Where the hell is my period?
If you have missed your periods on a hike, you’re not alone.
First time my period disappeared I was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). I didn’t try to find out why. I had a feeling I knew the reason – higher physical activity, extreme heat, calorie deficiency led to my body deciding to preserve only the vital organs and “switch off” such unnecessary things as reproductive system.
I didn’t mind not having to deal with this monthly inconvenience at all. I figured it will go back to normal once I resume my normal, earthly existence. It didn’t. I had to visit a doctor and get a prescription of progesterone to bring my period back.
Then, I hiked out on the Te Araroa trail in New Zealand and, predictably, my menses were gone yet again. No matter how much I enjoyed not having to deal with it, I decided this can’t be healthy for my body and I needed to do more research on the matter this time, so once I got service I consulted google. Ever tried searching something like “absence of period during a hike”? I got tons of pages, and I mean TONS, advising on “how to deal with your period on a hike” and nothing that actually answered the question I typed into the search bar. I know I haven’t dealt with a period on a hike a lot, so I’m not the best judge of it, but really, how hard is it? Menstrual cup and water. Pads and tampons and a non-transparent bag to store the used ones. It’s not rocket science. We really don’t need 20 articles explaining how to deal with it. What we do need is at least one article explaining why you sometimes don’t get your period and how to fix it. The whole world wide web is full of pointless garbage but once you try looking for something apparently very common, you get nothing! And Amenorrhea (absence of period) is apparently quite common.
I stumbled upon my first answers accidentally, reading a book “Run fast. Cook fast. Eat Slow.” by Shalane Flanagan and Elyse Kopecky, “Athletic amenorrhea. Also called secondary or hypothalamic amenorrhea, is the absence of menstruation directly related to an energy deficiency. When the body isn’t getting enough high- quality fuel, it begins to shut down systems that aren’t necessary for survival, and the female reproductive system is one of the first to go”, the book confirmed my hypothesis. Statistics on just how many women experience exercise induced amenorrhea is scarce. Some sources say it affects only 3-4% of women 1. When compared to athletic women, the numbers jump to 15% and even as high as 66% 2. The reasons amenorrhea is not widely discussed are a few. There is a certain stigma around those topics, so some women may not admit to having disorders as such. I am probably not alone in being a little tired of “you must be pregnant” jokes when I do mention it to people, as if I haven’t already ruled that out. Others might find absence of it too convenient to treat it, however, when you think about possible consequences of a prolonged missing period – osteoporosis (decreased bone density), infertility, you may want to bring it back.
Now how do you bring it back?
You could try searching for articles targeted specifically at athletes such as this one or this one. You may not think of yourself as an athlete, but if you are hiking all day, every day – you kind of are one, at least for now.
I can also share what seems to have helped me.
After reading some of the studies and articles I found, I realized I should do two things:
· Make sure I am not (or as little as possible) calorie deficient
· Rest as much as possible
I started hiking less miles and taking more zero days (days when you do not hike). I made my lunch tortilla wraps as nutritionally valuable as I could, wrapping every vegetable that could survive a couple of fridge-less days including carrots, beets, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and even spring onion. I lined the wraps with nori weed and marmite and tossed seeds on top to the point they looked so healthy, a hiker once couldn’t believe I just made that professionally looking work of art in the middle of nowhere.
I don’t know if that’s what worked, but my menses did come back while I was still on the hike and I wanted to share it, because somebody needs to address a question of a missing period during a hike with a response other than how to use a menstrual cup when you do have a period. Spoiler alert – it’s real easy.