Discharge Question

[lalaloopsy]

Hello! I just had a quick question: Last week (so two weeks before I expect my withdrawal bleed) I noticed I had a very, very faint pinkish/light brown tinge to my discharge. It only lasted about 1.5-2 days, but I've been on Ortho-Novum 1/35 for about 3-4 years now and haven't experienced that except right before my period or in the one instance when I had a UTI. I googled it (which, in retrospect, was probably a mistake) and found a lot of posts about implantation bleeding and that kind of bleeding being an early sign of pregnancy. I was wondering if there is any credibility to that information, especially when considering that I also always use condoms as a backup to my BCP? And, if not, if I should be concerned about anything else. Thank you!

[Heather]

One of the most common side effects of hormonal contraceptives is breakthrough bleeding or light spotting just like you have described. If you haven't ever experienced that before, that doesn't mean you won't and are not now.

So, so long as you are current with your STI tests and other general sexual healthcare, and know this isn't about an infection, what's most likely is that this is a BC side effect. What's not even remotely likely is that you are seeing bleeding due to implantation of a fertilized egg: that's not common even with people who are pregnant, or who are not using any method, let alone two methods, of contraception.

(If you don't mind, because we're trying to keep an eye on this kind of result people get elsewhere, mind telling me what keywords you used in Google when you got these kinds of answers, and what sites you found those answers at? And when you did, were those in static, fact-checked content at credible sites, or on sites without any fact-checking, or forums or other user-produced content? Thanks if you have a sec to do that!)

[lalaloopsy]

Thank you for the information, I never really considered spotting since I'd never experienced it before. As for keywords, I typed in light brown vaginal discharge before period and other iterations of the same language. The first hit I got was "brown vaginal discharge" from MD-health.com (that was the major one I looked at) and then some WebMD stuff on abnormal discharge. I'm honestly not sure if those sites are reviewed or credible, but I steered clear of the message board options that popped up, assuming those would just portray a skewed subset of views. Either way, none of the posts I looked at really focused on spotting and went right for the early pregnancy diagnosis.

[Ashleah]

Hey Lalaloopsy,

I briefly glanced at md-health.com and couldn't find an "about" section which is an immediate red flag to me because that don't let you know where the info is coming from. And you've got the right idea to stay away from message boards which typically aren't monitored for accuracy.

Thanks so much for sharing this info! Very helpful as we try to figure out the best way to help users.