I thought people lost their period's when they became underweight, not this...

Literally just was forced to the hospital for a "critically low BMI." I've NEVER had a regular cycle in my life--the closest to it I ever got was getting 4 periods in 3 months like every 15-30 days (nothing the 4 years before that and nothing the 6 months after that).

But the last three months I've had bleeding towards the end of the month every month? I don't know if it's heavy enough to be a "period" (before when I menstruated it'd be like soak a super plus tampon AND pad in like four hours, now I just wear a pair of period underwear, maybe a light or regular tampon at the heaviest of times that lasts 5-6 hours. It only lasts like 3-4 days too, not anywhere from 5 to 16 days like before.

Idk, I know one of the old criteria they got rid of for anorexia was amenorrhea, but this is kinda the opposite where I get "dangerously underweight" (only according to my psychiatrist, not the MDs at l'hopital) and for the second time in 15 years post menarche have three months of something resembling a regular cycle?

Anyone have any kind of explanation?

It’s common to not have it due to malnutrition and/or extreme stress.

My grandmother was an army nurse during WWII (European front/combat/dragging wounded soldiers from the field kind of nursing), she said most nurses either didn’t have periods at all or had them very on and off (on and off was more common).

She once didn’t have it for the entire year, then it came back full speed in extremely uncomfortable situation (on the train with no supplies or accommodations).

Human body is so confusing. I’d say yes malnutrition causes disruption in a cycle but it doesn’t mean it can’t come back. Yours seems to be back for the time being but it’s not the same in terms of amount of blood

But it’s not “back” it’s like this regular pattern has appeared for the first time ever. Can malnutrition CAUSE your cycle to regulate?

Maybe your body is reacting to the quality, not so much the quantity. Micro bits of macros are filtering in and your gonads are thinking it's go-time. A little chicken, a little fruit...

That I wouldn’t know. I suspect that malnutrition wouldn’t cause cycles to become regular. But I am not a doctor.

I do know that my periods made no rhyme or reason and had no logic for the entire 40 years I had them.

They used mine to set the train schedules.

So basically for my hormones to be "normal" I have to eat like a person should, but just like 1/13th of the quantity?

I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' babies!

Who knows how the body functions in extreme situations? Maybe it does math. The nutrition aligned to fill in one slice of the area under the curve at just the right time. My cousin had twins in her forties, all my aunties said that SHE said, oh god knew it was her last chance. Life wants to live. Its the weeds sprouting in cement cracks.

I even encountered a special term for this phenomenon when I was reading up on the issue as a teen. Translated from Russian, it would be wartime amenorrhea.

Same for me back when I had them, before Morena. I knew when the next period would come to the hour of the day. Like clockwork.

Are you serious about the hour bit or is that an exaggeration? I'm surprised when people know what date they'll start. I'm just surprised when I start (unless I'm on a psych ward, that's kinda how I know I can probably expect to start).

I started late, with menarche at 2 weeks shy of 16. First I was irregular - either 35 days or 21 days between periods. But on average, always 28. Than, within a year, the menses became regular, exactly 28 days, and to the time of day. I know it can seem surprising: I was once on a camping trip with my bff and we were going to cross marshlands next day. I told her: oh well, tomorrow afternoon (the hour) my period will start right when we will be in the marshes, and she was "How do you know?"

I knew from past patterns.

Because everything has to be a problem, I’m dx’ing your reproductive hormones with OCD (not you, just the substances in you that affect your cycle).

Edit: mine have conduct disorder.

Mine were narcissistic - my gonads thought the whole effing world revolved around them. TBH, my parents encouraged them in this. I was just a vessel of no importance.

How funny, where the thread has gone with dx'ing.

True, I myself am not OCD. In fact, I have had to train myself real hard in recent years to make my life more orderly and more routinized. My natural inclination is towards messes.

See it’s funny because I have some obsessions and compulsions that I’ve talked about with my doc that do sound quite OCD-ish that have ebbed and flowed over time and we/I realized they are somewhat triggered by physical illness that doesn’t get looked at, and I probably had PANDAS as a kid so now basically sore throats make me do a lot of high school geometry and combine the “answers” in my surroundings with superstitions and then I’m “not allowed to step in specific places without placing my feet at a certain angle,” until I basically opposite-action my way back to not constantly thinking about it (which I struggled so much in middle school/high school until I’m like “this is fking ridiculous no one else gets knee injuries if they don’t touch corners,” and essentially practiced opposite action before I knew it was a thing but only with doing something just because anxiety told me to rather than because it was harmful. I’ll proudly be a slave to my lordly shame but not to irrational fear I guess haha.

But until I moved into a studio the size of some people’s closets I was soooo far from a neat freak unless you count multiple showers a day but that’s more a PTSD/post-flashback “cleansing of the crime” than a true obsession/compulsive trait. Now I just have room for like a third the dishes/utensils/kitchenware that would be convenient and am self-conscious about being gross so clean our shared tenant bathroom more than anyone else (mostly to get rid of purging evidence or just the frequent GI upset messes though) and make sure dishes are clean and I don’t have “no dishes” excuse if I want to eat. My spoon, fork, knife, bottle opener, screwdriver, and some other shyt was all one “camping utensils” but that got annoying so I broke it to two pieces and if I use a spoon I only have to clean the spoon/knife/bottle opener half instead of the whole thing if it all gets food on it, and I can use the knife and the fork at the same time with different hands now.