Week Late Period Negative Pregnancy Test
Women who have regular periods know with a fair amount of certainty when their cycles should start each month. You know that if you are late that something could be amiss with your health. If you are sexually active, a missed period could signal that you are pregnant. However, when you are a week or more late and take a pregnancy test, you may be puzzled as to why a test could come back negative for pregnancy. You can get a negative pregnancy test result for a myriad of reasons. By knowing the reasons, you can determine whether or not you should test again or if you should be examined by your doctor for another health condition.
When you are a week late and get a negative test result, it could stem from you miscalculating your own cycle. Even if you believe that you have a perfect 28-day cycle, in reality your cycle could be irregular. Irregular cycles are especially common as you get older. Women over the age of 35 often experience cycles that are as frequent as 22 days and as extended as 30 or 40 days. For many women over this age, a chance in cycles indicates that they are going through pre-menopause. This varying cycle frequency is quite normal for women of this age, in fact. If you get a false negative result and you are over 35, it could just mean that you miscalculated your period and that you may start your cycle in the next few days. If you do not start a period within two weeks, however, you may want to test yourself for pregnancy again.
Another reason why you may get a false negative result after a week passes for your period’s start involves testing too early. While many women have detectable traces of the pregnancy hormone hCG in their urine 11 days after conception, you may need to wait a bit longer to get a positive result. You may have miscalculated when you ovulated and possibly conceived. By waiting a few days longer, you may get a more accurate test result.
No Symptoms And Week Late Period Negative Pregnancy Test?
If you are a week or more late on your period, yet you have no symptoms of pregnancy, you may consider other reasons for why you are getting a negative pregnancy test result. In fact, a number of health conditions can cause you to be late on your period. Pregnancy is not the only cause for a late period. For example, if you have recently been ill with a severe infection like pneumonia, bronchitis, or rota virus, your body may have been so focused on getting you well that it lacks the energy to maintain your normal menses. Your system may be so out of whack from being ill that it may take your body a month or longer to regain its normal sense of rhythm.
Likewise, if you have been exercising or engaging in extremely physical activities lately, you could also skip having a period. Women who take up intense exercise or activities like weight lifting, marathon running, and playing various sports sometimes work out so much that they throw off their menstrual cycles. Their bodies must adjust to this new level of physical intensity before allowing their menses cycles to start again. Intense physical exercise is a normal cause for a lack of periods and should not be cause for alarm.
Finally, if you are a week or so late and otherwise have no symptoms of pregnancy, you may consider that you are suffering from a gynecological condition that warrants medical attention. In particular, uterine fibroids are one of the main causes for late or missed periods. If you have had heavier than normal periods recently, you may seek medical help for what could be fibroids in your uterus. Your doctor can remove them with surgery or by prescribing medications like oral birth control.
Week Late Period Negative Pregnancy Tests White Discharge?
White discharge is a common vaginal reaction in early pregnancy. It indicates that your cervix is thickening and closing to protect your growing baby. If you have white discharge and are a week late, yet still get a negative pregnancy result, you should not dismiss the idea that you could be pregnant. You simply may not be far enough along yet to get a detectable reading on the test strip. You also could be pregnant, but for unknown reasons just not generating enough hCG to be detected by a test strip.
While most tests are 99 percent accurate and reliable in detecting early pregnancy, the possibility still exists that your own pregnancy may not be far enough along yet to produce levels of hCG needed to get a positive result. You may have to wait another week or even a few weeks before your hCG levels reach a readable level. You should not despair, however, if you are sure that you are pregnant. You can always go to your doctor for a blood test and possibly even an intravaginal ultrasound to confirm your pregnancy. It also is a possibility that the test you used was defective. Even the highest quality brand of pregnancy tests can be guilty of malfunctioning. A substandard test could have passed by quality control undetected. If you are sure you are pregnant, yet get a negative result, you may buy another over-the-counter test and try again.
In more unfortunate cases of white discharge, a late period, but no symptoms, the negative test result could indicate that you have an STD. Vaginal discharge that is white, foamy, curd-like in appearance, or bad in odor could be a sign that your vagina and cervix are trying to protect your body from the infection. Your reproductive system is trying to kill the infection and discharge it from your vaginal canal. If your discharge has any of these characteristics or also burns or itches, you should see your doctor immediately for an STD test.