I stopped taking bcp in Feb. Since march I have been on a 45 day cycle. Not a day early or late. Excatly 45 days. I know a 28 day cycle is ideal but with pcos I'm wondering if this is progress for me. Has anyone else here have a cycle longer than 28 days?

A while back I was having the same issue. I'm certainly no doctor and I may not even be remembering this correctly, but my doctor said that such a long cycle doesn't really count as a cycle and there are still health issues associated with it despite the regularity. But, again, I may be remembering it wrong and every woman is different, so it might be worth giving your doctor a call. Wish I could be more helpful! :-)

I've gone 1+ years without one and I just came off BCP and I'm still going on CD 75. And counting. The best I ever did when I was TTC and finally got pregnant was 60 days cycles. I don't let it go past 90 days -- I go request provera now that I know I can do that.

Unless I'm on BCP, I don't think I've ever had anything like a 28 day one.

A.

The perfect 28 day cycle was invented by the manufacturers of the contraceptive pill. It's actually quite rare for a woman to have a 28 day cycle every single time. Quite apart from natural slight irregularity, the average is actually 29 days. This is from the lunar cycle, as light and darkness affect hormones and humans evolved outdoors. Now that we live indoors and our light/darkness exposure is totally different, a number of things have changed, and less regular menstrual cycles are among them. (Not that experimenting with forms of light therapy ever did squat to regulate my very mildly irregular cycles, which average 27 but vary by around a week either side of that, but there have been a few trials with nightlights and such which have done reasonably well.)

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about a 45 day cycle coming off the pill, as it's normal for your hormones to take anything up to a year to settle down again. Weight loss disrupts hormones too, mine have gone a bit crazy since starting to lose weight and I'm not the only one. Do whatever works for you to keep your hormones as happy as possible, whether it's exercise or starflower oil or what have you, and give them time. If you don't like being unsure when your period is due, take up Fertility Awareness Method charting, it's easy and quite useful.

(Disclaimer: I don't have PCOS, although I have slight suspicions that I might, but I do know a fair amount about how menstrual cycles work.)