Dear Science,

My body has been up to some strange things lately. After I quit taking the pill (I'd been taking Ortho Cyclen on and off for about eight years), my period stopped. No surprises there, as this had happened to me before. But it hasn't started again (it's been eight months!). I'm definitely not pregnant. I am well nourished, exercise moderately, and have a healthy BMI. When I asked my parents (a doctor and a nurse) what's going on, they told me that the medical literature shows that marijuana disrupts female sex hormones (I'm an almost-daily smoker). This sounded highly unlikely, but I have had other symptoms that would seem indicative of a hormonal imbalance: My skin is worse than it's been since high school and my body hair seems thicker and longer. I can't afford to see an endocrinologist. Please help!

Wasn't Expecting Endocrine Disruption

Science first must perseverate one more time on this point: It's a national embarrassment that the United States does not have a universal single-payer health-care system. WEED, see a doctor; become Canadian if necessary. Your fearful correspondent cannot provide anything even resembling medical advice via a Stranger column.

The human reproductive system, particularly in women, is objectively absurd. To wit, how periods happen: At the end of your last period, estrogen and progesterone (sex hormones, most of which are slightly mangled cholesterol) levels are delightfully low. A little nubbin of tissue attached to your brain (the pituitary, if you must know), not feeling any estrogen, starts pumping out follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). The FSH causes your ovaries to start maturing little follicles, so that each produces some estrogen—with one follicle becoming the true master of the ovaries that month. When estrogen levels get high enough, the pituitary stops making FSH (too much estrogen, it says) and zaps out a burst of luteinizing hormone (LH). The LH causes the big kahuna follicle to burst—squirting the egg into the abdomen—and start producing progesterone. Soon, there is more progesterone than estrogen. Everyone waits around for some sperm. If no sperm comes along to fertilize the egg (and signal the joyous event to the now aged follicle with yet another hormone), the follicle dies off, progesterone and estrogen levels drop precipitously, and you have a period. Repeat until you hit 52 (or so).

A problem anywhere along this complicated chain results in you without a period. Pot has been shown in some animal and human studies to muck up LH production. (Recall: No LH means no follicle bursting, no progesterone production, and, therefore, no period.) Still, with so many things that can possibly go wrong, dozens of other factors could be stopping your periods. See a doctor, even if it bankrupts you. It's the American way.

Hormonally Yours,

Science

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