Ovulation Bleeding And Spotting: 10 Common Questions Answered
Sylvia Kang
MD, FACOG
You may have noticed bleeding and spotting in the middle of your cycle. If you are trying to conceive, you may wonder if this means you are ovulating. Ovulation bleeding doesnt necessarily happen to every woman or every cycle. Other pathological conditions can cause intermenstrual bleeding as well.
When Do You Ovulate
Now that weve reviewed what ovulation is, youre probably wondering when ovulation occurs. You may have heard that ovulation typically happens on day 15 of your menstrual cycle, but its not the same for everyone.
If youre like most women of childbearing age, your menstrual cycle lasts between 28 and 32 days, and ovulation usually hits between days 10 and 19 of that cycleabout 12 to 16 days before your next period. In healthy women, ovulation occurs 14 days before the onset of your period, says Donnica L. Moore, MD, president of Sapphire Womens Health Group in Chester, New Jersey. So if your cycle is 35 days, ovulation will happen on day 21 of that cyclebut if your cycle is 21 days, ovulation will happen on day seven.
The timing of ovulation can vary from cycle to cycle and from woman to woman, adds Shannon M. Clark, MD, associate professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in Galveston, Texas, which is why its a good idea to get familiar with your bodys menstrual calendar for at least three months or so, to help you better estimate your own ovulation cycle.
How Do You Recognize Ovulation Spotting
Ovulation spotting is often characterized by very light bleeding, unlike what you may experience during your period. It is light vaginal bleeding, usually happening outside your regular menstrual bleedings.
The color of blood ranges from light pink to dark brown, or bright red, depending on the speed of blood flow. Light pink indicates the blood is mixed with the cervical fluid. Women usually produce more cervical fluid around the time of ovulation and the bleeding could be caused by changes in hormone level, specifically the drop of estrogen hormone right before ovulation, which causes the inner lining of the uterus to shed.
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What Causes Bloating During Ovulation And Weight Gain
Midcycle weight gain that follows a pattern is not a cause for alarm. Weight gain during ovulation occurs because of changes to your body hormones, as both progesterone and estrogen make you retain more fluid than normal.
If this occurs, you can add a few pounds for a few days, so, its not something you should worry about. Though, you may still find you add more weight just before your period.
Ovulation Bloating And Weight Gain
Bloating during ovulation frequently leads to mild weight gain because of hormone-based water retention and fuller breasts. Occasionally, this accumulation of fluids may be noticeable around the time of ovulation, not just during it.
Major food cravings could also rear their ugly head. High-sodium, processed foods like potato chips, french fries, and cheesy snacks seem especially irresistible at this point. But consuming excess amounts of sodium will only aggravate water retention, ovulation bloating, and weight gain.
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Other Ways To Ease The Pain
In the first place, stress is also an important reason that causes your estrogen levels to be out of balance. If youre having high levels of stress, its time to find out more ways to help yourself handle better with stress. To do this successful, how about considering something like doing exercises, or following some good breathing routines evenly?
Any of these activities are strongly believed to settle your nervous system, not to mention that they can remove things from the days whenever you feel overstressed. Well, stress means that you dont eat well, sleep well, or suffer a great pressure from your work, study, or life. Unluckily, the body cant figure out the difference among so many types of stress.
Apart from that, relying on supplements can help, too, and we recommend you to use a combo of magnesium and Chaste-tree extract. This mixture will re-balance your estrogen and progesterone effectively as well as assist with your inflammation inside your body.
How Can You Tell If Its Ovulation Pain
There are plenty of ways to diagnose ovulation-related pain.
- You dont have your period. Instead, it occurs between two periods.
- It happens only on one side, though it may switch sides from month to month.
- Menstrual cramps often feel like a dull ache but cramping from ovulation is usually described as sharp or like a twinge or pinch.
- Theres usually no warning as there are no other physical signs to go along with it, like the bleeding that accompanies menstruation. It comes on suddenly.
- It lasts only a few minutes to a few hours, rarely longer.
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Bloating Due To Ovulation Vs Premenstrual Bloating: How To Tell The Difference
Most women confuse bloating during ovulation with bloating before menstruation. While both occur before your menstruation, the quickest way to determine which one you are experiencing is to track your menstrual cycle and pinpoint the current day when you are feeling bloated.
As mentioned earlier, ovulation bloating usually starts on the 11th to 14th day of your menstrual cycle and lasts for 24 hours. Premenstrual bloating, on the other hand, usually occurs a week before your period and can last up to a week after. Additional PMS symptoms that may accompany premenstrual bloating are period-induced diarrhea, nausea, cramping in the abdomen, mood swings, breast tenderness, and fatigue.
How Long Does Ovulation Last Each Month
A normal ovulation cycle lasts for about 24 hours each month. Once an egg is released from an ovary, it will die or dissolve within 12 to 24 hours if its not fertilized. If fertilization doesnt occur, the egg and your uterine lining will shed. This results in menstrual bleeding about two weeks later.
Although ovulation is a one-day occurrence each month, dont think you can only get pregnant one day out of the month. Conception can occur within a six-day window, the five days leading up to ovulation and the day of ovulation.
This is because sperm can live in the female body for up to five days. If you have intercourse a few days prior to ovulation or during ovulation, there may be sperm remaining in your body to greet an egg as it travels down your fallopian tube.
Conception takes place in the fallopian tube, not your uterus. An unfertilized egg dissolves after a day, but a fertilized egg continues its journey down the fallopian tube into the uterus. A fertilized egg implants or attaches to the uterus 6 to 10 days after conception.ADVERTISING
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Understanding Your Menstrual Cycle
Women’s cycle lengths vary, and the most common cycle length is somewhere between 23 and 35 days. Any variation in menstrual cycle length that does occur is more likely to be during the part of the cycle before you ovulate . For most women, the length of time between ovulation and their monthly period is between 12 to 16 days .
Why Does Ovulation Spotting Happen
Spotting before ovulation could be the bodys response to the drop of estrogen and the rise of progesterone right before the egg is released from the ovary. During a menstrual cycle, around two dozen follicles containing eggs start to grow. One of them will mature, and then the egg bursts through its follicle and becomes ready to be fertilized. Right before the egg release, the estrogen level drops sharply, which may cause the inner lining of the uterus to shed and lead to light spotting.
Spotting during ovulation could last one or two days. The drop in the estrogen level is an indicator the body is about to release an egg and this might cause light bleeding. It might come with bloating or light cramps. It could occur every cycle, a few times, or not at all.
Spotting after ovulation could be implantation spotting, which occurs around the time when a fertilized egg attaches to the inner wall of the uterus. Only one-third of women will ever experience it, but it is one of the earliest signs of pregnancy. Implantation bleeding may happen from a few days after ovulation until a few days before the next menstrual bleeding starts. Therefore, it is often confused with a period.
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What Implantation Bleeding Looks Like
Implantation bleeding will occur following ovulation, as long as there has been sexual intercourse. This bleeding is usually light and its color can vary from dark maroon to light pink. It usually occurs 5 to 7 days after fertilization.
In addition to bleeding, you may also have other signs and symptoms that can suggest implantation, like mild gas pain and abdominal tingling. These symptoms can last for around 3 days and can be considered to be the first symptoms of pregnancy.
What Are The Signs Of Ovulation
Looking for ovulation signs during the expected ovulation days could help a woman track ovulation. You may experience some of the following signs during ovulation :
- Cervical mucus changes
- One-sided lower abdominal pain and cramps
- Rise in basal body temperature
- Increased sex drive
- Bloating
- Mood swings
These premenstrual symptoms help you know when you are ovulating. The menstrual cycle also indicates that you are ovulating in a cycle. Usually, failure to ovulate could result in the absence of menstrual periods .
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Other Reasons For Cramping After Ovulation
Women can also experience post-ovulation cramping or pain before ovulation because of health conditions unrelated to the menstrual cycle. Here are a few other reasons for abdominal pains that can still hang around after ovulation.
Appendicitis. Cramping pains that start around your belly button and spread to your lower right abdomen could be a symptom of appendicitis. As the inflammation in the appendix gets worse, the right-sided abdominal pain will become more severe and you may have nausea and vomiting.11
Gallstones. Pain that you feel under your right ribs can sometimes be a sign of gallstones. Doctors from the Mayo Clinic say that gallstones cause sudden abdominal pain in the upper right quadrant. The pain may also radiate to your shoulders blade.12
Kidney stones. One cause of abdominal pain that you can experience at any time during your menstrual cycle is kidney stones. If kidney stones move through your urinary tract you may get intense pain in your lower abdomen, back, or groin. You might notice blood in urine and feel nauseous.13
Urinary tract infection. Many women suffer from urinary tract infections that cause pain or pressure in the lower abdomen or back. UTIs often cause your pee to turn cloudy or go a dark color and it might give off an unpleasant smell. This is usually accompanied by a burning sensation when peeing.14
Preparing For The Next Period
As the empty follicle shrinks, if the egg is not fertilized, levels of estrogen and progesterone decrease. Without the high levels of hormones to help maintain it, the thick womb lining that has been built up starts to break down, and your body sheds the lining. This is the start of your period and the beginning of your next menstrual cycle.
As the empty follicle shrinks, if the fertilized egg has not implanted into the womb, your level of progesterone decreases. The womb no longer needs to maintain an environment to support a baby so your body needs to reset ready for the next cycle. Any PMT symptoms that you have will start to decrease. Without the high levels of hormones to help maintain it, the thick womb lining which has built up starts to breakdown and your body will shed this. This is the start of your period and the beginning of your next cycle. For illustration purposes only
If the egg has been fertilized and implanted into the womb, the empty follicle is maintained by the increasing level of pregnancy hormone . It continues to produce estrogen and progesterone for much longer until the placenta is mature enough to support the developing embryo. For illustration purposes only
If the egg has been fertilized, it may successfully implant itself into the womb lining. This usually takes place about a week after fertilization.
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Does Bloating During Ovulation Mean Pregnancy
Theres no connection between how bloated you feel when you ovulate and whether you get pregnant that month. Having said that, bloating is a common early sign of pregnancy because of the rising progesterone levels we spoke about earlier.
If you usually ovulate around day 14 of your cycle but notice more bloating than usual towards day 28, it might be an early pregnancy symptom. That said, it could also be PMS. Ah, sometimes it feels like we women just cant win.
Bloating During Ovulation: What It Means And 7 Ways To Manage It
Sylvia Kang
Banafsheh Kashani
MD, FACOG
Is bloating a symptom of ovulation? Yes, many women experience bloating during ovulation along with other symptoms such as breast tenderness and one-sided pelvic pain called mittelschmerz. There are several things you can do to ease some of these uncomfortable symptoms.
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Intake Of Digestive Enzyme Supplements
Certain indigestible carbohydrates trigger abdominal bloating. If you do consume food with these, there are supplements you can take that aid in breaking them down.
For instance, the lactase enzyme aids in breaking down lactose in food so that your body can absorb it instead of causing bloating, the same way that the Beano enzyme breaks down carbohydrates in high-fiber food.
What Causes Ovulation Pain
To help you fully understand, we dont just answer the most important question how long does ovulation pain last? But also tell you why this irritation shouldnt be ignored! If you have ovulation pain, then it might be due to one of these following medical elements:
- Endometriosis
- Cyst
- Scar tissue
- STD : these are the infections moving from one person to another via sexual contact .
- Egg release
- Polycystic ovary syndrome : a hormonal disorder that makes cysts grow more on your ovaries)
- Pelvic inflammatory disease : allows bacteria to get inside your vagina and then affect the reproductive organs.
- Salpingitis
- Ectopic pregnancy
- Irritable bowel syndrome : if you suffer IBS, meaning that you can have abdominal pain, constipation, bloating, and more during the cycle.
- Ovarian hyperstimulation
- Hurtful bloating
More importantly, when it comes to the most commonly asked question how long does ovulation pain last? Remember if ovulation pain takes much longer than expected , make sure to visit your doctor. Furthermore, if you have severe bleeding, or spotting along your ovulation, its best to seek medical assistance.
To sum up, its easy to realize that youre having ovulation pain if bearing any of these symptoms:
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What Is Ovulation Bloating
Ovulation begins when the egg is released from your ovary, which usually falls on the 14th day of your 28 days menstrual cycle. During ovulation, the egg travels down the fallopian tube and stays there for a 24-hour period. This comes with several symptoms and is one of the reasons you may experience bloating.
And just before ovulation starts, your bodys estrogen levels spike. From there, your luteinizing hormone takes over and is responsible for signaling the body to release the egg. This rollercoaster of hormones triggers water retention and complications in the gastrointestinal tract, which leaves you feeling puffy, full, and gassy.
Additionally, you may experience increased cravings for food that have high sodium content, such as chips and other processed foods during the ovulation period, which aggravates water retention.
To sum it up, the hormonal imbalance during the ovulation period is responsible for the puffy and swollen feeling in your stomach.
Is It Normal To Spot During Ovulation
As we mentioned above, spotting during ovulation is normal for some women. As your hormones change with ovulation you might experience what some doctors call estrogen breakthrough bleeding. As your body releases an egg your estrogen drops and progesterone spikes leading to light bleeding. This usually occurs mid-cycle.
If you are trying to conceive and are tracking your fertile window, this light bleeding could be a good sign. It means you are ovulating and if you have had sex in the 3-5 days before you could become pregnant.
Typically normal ovulation spotting isnt paired with any other symptoms. If you experience other symptoms such as heavy cramping you should consult with your doctor.
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Other Reasons For Gaining Weight
Water retention is the main reason for weight gain during this period but there are also other factors we need to consider. They include:
Cravings
Premenstrual syndrome weight gain can be attributed to the cravings one has during this period. One tends to snack more than usual especially on comfort foods like cakes and chocolates. There is an increased craving for sweet things and junk. These cravings are natural and are your bodys way of preparing for pregnancy that could happen. If the pregnancy doesnt happen, then you will gain weight from all the unhealthy eating. Exercising and eating healthy will bring back your weight to normal.
Bloating
Bloating is one of the symptoms of menstruation. Gas volumes in the intestines increase during this period causing bloating. This then causes abdominal cramps or constipation. Inactivity too will cause the bloating while being active keeps the gas levels in the intestines down. This bloating sensation makes one feel like they are carrying extra weight.
Magnesium levels decrease
The days before the periods begin, magnesium levels decrease causing a decrease in insulin levels. This makes the brain to assume glucose levels are low leading to increased sugar consumption. This in turns causes weight gain.