What sort of menstrual problems do HIV-positive women experience?
Many women living with HIV have reported changes in their menstrual periods. These changes can include: heavier bleeding that lasts longer than usual, bleeding or spotting between periods, or more frequent periods, lighter periods with longer time in between, skipped periods, or no periods at all. In addition, some women experience more severe symptoms of PMS (premenstrual syndrome). What causes these problems? It’s not clear if or how HIV infection affects menstruation. A recent American study of more than 800 HIV-positive women found that, overall, being HIV-positive only slightly increased a woman’s chances of having either a very short menstrual cycle (less than 18 days) or a very long cycle (more than 90 days). It seemed, however, that advanced immune deficiency did affect menstrual cycles: women with CD4+ counts below 200 were about 50 per cent more likely to have irregular cycles with 90 days or more between periods. The study also confirmed that the factors that can affect mens
