Do You Think It's a Good Idea to Take Medication to Skip Your Period?

Women have different reasons for wanting less frequent periods or skip a period. The option is worth considering if you are:

Going for a vacation and your monthly date will come across on the same time. Heavy, prolonged, frequent or painful periods. Tenderness of the breast, bloating or swinging of mood in the week before your period starts. Some kind of problem that brings it difficult to use sanitary napkins or tampons. Conditions aggravated by menstruation; such as endometriosis, anemia, asthma, migraine or epilepsy.

Lower abdominal cramps, Headaches or other menstrual painful symptoms during the last week of your birth control pill when you are taking iron preparation only.

There are some kinds of hormonal preparations that give you menstruation once in three months. Seasonique- is one of the preparations. Even it has FDA approval.

But there are certain disadvantages of themenstruation delaying or sometimes called "menstrual manipulating" agents. These are all hormonal preparation containing Oestrogen, Progesterone, or both.

Some are having long acting synthetic preparations. They themselves are having side effects. These are dose dependent. Most of the past data with high dose single agent preparation cannot be directly extrapolated to the present day low dose preparations that carry minor risk. The following applies primarily to combined oral pill that are most extensively used.

Non-serious effects side

These are frequent, especially in the first 1-3 cycles.

Nausea & vomiting: similar to morning sickness of pregnancy.

Headache; Migraine may be precipitated. Or worsened.

Breakthrough bleeding or withdrawal bleeding or spotting. It occurs specially with Progesterone only preparations. Amenorrhoea may occur in a few or the cycle may be disrupted specially with injectables with minipills.

Tenderness of breast.

Side effects that appear in the long run

Weight gain, acne and increased body hair may be noted due to androgenic action of the preparations.

Chloasma- pigmentation of cheeks nose and forehead, similar to that of occurring in pregnancy.

Intense itching in the vagina- Pruritus Vulvae.

Carbohydrate intolerance and precipitation of Diabetes in a few subjects have been noticed.

Swinging of mood, abdominal distention are occasional. Especially reported with Prgesterone only pills.

Serious side effects

Leg vein & Pulmonary thrombosis: the major side effect of using pills are blood stasis. So thrombosis( clot formation inside blood vessel) occurs. This may dislodge from the main site and can deposit in the heart or brain producing catastrophe.

High blood pressure: rise in BP occurs.

Genital Carcinoma: an increased risk of vaginal, cervical and breast carcinoma is noticed in the predisposed individuals.

So all in all, it is rational not to use pills to skip or delay your monthly period frequently. But in case of any emergency, you may do so after having a consultation with your doctor.