COVID, the vaccination and your period.

I have been taking a peek at some recent research on COVID 19 in you lovely ladies and how it might affect your menstrual cycle along with possible vaccine implications too – how cool is it that this research is even being done?! I was so pleasantly surprised to come across this. The world is changing, ladies, we are coming UP and I LOVE IT!

The data is obviously very new and very limited at the moment so it is not wise to draw solid conclusions from it and it is absolutely not personal guidance or medical advice!

We knew before that viruses can affect the menstrual cycle in us ladies and some of you glorious girls have reported that since having COVID their menstrual cycle has become irregular, abnormal, prolonged or less frequent. The irregularity in cycles since before the pandemic rolled around has generally been reported as being increased even when not diagnosed with COVID too – now we know the effect that stress can have on our menstrual cycles, both mentally and physical stress, could it be a contributing factor? I suspect so, personally.

Another suspicion actually highlighted by others could be a change in lifestyle factors due to the pandemic – perhaps a more sedentary lifestyle, a less-health seeking one, or maybe even an increase in activity due to more time on people’s hands leading to Relative Energy Deficiency Syndrome (REDS) perhaps with a lack of nutrition knowledge in the area? Maybe far-fetched and a loose link but entirely feasible I’d say.

You ladies have also reported that you suspect that the COVID vaccine may also have had some impact on your cycles with the most prevalent reports being around heavier, irregular or late periods after your vaccine. There is previous research in days gone by of other vaccines potentially impacting cycles but it is important to note that these all seem to be short-term. NO PANIC – especially in relation to fertility, there is absolutely no evidence at the moment to suggest that fertility is affected. It’s actually worth saying now that, at this stage, I don’t think that ANY of this is worth any stress over looking at the information that we have. I just thought it was super cool that it was being looked at. As mentioned above though, we cannot draw cause and effect here due to such limited data at the moment, particularly as we know that there are SO many factors including our health, nutrition, lifestyle and training that can play a part in the intricacies of what our menstrual cycles get up to.

I’d love to know, have you had COVID? Had you noticed any changes? Perhaps you hadn’t put them down to COVID or your vaccine but now it’s making you think? Talk to me team.

Peace and love, A x