I am a 17 yr old female athlete and I have irregular cycles. I am super inconsistent on my runs. If feel super tired going really slow a majority of the time, I get my period super irregularly but when I do have it, I feel really well on runs. Does anyone know if my hormones could be affecting this? Any ideas?
When was your last physical? When was your last blood tests? Any dietary restrictions?
In order to help you, we need some ideas of what your workouts are like for a week or two, how much training you are doing, what your times are like.
runDirtyrun wrote:
When was your last physical? When was your last blood tests? Any dietary restrictions?
In order to help you, we need some ideas of what your workouts are like for a week or two, how much training you are doing, what your times are like.
No, we really don't need to know any of that stuff. Here's the bottom line, OP: You probably aren't getting enough calories in your diet. It's very bad for you. It will mess up your body and lead to low bone density, osteoporosis, and stress fractures.
You may not have a full-blown eating disorder, but it's likely that you've got some kind of "disordered eating." Usually the pattern with high school girls is not eating enough calories, not eating enough fat, and not eating enough meat. More of all of that, plus maybe a multivitamin, should sort things out quickly. If it does not, see a doctor who works with female runners and who knows this stuff, since there may be some underlying health issues too.
Really though please don't blow this stuff off. Female runners with very irregular periods are almost twice as likely to get stress fractures.
mwhscoach wrote: Here's the bottom line,
How about some more information from the OP before diagnosing her with an eating disorder?
I hope you don't actually coach women/girls.
The short answer is yes, but it's not clear what's going on. There are several possibilities here, so you want to progress along a specific path until you get an answer.
1. See your doctor. If he or she is not familiar with female HS athletes, then find someone who is. This should hopefully lead to blood work and a variety of tests (vitamin D, ferritin, etc, etc, etc.).
2. See a nutritionist and go over your intake. This will help determine if you've got a caloric deficit, which can contribute to losing your period. I strongly recommend this step as it can help identify strategies for fueling your training.
3. Depending on what you learn from your blood work, you may need to take further steps that range from seeing an endocrinologist (preferably sports endocrinologist if you can find one) to seeing a specialist who deals with thyroid issues.