A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:I know you aren't doctors, but i'm really worried i'm infertile!! Since I was 13 I've always been weight conscious, so i've stupidly done a lot of dieting on and off and they haven't been healthy ones. But where I eat next to nothing for weeks, somedays i've gone without eating. I know it's stupid and a dangerous thing to do and now i eat healthy and exercise.But my periods are irregular, I drink a lot of alcohol and I was on the pill for quite a while, sometimes i didn't do the week break for a few months.So all of this now makes me think how stupid i've been and my friend said that I might be infertile! So what I was wondering do you think my doctor will be able to do a test to find out? The only reason I ask is i'm only 20 and i'm not trying to have a baby, so I don't know if they'll see it as a waste of time. But hearing my sister and my boyfriend going on about having kids and the future, i'm just really nervous that I may be and i'd rather know now than further down the line..
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reader, anonymous, writes (5 January 2013): Op it's very, very unlikely that you're infertile. Even women with long term eating disorders rarely become infertile, that's just one of the possible side effects that doctors quote to try and scare ED girls into eating healthily.
Look you may have cancer too, you may have gout, or liver disease or a brain tumour, maybe even ebola. Who the hell knows? No need to be a hypochondriac about this. you can't very well worry about anything medically based on the idea you might be. If you're not trying for a child then you don't need to worry or know. Just presume your fertile until you need to know otherwise. I mean are you going now start worrying about having all those diseases I listed just because I said it's possible you have them? No, so don't waste yours or the doctors' time.
Plus honeypie is right, it's pointless knowing now whether you are because that may change by the time you want to have one.
Now to top all that off the simple truth of the matter is there is no such thing as a woman not being able to have a child anymore. If you're infertile there is IVF, if for some reason your womb won't carry a child to term then you get a surrogate. Medically infertility just makes having your own children more expensive. And there's also adoption, something my fiancée and I are actually giving serious consideration to even though we can naturally conceive, there are lot of orphans out there living in deplorable conditions, no reason you can't love one of those like your own, we have friends who adopted from russia recently and the kid is amazing.
Basically OP, you're worrying over nothing, infertility is 100% irrelevant these days and especially for a girl your age who probably won't even want kids for at least another 10 years.
A
female
reader, R1 +, writes (5 January 2013):
 The fact that you have periods is a good sign. Often people who have anorexia related infertility have never had periods. The best advice to help you be more fertile is to reduce alcohol intake, don't smoke and eat healthily.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (5 January 2013): I think you shouldn't be worried now. You are not trying for a baby and if you are infertile there is not much you could do about it right now.
I want to clarify for the pill part. Taking the pill without the week break is not dangerous. That period is a fake one therefore it is not needed. My doctor advised me to take my pill like that.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie  + ♥, writes (5 January 2013):
 The doctor will probably not test you if you aren't even trying for a baby now.
BUT you can get a ovulation kit and track your own ovulation and see how it is.
Besides who knows? Could be that you are fertile now but not in 5-10 years.
Have you been tested for STD? Chlamydia, for instance can render a woman infertile.
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