Has anyone experienced any changes in their hormones as a result of loosing a lot of weight?

I hope it is ok if I post this here. It's rather personal but I really would like some feedback.

About 6 or 7 months ago I began having problems with the birth control pill that I was on (I had been on it for about 5 years and had never had any problems with it). Suddenly I was having irregular bleeding and mood swings for about two weeks every month. After ruling out everything else...My doctor concluded that my hormones had changed (most likely due to loosing 90 pounds or so that point) and she switched me to a different pill I was on that pill for 4 months but I realized that my weight loss had come to a complete stand still and that I was having major problems with water retention and would gain around 6-8 pounds of water weight every month the week before my period. It was miserable. So then 2 months ago she switched me to a new pill. This one was wonderful...no more water retention problems...I started loosing again...every thing seemed wonderful...until this month. now it appears that I am having the same problems that I was having before with my original pill. ARGGGG!!! I'm so frustrated...I don't know what is going on with my body any more!!! Can anyone offer any advice? Has anyone else had any problems with their hormones changing as a result of weight loss?

I had my periods stop for a couple of months and now they are pretty irregular and I have far worse period pain which I think is due to my weight loss (I havent had pain like this since I was 16 or 17 which was also the last time I was this weight). I think its just going to be a matter of keep going back to the doctors to find a pill that suits you. i cant take the pill so I dont have good advice to give on that sorry

Yes! Yes! Yes! My hormones got completely messed up when I lost weight! (and don't worry - this is a totally appropriate topic )

I was 46 when I started the exercise and diet program that led to the 122 pound weight loss. Before then my periods were like clockwork – every 29 days. For the first three months of the diet, I didn’t have a period at all. Then two, two weeks apart. Skipped a few more months, then two kind of regular ones. Nothing for six months, then three, two weeks apart. And that was it. I was in menopause at age 47.

When I talked to my gynecologist, he said it was most definitely the weight loss that caused all the irregularity and ultimately put me in premature menopause. He said that estrogen is stored in fat - that’s why fat is a risk factor for female cancers. So when you have a massive weight loss, your body is flooded with estrogen and the whole system gets thrown completely out of whack. I’m not explaining it very scientifically, but it makes sense to me.

I don’t have advice for you except try not to be frustrated. I think Mel had similar problems with weight loss and I’m sure others have too because of the estrogen storage issue. Hopefully your hormones will normalize and stabilize once you’ve been maintaining your weight loss for awhile.

I was 46-47 when I was losing, so already having pretty freaky hormonal problems Losing 50 pounds really accelerated the peri- part of menopause. From what I've heard from other women, that's a blessing. How old are you?

Fat (especially abdominal) is a source of estrogen production, as well as your ovaries. One of the reasons that women start putting on abdominal fat as they go into menopause is because as their ovaries cease estrogen production, their bodies try to compensate by creating more via abdominal fat. If you are losing fat, you will be losing extra estrogen. This is also why obesity is linked to so many "female" cancers: breast, uterine, ovarian. Too much estrogen!

Talk to your gyno about your symptoms and let him/her know that you've been losing weight and about how much more you are planning to lose.

Mel

I just want to make it perfectly clear that Meg and I really are 2 different people.

meL

Bwah ha ha ha!

meG

Yup I agree 100% with Meg and Mel !!!

Advice? If its possible try going off the pill for about 6 months (or more) to let your system get straightened back out. Then go back to the dr. and try fresh with a very low dose pill. If its not possible, then you may just have to keep trying. But remember sometimes it takes 3 months of the same pill for your body to accept it.

Hope this helps
Robin

Before weight loss, I was on the pill for the most part, so who knows...

During my weight loss, I was dealing symptomatic fibroids and with some major major hormone-manipulating drugs, the kind you usually see in fertility clinics or used to 'fix' people who do unspeakably bad things to little children. I could have had major weight related hormonal effects and never noticed it with everything else going on. Glad that nightmare is over!

[BTW, if anyone is experiencing period pain, I HIGHLY recommend talking to your gyn and figuring out what's causing it. I had my fibroid for years without knowing about it, and just thought it was all supposed to be awful. It wasn't until things just got out of hand that I got properly diagnosed and treated, and it is just night and day in my life. The issues I went through with those darn things were every bit as traumatic, painful, and life-altering as carrying around 100lbs of excess weight. Not all fibroids are symptomatic, and certainly not all gynecological pain issues are fibroids, but I suffered needlessly for years, because I didn't know any better, and I'm a pretty educated chick. ]

Back on topic...

