How to Safely Delay Your Period
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Having a regular period is visible proof that a bunch of hormonal fluctuations and bodily processes are chugging along smoothly in your body. But if you have a vagina, you also know that normality doesn’t always equate to convenience, much less comfort. Indeed, there are a host of valid reasons why you may want to delay or skip your period. The good news? It’s possible to do so safely by essentially pausing your reproductive cycle.
That might be especially appealing if you deal with an onslaught of painful or annoying period symptoms, like severe cramps or a heavy flow, or the intense mood swings and irritability of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). The same goes if you have a medical condition that gets worse with menstruation, like endometriosis, anemia, depression, or migraine. In these cases, being able to bypass the monthly ordeal could be a life-changer.
But you also might want to put off your period because you just really do not want to feel bloaty and crampy, have to tote around tampons or pads, or worry about leakage during a given moment in your life—like, say, your wedding or prom or a big vacation. The idea that it’s your destiny to deal with bleeding whenever it happens is “rooted in patriarchal ideas,” Jillian LoPiano, MD, MPH, FACOG, a board-certified ob-gyn in Miami, Florida, and chief health officer at sexual telehealth provider Wisp, tells SELF. In reality, “we’re no longer condemned to suffer through these magical moments,” she says, “and taking control over your cycle so you can live your life to the fullest is a really emboldened thing to do.”
Read on to learn exactly how to delay your period using hormonal birth control, plus answers to all your questions about it, including why this works, who it’s totally safe for, and what to expect if your ob-gyn gives you the all-clear to try it out.
It’s totally safe to postpone or bypass your period using hormonal contraception in many cases.
You’ll remember that in a typical menstrual cycle happening sans birth control, “a period is a reflection that your body is operating the way it’s supposed to,” Renita White, MD, FACOG, a board-certified ob-gyn at Georgia Obstetrics and Gynecology, in Atlanta, tells SELF. It means that your brain and ovaries are communicating properly and you’re ovulating (releasing an egg from an ovary) each month, she says. As a part of this monthly cycle, a surge in estrogen causes your uterine lining (your endometrium) to thicken in case that egg gets fertilized and implants; if that doesn’t happen, the tissue sheds, and voilà: a period.
When you’re on hormonal contraception, you’re intercepting this whole process. Most types of birth control—including the pill, patch, and vaginal ring—are known as combined or combination contraceptives because they contain synthetic versions of two hormones: estrogen and progesterone (called progestin when it’s in a drug). These ingredients shift your body’s natural hormonal flow to suppress ovulation.
The “period” you experience while on one of these birth control methods is just your body’s response to stopping the hormones during the break week, when you either go without a ring or patch, or take the sugar (nonactive) pills. Technically called withdrawal bleeding, it serves no medical purpose, Dr. White says. There’s an old misconception that women need to bleed to “flush out their systems,” Dr. LoPiano says. “But in reality, nothing about your endometrium is dirty or filled with toxins.” Not to mention, these birth control methods also prevent your uterine lining from thickening, Dr. White explains, so there’s nothing extra growing in there that needs to come out.
In fact, for plenty of people on hormonal contraception, it’s perfectly safe to skip the withdrawal period and breeze past bleeding for many years, Dr. White adds. (And research shows that doing so has no long-term impact on fertility, either.)
But of course, to avoid your period in this way you need to be using a form of combination hormonal contraception in the first place, which isn’t advised for some people. For example, if you have migraine with aura, a history of blood clots, or are at an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (due to high blood pressure or diabetes, for instance), the estrogen can raise your risk of a stroke, as SELF previously reported. Your ob-gyn can work with you to determine if combined hormonal contraception is safe for you and which one is most sensible depending on your lifestyle.
And if you’re not able to use one of these contraceptive methods? It may still be possible to safely delay your period using a progestin-only pill, shot, implant, or IUD. The idea is the same—introducing a hormone to tweak your cycle—but it just may require a higher dosage or more time to fully knock your period out if you’re working with progestin alone. Read on to find a breakdown of all the options for skipping or lowering the frequency of your period.
There are a couple different ways to skip or delay your period.
Using combination birth control (pills, patch, or ring) continuously
Generally the easiest option, this involves slightly changing how you take your contraception so that you avoid any “off” time and the coinciding hormonal drop that triggers bleeding. Here’s the gist of what you do:
The pill: Instead of taking your week of placebo pills, start a new pack right after finishing the three weeks of active pills.
The patch: Normally, you’d put on a fresh one each week for three consecutive weeks and then take an off week where you don’t wear one; in this case, you’d just bypass that break period and immediately apply the next patch..
The ring: Similar to the above, instead of taking the typical hormone-free week after wearing it for three weeks, you’d just put in your new ring right away.
While these methods won’t totally guarantee you avoid a period every month (it’s possible to get breakthrough bleeding as your body adjusts to the hormones), they work pretty darn well. Research shows that nonstop use of the patch for 12 weeks results in significantly fewer bleeding days; and a separate study found that nearly 90% of folks who continuously used the ring for six months had no to minimal menstrual bleeding. Meanwhile, research has also shown that half of people skipping the placebo week in a typical pill regimen hit zero bleeding by month three, with nearly 80% wholly knocking out their period within a year.
