrote: »

Judging by that you’re not actually having a rest day as you walk on that day.

Uh, doing a bit of gentle walking on a rest day is both normal and actually advised.

Plus it would be difficult to get to work if I didn't

ceiswyn

Fuzzipeg wrote: »

Osteoporosis was my first thought/fear though your activity levels will combat this. Osteoporosis could be caused by low human growth hormone, that comes off the thyroid t3 production rather than the t4. low t3 can be related to both eating disorders/mental health problems and the kind of periods you mentioned. Getting diagnosed is a mine field because of "standard numbers", not considering levels which are comfortable for the individual.

From personal experience I would also be concerned about early onset endometrial changes which also can cause less frequent but extremely heavy periods. The treatment for this I have seen is progesterone in situe. This was given to a friend of mine and she no longer has the cellular changes, in a matter of weeks, which beats hands down the problems of a total hysterectomy. Progesterone is needed to balance the oestrogen at the, may be luteal stage of the cycle which causes the sheading of the uterine lining.

I envy your energy or stamina or is it determination. Best wishes for the Charity Hike in September. I hope you will be able to allow yourself time to recuperate in your training schedule before your event, I would hate for you to be unable to participate. You work so hard, for something unplanned to get in the way. This happened to my daughter when she was about to do her first marathon run, she has done the Moon Walk a couple of times.

Thankyou for your advice (I shall do some research on that), and for your good wishes!

I have been dealing with some hamstring issues, but I have some hip-strengthening exercises and my physio thinks I can be all better by hike-time. And he also said I could continue my normal exercise routine, although to be fair he didn't ask too many questions about what that actually is...

ceiswyn

@Fuzzipeg ...oh. I did some research on low t3 and instantly came across two other issues that I have but hadn't mentioned. Maybe it's worth trying to make the time for that doctor's appt after all...

tinkerbellang83

Have you tried looking for a local Well Woman Clinic, even if your own surgery doesn't offer one a local hospital or another practice might?

Appreciate this would still mean time off work, but having dealt with a hormonal imbalance which crept up on me unexpectedly, you'll miss a lot more work if it turns out to be something more serious than if it's just the over-training and it's better to find that out sooner, rather than later.