Women's Health Community

Hi and welcome here,

While you're waiting for responses, please look into free clinics, women's clinics, etc., in your area. If you are going to college, they will have a health services. And reach out to family and friends to help you financially if that's your only recourse.

The sooner you see someone, the better. According to WebMD articles, untreated Chlamydia can lead to the symptoms you describe as well as more serious complications.

Dear An: Caprice has spoken correctly. The lining of the uterus can become inflamed with a chlamydia infection. This can lead to erratic or prolonged bleeding. Once the infection is treated with antibiotics the bleeding problem should resolve. In terms of getting treatment, your local county family planning clinic or local county STD clinic will offer free or low cost treatment. In some states one can even get the antibiotics to treat your partner(s).

Once the chlamydia has been treated, if the prolonged bleeding persists, then the most common cause would be having missed ovulations over the past two months. As you may know, in a normal cycle, estrogen is produced all month. Estrogen is responsible for building up the lining of your uterus so you have something to shed each month. In a normal cycle, progesterone production increases following ovulation. Progesterone "stabilizes" the uterine lining in preparation for a possible implantation of a new pregnancy. If you are not pregnant that month the levels of estrogen and progesterone fall, triggering the release of the uterine lining—your period.



However, if you do not ovulate, the estrogen build up of the lining continues, but without the usual ovulation associated progesterone. Thus, the hormone levels don't decline, and the lining stays up inside the uterus—as a missed/late period. Alternatively the lining can begin to shed under its own weight producing prolonged bleeding.

Causes for not ovulating are multifold: thyroid problems, pituitary problems, ovarian cysts, physical stressors (eg sudden increases in exercise, crash dieting), emotional stressors (problems with parents or boyfriends/girlfriends, finances), increased body weight, anorexia, rotating shifts at work, etc.

One last thought, you may be able to get the antibiotics for chlamydia in a couple of other places. The first is a federal "safety net clinic. Here is a link to the closest one in your area:

http://findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov/Search_HCC.aspx

The second possibility is that, for women living in Alaska, Maryland, West Virginia, Philadelphia PA, Washington DC, and select counties in Illinois, they can order free, in home testing kits for gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trich over the phone or on line:

http://.iwantthekit.org

Research-based programs will send out kits, process them in a standard lab, and the woman can receive her results through the privacy of her home computer. If she tests positive, medications are provided through an associated pharmacy.

Then if you get the chlamydia treated, a family planning clinic can then follow you for the bleeding issues.

Yours,
Jane