Now that I'm weight-stable, everything is pretty much evened out for me, hormonally. Very regular and very boring--a GOOD thing. Of course, I still have plenty of body fat left (mid 20 percent), and my food intake is 'good' in the preventing amenorrhea sense.

Anne

You guys are awesome! Thanks for all the feedback. I was beginning to feel so frustrated that my body had just gone nuts lol...My gyno is fabulous but I don't think that she has dealt with many patients that have lost a lot of weight...none of the physicians I've seen in the last year have really.

MeG and MeL (Mel/Meg, Megel, whoever you are lol) - Your explanations about estrogen being stored in fat cells made perfect sense!!! I feel hopeful again that my body will soon start to regulate itself properly. I'm 24 so menopause is a long way off .

I think I'm going to stay on these pills for a while, I really like the fact that don't cause me to retain as much water as I used to. I have a feeling that I'm going to have problems with just about any of the pills out there until my body becomes "normal". My yearly is in early January so I will probably just wait it out until then unless it becomes a problem.

Robin - I would love to go off the pill, however I think that not being on it might be worse . I'm allergic to latex and nonoxidil 9 or whatever that stuff is called...so my options are pretty limited...I'm currently very happily married...I want to stay that way.

.

This is a bit off topic but I dont want to start a new topic just on this and its loosely hormone related. I've been maintaining for a while I weigh myself on one of two local scales (one of the two is always out of order boots is so unreliable) once or twice a week. I'm normally ok but sometimes I just feel fat even though the scales are telling me I'm maintaining.
I weighed myself twice this week and I've actually lost weight from last week but I feel fatter and my clothes feel tighter. I cant work out whether this is psychological due to time of month etc. My hormones have been a lot worse since I lost the weight, or whether I'm retaining water or something due to time of the month and everything is actually slightly tighter. But surely then I would be heavier on the scales?
My boobs are definitely bigger during my time of the month I know I'm not imagining that but I'm a bit worried that apart from that I am obsessing too much and becoming too concerned about what I weigh.
I'm really missing the sense of achievement of losing weight I used to get a bit of a rush each week when I saw on the scales that I had lost weight and maintaining just isnt the same.
Does anyone else feel like this or is it just me.?

Ah, , this is the biggest downfall of maintenance, not seeing the scale move. So now I have to focus my goals on other things, such as exercise related goals... Some weeks for me it's improving my running time, other weeks it's the speed. I also make goals in the gym by lifting heavier, trying new workout routines, etc... I'm not quite at goal yet, but I loose weight sooooooo dang slowly, at maybe 1# per month, I may as well be a maintainer... I have 10# or so to loose, but I'm in a loose size 8, so I'm happy, more or less ...I have almost given up on the "snail" scale but still weigh myself twice/week and am happy when I see it fluctuate up, down, up, down, then down, down... It's a mind game really....

We've been talking about the Thin for Life book by Ann Fletcher... It has helped be tremendously lately putting things in perspective when I am a true maintainer...

HTH...TTFN...

I haven't been successful with the pill, tho. I took it for a few years at 2 different times in my life. I have some trouble with mood disoders, and playing around with hormones makes it worse. So I got a copper IUD inserted 3 years ago--you can wear it for 10 years. My insurance covered it 100%. I have been very happy with it as birth control, tho. it did make my periods much heavier for the first few months.

Just throwing it out there as another option to consider. I think IUDs are recommended for women who have already had children. They are extremely reliable.

I have maintained at my WW lifetime goal for 3 consecutive weeks now. I do need to shake up my workout routine so it stays interesting.

Have a good weekend!

I have a Mirena and loved it until April 2011. I started having more significant breakthrough bleeding and up to that point I basically had no period. Then in June and July this year I had a full on period. When August hit I had a period for most of the month and started into September as well. I saw my gynecologist who suspected an estrogen deficiency due to my weight-loss that was causing the excessive bleeding and I was also experiencing some hair loss. She prescribed a low dose birth control pill to perhaps balance out the estrogen levels and hopefully stop the bleeding. That is much better controlled now. However I am now experiencing frequent nausea that I suspect is caused by the new pill. It is so frustrating to have to deal with on top of trying to make it to my goal weight!

This thread is old but I'll share as well. When I lost weight my periods, which were very irregular in my 30s until I started on thyroid replacement meds, were much more frequent and heavy--so heavy that I only wore black for 3-4 days during the heaviest. A year and a half ago, I opted for an endometrial ablation. That did the trick! I've only had some trace spotting since. But I'm at a different place in my life as I'm 49 and not interested in having any more children than the two I have.