How to Stop Menstrual Period Temporarily?

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How long you can delay the period with traditional birth control pills? The answer varies from woman to woman. While some can do it for up to 9 weeks (almost 3 months) or more, others only get 6 weeks.

Here are the common procedures suggested by doctors:

  1. To delay the period, you need to take at least 2 packages of traditional birth control pills. Each package contains 21 active pills and 7 inactive pills. One pill for one day.
  2. If this is your first time, you are usually asked to take 21 active pills from the first package. Then continue the next 21 active pills from the second package – skip the inactive pills from the first package. So, you need to take the active pills for six weeks in a row!
  3. After 6 weeks, then you are usually asked to take the inactive pills from the second package to get the withdrawal bleeding.

If after 7 weeks you don’t have any side effect, your doctor usually can give you a ticket to continuously take 21 x 3 active pills from 3 packages of birth control pills to get a delayed period for 9 weeks – or even 12 weeks in the cycle afterward if there is also no any serious side effect after delaying the period for 9 weeks.

Extended-cycle birth control pills with FDA approval

There are 3 major FDA-approved birth control pills that are specially designed to extend the time between periods [5].

It is designed with low doses of estrogen & progesterone that can be continuously taken for 12 months. So, there will be no break and no inactive pill – this means you can continuously skip the period for one year.

It can be used to skip period for about 3 months. In other words, you can continuously take it for 12 weeks (84 days) and followed with 1 week of break by taking active pills that contain ‘very low dose’ of estrogen.

The use of very low dose of estrogen for pills during week 13 can help reduce bloating, reduce bleeding, or other side effects instead of using inactive pills.


Like seasonique menstrual-suppressing pill, seasonale also can be used to stop menstrual period temporarily for about 3 months. You can take continuously the pills for about 12 weeks or 84 days, but in this regimen you will take the inactive pills during week 13 for withdrawal bleeding.

Depo-Provera for low-maintenance option

If you don’t like the idea of taking a pill every day, Depo-Provera may be the answer. It is also more effective than other methods mentioned before [6].

But since Depo-Provera contains high dose of hormones and can be potential to cause more side effects – it is currently available only with prescription and not recommended for long-term use.

So, you need to discuss first with your doctor before taking it. In general, it is more purposed to help prevent a pregnancy or for birth control instead of for delaying period.

The normal fertility cycle can return about few months or more than one year after stopping Depo-Provera. For this reason, it is not too recommended when you are still expecting a pregnancy.

It is also not recommended for younger women. The reason is due to it can give more impact on the strength of the bones than other methods. Some studies found that it can lead to loss in bone density.

Citations:

  1. http://www.mayoclinic.org/womens-health/ART-20044044
  2. http://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/features/no-more-periods?page=3
  3. http://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/features/no-more-periods?page=4
  4. http://www.mayoclinic.org/womens-health/ART-20044044?pg=2
  5. http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/extended-cycle-birth-control-pills-putting-periods-hold
  6. http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/depo-provera

All of these references accessed on January 2014

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