When visiting the outpatient department, I met many patients who came to see the doctor because the menstrual cycle was too short.
Their menstrual cycle is regular, the menstrual period is not long, and the amount of menstruation is moderate, but each cycle is only 22 or 3 days.
In fact, this is normal.
Although [menstruation] is [once a month] as its name implies, and the average cycle is 28 days, if the cycle is 21-35 days, it is normal time and no special treatment is required.
However, one patient calculated such an account for me, which makes people feel that treatment is absolutely urgent.
She said:
I know, the number of eggs that women discharge all their lives is fixed, about 400 or more, and there is no more after the discharge. People’s menstrual cycle is long, one is arranged a month, my cycle is short, one week is short every month, and at the end of a year, four eggs will be arranged more than people’s, and 40 eggs will be arranged in 10 years.
In this way, I have to drain all my eggs nearly 10 years in advance. If I drain all my eggs, I will have menopause, and then I will be old.
It sounds as if she is right, but in fact, her initial assumption was wrong.
Women are different from men in the production of germ cells. Men can continuously produce hundreds of millions of sperm, while women produce a fixed number of eggs in their lifetime, which is true.
However, this does not mean that [there will be no eggs after they are laid].
In fact, there are a large number of [primordial follicles] in the ovary, just like the Youth League reserve, these [primordial follicles] are the reserve force of eggs.
Although only one egg is discharged per menstrual cycle, several follicles are actually recruited in each cycle. Only one of these recruited follicles eventually becomes the [dominant follicle], matures and discharges the egg, and the rest degenerate on their own.
Some people may be anxious again when they hear that there are only 400 in total, and more than one at a time? What a waste! That’s horrible!
Don’t worry, 400 is the number of eggs discharged by most women and cannot be confused with the number of follicles. Although women have to discharge more than 400 eggs in their lifetime, this only accounts for 0.1% of the total number of follicles.
Therefore, if your menstrual cycle is slightly shorter than others by a few days, you don’t have to worry about getting old prematurely.
Everyone’s [luteal phase] is a fixed 14 days, with a short cycle of several days, which only indicates that follicles mature faster.
You may only have dozens of eggs more than others, and your ovaries still have the bottom of this family.
However, then again, although there are enough follicles for you to recruit in each cycle, the total number of follicles is determined from the moment you are born. It is not continuously produced like men’s sperm, but will only decrease but not increase.
From this point of view, eggs are much more expensive than sperm.
However, if, for some reason, follicle depletion occurs before the age of 40, resulting in ovarian failure, which is medically called [premature ovarian failure]. In other words, the reserve force for egg production has been seriously lost.
This kind of infertility caused by premature ovarian failure is currently not treated by what in medicine.
Author: Tian Jishun