What Causes Absence Of Periods After Stopping Progesterone Intake?

Posted on Thu, 4 Sep 2014

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Thu, 4 Sep 2014 Answered on

Fri, 26 Sep 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : I have a question for an endocrinologist. I was taking progesterone to get my period as I hadn't had it since getting off birth comfort in April. I never got my period following finishing 1 week of pills and have a prescription for another week's worth. Should I take a 2nd week of progesterone? I have 100mg 2x a day.

Answered by Dr. Binu Parameswaran Pillai (2 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Progesterone need prior Estrogen action

Detailed Answer:
Good day,

Noted your concern.
From your previous question, i understood that you missed some pills during the first course. I would like to ask you few questions.

1. When was your delivery? Was it a prolonged one? Any heaedches during pregnancy/delivery time? Any excess bleeding?

2. Was there any dificulty lactating ( breast milk secretion) ?

3. How regular was your periods prioe to pregnancy ?

4)Did you use any steroids post delivery or during pregnancy ?

You should wait for up to 6-7 days after completing the progesterone pills .

Progesterone is given to induce a withdrawal bleed.For this to happen, your uterus should have been primed by estrogen. If there was no prior action of estrogen on uterus endometrial lining, progesterone can not induce a bleed.

In your case, since you had missed pills during the first two days during the first course, it is worth taking a second course if no bleeding happen after a week of completing the course.

Even after that, if there is no bleeding, we have to look at other causes.

Regards
Binu

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar