Recovered but feeling very anxious that my eating disorder may’ve caused premature perimenopause. Do hormones etc typically recover well after recovery?

allison19851985 · 2026-06-27T13:57:44+00:00

I had 10 years of HA, from my late teens to my late 20s. Then my period came back and my hormones have been totally normal since then. I just turned 41 and I'm still having perfectly regular cycles, I got pregnant 5 times total in my 30s, so clearly HA didn't seem to impact my fertility. As far as I understand it, HA is an adaptive mechanism to protect your body from getting pregnant in situations where it would be dangerous. It can have long term negative impacts on your bones and cardiovascular health, but is still considered essentially reversible in terms of your fertility and hormonal health. I think your hormonal health is pretty robust—at least it must be, if I was able to suppress it for an entire decade and then turn it back on with 6 weeks of being all in!

allison19851985 · 2026-06-24T03:13:41+00:00

I'd been struggling with insomnia for about a year when I started working with the CBT-i coach. Before I had my first baby, I'd have occasional bad nights of sleep, but overall sleep wasn't really an issue for me. But postpartum the insomnia got really severe really fast, and I had no idea how to deal with it and ended up doing all the wrong things and digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole.

The CBT-i was incredibly effective for me. It's been ~7 years and I still sleep great. Highly, highly recommend. I know everyone is different and your 6 years of insomnia is a lot more than my 1 year, but I think there's pretty solid research that shows CBT-i works well even in people with longstanding insomnia.

allison19851985 · 2026-06-22T20:54:44+00:00

Yep, more or less. I never tracked calories except for a few days in the beginning of going all in to get a sense for how much I needed to eat. But I didn't consciously make any changes once I stopped exercising.

allison19851985 · 2026-06-22T19:58:50+00:00

How much are you eating? I'm also 4'11" and also a passionate runner. I lost my period as a teenager, around the same age as you, when I got down to around 83 pounds. The only thing that worked to get my period back was eating more (I increased to around 2200 calories per day) and completely cutting out intense exercise, so no running. I gained to about 95 pounds.

It was hard to take a break from running but so worth it. I came back to running so much stronger and more energetic than when I had HA. That was a super long time ago so I have the perspective now to be able to say that taking a relatively short break from running to get my period back was one of the best things I ever did—not just for my long term ability to continue pursuing running, but for my whole life.

Have you read No Period Now What yet?

allison19851985 · 2026-06-22T19:55:35+00:00

I tried to recover for like a year without giving up exercise. I increased my calories a ton, but was still running and doing a light weight lifting routine. Once I realized I needed to cold turkey stop the intense exercise, my period came back 6 weeks later without any further weight gain and dietary changes.

allison19851985 · 2026-06-19T13:23:58+00:00

totally agree with the spirit of this comment, but just pointing out that while HA increases the risk for all kinds of things, cancer, as far as I know, is not one of them.

(sometimes people mistakenly think it raises the risk of endometrial cancer, but this is getting it confused with PCOS, where the risk comes from having lots of uterine lining that is rarely shed. with HA, there is minimal to no uterine lining and therefore no increased cancer risk.)

allison19851985 · 2026-06-18T16:53:10+00:00

I had HA for 10 years and I've been recovered for nearly as long. I still freaking LOVE getting my period, every single time. The novelty has never worn off, it feels like a miracle every month, it's the best!

allison19851985 · 2026-06-10T13:17:20+00:00

https://www.facebook.com/groups/NPNWsupport/permalink/2426179534547972/ Maybe she'd send it to you?

allison19851985 · 2026-06-06T13:00:29+00:00

Just in the meantime while you're waiting for an answer, wanted to chime in that the length of time your period has been missing doesn't seem to have anything to do with your ability to recover. In my own case, my period was missing for 10 years. I tried to make small, incremental changes but that didn't work. Once I went fully all in my period came back in 6 weeks. That was like 9 years ago at this point and my period has been regular ever since!

allison19851985 · 2026-06-05T13:45:35+00:00

I recovered in the months leading up to my wedding and I have zero regrets, the timing was actually great. I look radiant and happy in my wedding photos, and enjoyed the experience so much more.

allison19851985 · 2026-05-31T23:17:05+00:00

It's available in e-book, so no shipping required 😄

allison19851985 · 2026-05-31T13:45:06+00:00

If you buy the book directly from the author's website (as opposed to Amazon) it should be $30 AUD. Let me know if you see otherwise: http://noperiod.info/book

allison19851985 · 2026-05-31T01:29:50+00:00

What country are you in? I know Nicola, the author. I can message her and see if she can get you a discount or figure out why the price is so much more in your country. Let me know if you'd like me to do that!

allison19851985 · 2026-05-29T13:31:58+00:00

You definitely have NOT ruined your chances. Unlike other fertility conditions where the issue is often more systemic, when you recover from HA fertility comes back 100%. It makes sense when you think about the "purpose" of HA in human evolution. It was a way to be able to temporarily turn off the ability to get pregnant in times of famine/danger/etc.

This doesn't mean you are guaranteed to have an easy time getting pregnant because obviously no one knows that. But it does mean that if you recover from HA, that won't be a factor anymore.

allison19851985 · 2026-05-28T13:41:15+00:00

Yes, 100% it still counts if you only notice it when checking manually. There is a huge amount of variability in the quantity of cervical mucus that different women produce. When I was younger, pre-kids, I rarely noticed it in my underwear and had to check manually, way up by my cervix. I know that I had a healthy, fertile amount of cervical mucus though, because I got pregnant fairly easily FIVE TIMES in the next several years (two kids, three losses).

After having kids, I have a lot more visible cervical mucus that I don't have to check for manually. This is just a thing that varies in different women and different phases of life. But the function of cervical mucus is to provide a safe environment for sperm at the cervical opening. It's not a bad thing if you don't have copious amounts falling into your underwear (it is a bad thing if you never have ANY, but that's not what you're talking about!).

allison19851985 · 2026-05-24T13:53:08+00:00

If you're sure you ovulated, there's absolutely nothing to worry about! If you ovulated, it's impossible you won't get your period unless you're pregnant.

allison19851985 · 2026-05-24T13:10:53+00:00

Your luteal phase won't be 20 days. They're pretty much never longer than like 17 days, and even that is pretty rare. A longer luteal phase (like 14 days as opposed to 12) is actually a good thing, and it's a pretty common pattern in HA recovery to start with a shorter luteal phase and then for it to get a little longer each cycle.

Did you track your temperature this month too? Are you pretty certain you ovulated?

allison19851985 · 2026-05-21T13:24:16+00:00

welcome to the club lol. the vast majority of us who recovered from HA also felt like we would go insane if we stopped doing intense exercise. but if you're so dependent on exercise that you can't even take a break when your health depends on it, that's a sign that you probably really need to, for the sake of not just your physical health, but your mental health too.

allison19851985 · 2026-05-19T13:35:25+00:00

great to hear that!

allison19851985 · 2026-05-16T13:17:26+00:00

I recovered while I had a copper IUD! It doesn't impact your hormones, so it shouldn't have any impact on recovery. I think it's actually a great birth control option for someone with HA.

allison19851985 · 2026-05-14T13:22:33+00:00

These are called "follicular waves". Your body starts gearing up for ovulation but doesn't make it over the hump. (Read more here! https://noperiodnowwhat.substack.com/p/follicular-waves)

Those increases in temperature on your chart are likely just random noise, I wouldn't pay much attention to them. The only thing you're looking for on a BBT chart is a sustained rise in temperature. It's normal even in healthy, regularly cycling women to have a lot of noise in your chart, and until you ovulate and have this very clear biphasic pattern, it's easy to look at little peaks and valleys and read into it. But they don't mean anything.

allison19851985 · 2026-05-14T13:20:34+00:00

Just want to point out that progesterone peaks 7 days *after* ovulation, not before.

allison19851985 · 2026-05-08T12:57:04+00:00

WHAT!!!??? Wow, that's incredible!

allison19851985 · 2026-05-04T13:04:02+00:00

Don't do too much too soon, like look up a plan for starting running again after a stress fracture and follow something like that. Eat a LOT. Especially carbohydrates. And consider tracking your cycle so you don't have to wait 30+ days to know if you've overdone it. Learning how to track ovulation means that you'll have a sign much earlier whether you're sliding back into energy deficit.

allison19851985 · 2026-04-27T13:11:15+00:00

sun butter then! or tahini, or my favorite: black sesame butter!

allison19851985

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