Women’s hormones, specifically progesterone and oestrogen, can control many things in her body, like vaginal dryness, pregnancy or menopause. The most important thing that these two hormones affect is the menstrual cycle.
The menstrual cycle acts as an internal calendar of your body and it keeps track of your ovulation, pregnancy chances and period. Did you ever feel like having a period on a specific day can ruin it? This is usually the case on holidays and events, but even having a busy schedule during one week can make you regret that you’re a woman when the period occurs.
What is Norethisterone?
Have you ever thought about delaying your period when you knew that it was gonna be a burden? What if we told you that there was a medication for that? Norethisterone regulates your cycle in order to ensure you can control it whenever you want. Read on to learn more about it.
The main ingredient of Norethisterone is a substance called progestogen that serves as a replacement for progesterone. When ingested, it keeps hormone levels high artificially and it helps to delay the period.
Before you understand the function of Norethisterone, it’s important to know how periods work. Every period occurs at the beginning of a menstrual cycle and lasts for about 7 days. After you’re done having your period, oestrogen levels increase in order to prepare for ovulation. In the middle of your cycle, you experience ovulation, which is usually a week after the period has ended.
Ovulation is actually the process of your mature egg being released from the ovary and into the uterus. Some women can physically feel ovulation as a dull cramp that lasts for a short amount of time. After ovulation, oestrogen drops and progesterone increases.
This is happening in order to thicken the uterus so everything can be ready for when the egg gets fertilised. Oestrogen will then slightly increase, following the progesterone pattern and they’ll both drop to normal if the fertilisation doesn’t occur. This takes another 14 days to happen and when they’re back to their normal levels, your menstrual cycle begins again.
Now that you’re familiar with your internal process of ovulation and menstruation, you can easily understand the function of Norethisterone. Five days before you end your cycle, progesterone levels are dropping and this means that the egg isn’t fertilised. Period flushes the thick layer of the uterus lining since it’s not required for the pregnancy that won’t happen.
When you take Norethisterone, it helps progesterone to stay high so that the period doesn’t begin.
How is Norethisterone used?
When you’re familiar with the timing of your menstrual cycle, you can easily predict when your next period is going to occur. You should take Norethisterone not later than 3 days prior to your period. It won’t work if you take it 2 days before the period or later during the cycle. Utovlan is another medicine that helps delay the period and the instructions are the same.
You can safely take Norethisterone for about 20 days, without any worries. This can delay your period for around 17 days if taken properly! Imagine the possibilities of acing that work presentation or running a full marathon and not getting a huge cramp in the middle of it!
What side effects does Norethisterone have?
Of course, this medicine isn’t perfect and some women may experience certain side effects. After you finish your Norethisterone treatment, you can get irregular bleeding or spotting between the cycles. On the other hand, your next menstruation might have a heavy flow, it might get delayed or even missing for a month. Other side effects include:
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Dizziness
- Headache
- Breast tenderness.
However, these should not be alarming, as some women already experience these side effects during their PMS.
