42
votes
The body’s immune system responding to a COVID vaccine, and not the vaccine itself, is likely the cause of menstrual cycle changes experienced after vaccination
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- Title
- Did the COVID vax really alter people's periods?
- Authors
- Andrew Thurston-Boston U.
- Published
- Jul 26 2023
- Word count
- 587 words
The conclusion of the study was that the vaccine did alter menstrual cycle length, but not permanently:
The study participants were women between the ages of 21-45 who were trying to become pregnant without fertility treatment - e.g., not using birth control in any form. The study identified 1,137 women who appeared to be eligible study participants - and then excluded 279 of them who reported irregular periods and 33 of them whose normal cycles were < 24 days or > 38 days, leaving 825 participants whose cycle length was measured for the study. The vaccinated participants used only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, not the J&J vaccine.
The two groups studied - vaccinated and non-vaccinated - weren't assigned at random, participants self-selected whether or not they wanted to be vaccinated. Unsurprisingly, this led to significant variations in the characteristics of the different populations - as the study states, "[p]articipants who were vaccinated during the study period had higher educational attainment and income, and were less likely to have a previous birth compared with those who were unvaccinated [...]."
The study says:
.. which, in the linked article, becomes:
Which, of course, is essentially the definition of a vaccine, versus a medicine.
I'm wary of a summary of a study that translates "we hypothesized" into "they determined."
I'm glad they did the study - but frustrated that there's a temptation to overgeneralize from "this specific population didn't seem to experience a long-term negative impact on these measures" to "the vaccine didn't alter periods." This is particularly true if the study is used to marginalize or suppress reports from people in other populations who did experience changes apparently caused by vaccination. The study told us nothing about the vaccine's impact on women taking hormonal (or other) birth control, women outside the age range specified, women who weren't trying to conceive, or women who already experienced irregular or less common patterns of menstruation, and women who took the J&J vaccine (given to 19 million people).
The science isn't done - it's just beginning.
So the headline was as stupid as it sounds? Like saying "it turns out it's not bullets that kill people but rather the damage bullets do to people's bodies?"
Glad I wasn’t the only one that noticed that, I think they were just trying to avoid directly saying that the vaccine caused it maybe to avoid potential backlash.
I'm 100% sure that the vaccine had an effect for me. I'm a trans man, on T for over 10 years, never had any blood at any point since starting. Two weeks after each vaccine shot (had three), there was some spotting. My endocrinologist treats about 100 other trans men and said that for those who hadn't had surgery yet, it was pretty common. Luckily wasn't permanent though.
I didn't have any other side effects at all, bit that was pretty horrifying - about 4 weeks to go until that won't be a problem anymore though :)
It seems like this would be interesting to do research on for so many different reasons. Menstrual cycles are affected by many different things, and the diversity in female hormonal levels both in the single individual (cycles) and between individuals have been the main reason for using only men for drug trials for so long.
A body that has been treated with male hormones, yet suddenly responds in ways aligned with the typical female cycle seems like it could provide insights that might benefit a wide variety of cases.
How would other vaccines and vaccine types affect the body, for example. This is data that should be easy enough to gather almost passively over time. People take vaccines as adults all the time for a multitude of reasons.
I'm thinking this is one of those things that hasn't been considered for documentation because of how rare the combination of this particular hormonal treatment was, and relatively speaking still is, with the specific situation of getting a vaccine in adulthood.
I think it is a super interesting field of study as it seems the hormone profile influences much more than most doctors would expect. There is some research being done on the "trans gap", basically how different symptoms and medications influence or are influenced by cross-sex hormones. Obviously, medications should also be tested on women and it's astounding that it's taken people so long to realize that.
Some obvious things like body temperature, calorie expenditure, athletic measures definitely fall squarely in the male range for me. Less obvious ones I'm not sure on. For example, prostate cancer risk would be interesting as studies have shown that trans men likely develop prostate-analogous tissues, but also something like heart attack symptoms could also be different or mixed. I haven't had any other vaccines provoke any strange symptoms though. Have to say, the kind is study proposed above would be pretty difficult to recruit willing participants for!
You've hit on one of my growing irritations with how trans folks are treated. We could be learning so much about the biology of sexual dimorphism, about health conditions, about the psychology of our society if we could just stop being assholes about it.
My wife tells me something shes noticed since taking estrogen, we try looking it up, and there's just a dead space in research. Its like no one bothers taking notes on marginalized people, because to acknowledge it could be helpful is political- when it could absolutely be helping all of us.
Given that women were excluded from all clinical trials until just a few years ago and are still underrepresented in many mainstream disease clinical trials https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2021/06/women-and-men-are-underrepresented-in-clinical-trials/ (and included now only because they are required to be for the trials to receive government funding), we have an overwhelming amount of work to do to reduce bias in the medical research community who seem to prefer male-only datasets.
So many unique opportunities - like studying the effects of the introduction of mRNA technology in the trans population - have been forever lost. No one will ever know what critical lifesaving knowledge we're turning our backs on: what a tragedy.
There is a ton about womens reproductive health we just don't fully understand.
You know what else impacts it? Tear gas, apparently:
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/04/28/study-finds-widespread-reports-of-menstrual-irregularities-among-portland-protesters/
Also, Covid. My wife and I have been infertile since we had it more than 3 years ago. No more periods.
Anyhoo, the uterus is part of the immune system and I'm willing to bet all vaccines can result in funny periods. But since most vaccines are given to children there isn't a big hoo ha about it.
I got my period twice in one month after the vaccine, but went back to normal after a couple of months, so I wasn't too worried. Had a few friends experience the same. Still glad to have gotten the vaccine though! Aside from that I didn't experience anything other than the normal side effects (flu-like symptoms for a couple of days, but I forgot which vaccine brand that was).
I had the exact same experience after my first shot (pfizer), got my period during what should have been mid-cycle - weirded me out as someone who's been as regular as clockwork since I got my first period at 12. Each subsequent shot has had a minor impact on my schedule and increased the length by a day for a few months. I had my first (to my knowledge) bout of covid a few weeks ago and it seems to have done the same thing.
I'm admittedly curious how they calculated that down to a decimal point. Anyways, glad they debunked that rumor. However, now I'm wondering if Covid alters menstruation given all the long Covid effects out there.
it's just an average. from the paper:
It's like saying that the average woman gives birth to 2.6 babies in their lifetime. It is average with the precision of 1 baby (or 1 day in this example).