Why is my period so light and brown
Brown Period Blood | PCOS, STDs, Ovulation | Is Brown Discharge Normal?
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so i had a patient that came in
complaining of brown vaginal discharge
for about a week
she was really anxious about it because
there was a really foul smell
she was shocked to learn that the cause
of the vaginal discharge was
let's talk about brown period blood i
get asked about this
a lot because people really are
wondering if this is
normal or if it's a sign that something
is wrong so in this video i'm going to
talk about what
normal brown period blood is and why you
have it
at the end however i'm going to talk
about when it's abnormal and what you
should do about it so be sure to watch
the end so you don't miss anything
important but first
my name is diana i'm a physician
assistant and i specialize in women's
health and gynecology
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so in order to answer this let's go over
what your period blood is
so it's a mixture of blood and
endometrial tissue
we call it menstrual flow or
menstruation in your cycle
after you've had a period the inside
lining of your uterus called the
endometrium
slowly gets thicker to get ready for
implantation
for a fertilized egg if your egg doesn't
get fertilized it won't implant
and at the end of the cycle the
endometrium and blood sloughs off
and comes out in the vagina what you
know as your period
now imagine you accidentally cut your
finger and it starts to bleed
what color is the blood kind of a bright
red right
so it's bleeding and you don't want it
to get everywhere so what do you do
you put a band-aid on it next day the
bleeding stop and you take off the
band-aid
is the blood on the band-aid bright red
anymore no it's a very dark brown
the reason is because when blood touches
oxygen it oxidizes and it turns from a
normal red color to
dark brown and same thing happens to you
with your period blood so at first
when you're having your period the blood
is new and it's red but the last of the
blood up inside the uterus
gets older and it has oxidized and it
turns brown and that's it
the blood is simply just older blood so
it's very common for the blood
to be dark brown at the end of your
period and some women even continue to
spot brown blood for a few days after
their period
is pretty much done now let's talk about
brown blood in the middle of your cycle
so in the middle of your cycle on
average around day 14 of your cycle you
ovulate which means an egg is released
from one of your follicles
it travels down your fallopian tube and
into the uterus where like i mentioned
earlier
if it's been fertilized it will implant
and if not it will come out with your
endometrial lining and blood
when the follicle releases the egg there
can sometimes be a little bit of
bleeding from the follicle itself
the blood also travels down the
fallopian to the uterus
and then out through your vagina now
often ovulation blood is
light pink because it's a little bit of
blood mixed with vaginal discharge but
if the blood takes time to come out
it could be dark brown usually ovulation
bleeding though is very light
now let's talk about when you need to be
concerned
for brown spotting but before i do if
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so reasons for abnormal brown discharge
first off sexually transmitted
infections can cause vaginal discharge
the colors could be green and they could
be yellow and of course
brown now often discharged from an sti
can have
other symptoms associated with it like
itching burning or an odor
if you're concerned about an sti you
need to get seen by your healthcare
provider another option if you don't
want to do that
is just order a home test kit they mail
the kit to your home so you can check
for an infection yourself pretty cool
i'll link to it in the video description
down below next you can have pid which
is short for
pelvic inflammatory disease which is an
infection of the female reproductive
organs
symptoms could be pelvic pain fever pain
with intercourse pain with urination
smelly discharge and of course brown
discharge if you have these symptoms you
definitely need to see your healthcare
provider and
be evaluated if they think you have pid
or pelvic inflammatory disease
they will want to give you antibiotics
next foreign body inside your vagina
most often the culprit a tampon so if a
tampon accidentally gets forgotten up
there and stays up there for a day or
more
you could definitely notice two things
number one dark
brown or blackish discharge and number
two a really
foul odor if this happens to you
you aren't the first i guarantee it i
have taken out plenty of retained
tampons
from my patients over my career it can
be easy to forget
but try not to keeping a tampon in for
more than eight hours can
increase your chances of having
something called toxic shock syndrome
to go over it briefly symptoms of toxic
shock syndrome are fever
rash body aches lightheadedness vomiting
diarrhea
worsening symptoms can be confusion and
seizures any symptoms like that you need
to go to the er
next pcos or polycystic ovarian syndrome
it can cause difficulty with weight loss
acne less frequent and irregular
bleeding and spotting
and the spotting can often be dark brown
also an ectopic pregnancy can cause
brown discharge if you've missed a
period or if you've had a positive
pregnancy test and you start to
experience pelvic pain and brownish
watery discharge
you need to see your health care
provider right away finally cervical
cancer
now if you are having brown discharge
please know that it is very
very unlikely that you have cervical
cancer i'm only mentioning it to be
thorough but i don't want you to get
nervous thinking that you could have
cancer
just make sure you're doing your routine
pap test as directed by your health care
provider
so back to my patient that i mentioned
at the beginning of the video
she ended up having a retained tampon i
removed it right there at the office
it took about 30 seconds we did a little
something to help prevent infection
and problem was solved so i hope this
was helpful for you if it was hit
subscribe hit the notification bell
uh down here i'm gonna put my video
where i talk about if it's normal to
have a vaginal discharge every day
click on that video and i will see you
over there
but if you have a history of yeast
infections before you know what it feels
like and you're
sure that what you're having now is a
yeast infection then this is a really
good place to start
so