Some combined birth control regimens are even explicitly designed with this concept of skipping the placebo in mind, Dr. White says. Seasonale and Seasonique, for instance, call for taking active pills daily for 12 weeks followed by one week of inactive ones or pills containing a low dose of estrogen, respectively, during which time you’d have withdrawal bleeding (so, only once about every three months). Whereas Amethyst is a combination low-dose pill that you just take continuously for a year with no breaks—meaning, ideally, you won’t bleed that whole time.
If you’re interested in changing your contraceptive to one of these extended- or continuous-use options or getting started on a combination birth control for the first time, you’ll need to see your doctor for a consultation and prescription.
Taking a short-term course of a high-dose progestin-only pill
Let’s say you’re not on a form of combined hormonal contraception—but you still want to skip your period for a one-off occasion. In this case, you could check with your doctor about getting a one-time prescription for a progestin-only pill like norethindrone acetate (a.k.a. norethisterone acetate) to use expressly for this purpose.
FYI this isn’t the same as the progestin-only pill (often called the minipill), like the OTC OPill, which your ob-gyn may suggest if you’re not a candidate for combination contraception. In fact, norethindrone acetate may not actually be safe if you have a condition that precludes you from taking estrogen because it converts partially into estrogen in the body, Dr. LoPiano says.
If it’s safe for you, though, it can be an option for putting off your period. With this approach, you’ll generally take a high dose (5 mg) of norethindrone acetate starting three days before your expected period and up to three times a day until you’re ready to bleed, for a max of 20 days. The idea is that by flooding your body with what it thinks is extra progesterone, you’re postponing the typical drop in that hormone that causes a period, Dr. LoPiano explains. But while this keeps your uterine lining from making an exit, it’s not meant to be used in place of your go-to contraception if you want to avoid pregnancy, so you should use a back-up method (like condoms) in that case.
You can also use longer-term hormonal birth control methods to lessen or flat-out stop your period over time.
To be fair, you can’t choose a particular period to delay or skip with a long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC), but all of these options—like hormonal intrauterine devices (IUDs), in-arm implants, and DMPA shots (Depo-Provera)—can lessen the intensity and frequency of periods. That’s because they’re continuously releasing progestins, which “thin out the uterine lining so much that, over time, there’s just nothing there to bleed,” Dr. LoPiano explains.
It can take time for your body to adjust to the continual influx of progestin, so the longer you’re on one of these methods, the less bleeding you’ll have, Dr. White says. Generally, high-dose IUDs (like Liletta and Mirena) are stronger period-blockers than their lower-dose counterparts (Skyla and Kyleena), with 50% of people on the former reporting no bleeding at 6 to 12 months, and 60% at five years. And the Depo-Provera shot, which you receive every three months, may be even more efficacious for this purpose; research suggests as many as 71% of users have zero visits from Aunt Flow at two years. By contrast, hormonal implants (like Nexplanon) seem to be less consistently helpful in this regard, with rates of total menstrual suppression clocking in at 22% at one year.
All of these options are either inserted or administered by a health care provider, so you’ll need to check with yours if you’re interested. They can help you weigh the potential benefits—in terms of both contraceptive power and ability to tamp down your periods—against the downsides, which may include hormonal side effects (e.g., headaches, mood swings, acne) and pain with the injection of the shot or insertion of the IUD or implant.
You might still deal with unpredictable “breakthrough” bleeding while putting off your period.
None of the methods above are totally blood-proof because of the potential for “breakthrough” bleeding, which affects up to 46% of people doing any period-delay practice, especially folks on implants. (This is super unlikely if you’re on a short-term high-dose progestin to put off one specific period.) When you’re taking medication that constantly keeps your endometrium thin, over time, some of it may break down and shed, Dr. LoPiano explains, which results in random spotting. It usually will be just that—trickling—and little more, but it can be annoying nonetheless.
Some consolation: Breakthrough bleeding does tend to decrease over time (and in the case of progestin-only pill protocols, the more consistently you pop the pill at the same time each day). If you’re having lots of unpredictable spotting with continuous use of a combination birth control, both doctors suggest finding a few days to let yourself have a typical withdrawal bleed and allow any tissue that might have loosened a bit to come out. Then, over the next several weeks of continual hormone usage, you’re less likely to wind up with a surprise stain.
If, on the other hand, you’re on a long-acting form of contraception (like an IUD, implant, or shot) and dealing with frustrating breakthrough episodes, speak to your doctor about potentially adding on a combination birth control pill temporarily, Dr. White suggests, to help nip that extra bleeding in the bud. It’s also a good idea to connect with your doctor about irregular or excessive bleeding on any of these methods because of the rare chance that it’s coming from something else, Dr. White adds, like a fibroid or mass in your cervix, for instance.
In most scenarios, though, breakthrough bleeding is just the result of your body adjusting to its new regimen and will settle down with repeated skips over time. The bottom line? Your reproductive system is super adaptable. And with certain hormone protocols, you can essentially pause your menstrual cycle—and restart it whenever you’d like (or not).
Related:
What to Do If Your Doctor Isn’t Taking Your Period Pain Seriously
How to Tell If Your Irregular Periods Are a Sign of a Bigger Health Issue
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