Long black period lasting three months! Help!

[Confuzzlemegreen]

I'm 20 years old and am not sexually active, and I'm not on the pill. I've always had extreme periods: They would be heavy the first two-three days, but gradually lighten around the fifth-seventh day. Around August, I became overly stressed and missed one period. I waited and the stress only got worse with my lack of a period on top of other problems, and I missed another period the next month. After everything was settled though, I stopped being stressed and I got my period in November, but the final day it was light and very dark, almost black. I disregarded it as just old blood (even though it never happend to me before). December 8th though, it started light and black. Again, I disregarded it, thinking that I would have my period still...I was right in a way. For over two weeks, I had black blood flowing out of me just enough to require a pad, and the occasional stringy black or red clots floating in the toilet when I would use the bathroom that appeared to be the size of a dime. On the 20th, I had what seemed to be a normal period flow (medium, but only brighter) until the 30th. Already I know something's not right because of just the black blood lasting as long as it did. On the 31st, it returned to being a light dark flow until the 7th of January. It finally stopped on the 8th, which I was grateful for. I asked the nurse at my school and even researched on the internet, and both of them just shrugged and said that women get strange periods sometimes and maybe my experience was one of them. I gave it no more thought...until the 18th of January when it started again. The first day was red and a normal flow, but the second day on to the 23rd, it was a light dark flow again and the occasional stringy dime sized black or red clots in the toilet returned, which stopped on the 27th and began again on the 1st of February and finally stopped on the 16th with having alternated between red and black until then. But yesterday, I was spotting bright red blood and today I'm spotting black and red blood. Now I'm scared and I'm afraid that I may have something seriously wrong with me, and the doctors can't run a pap until I stop bleeding, but I never know when I'm going to stop bleeding long enough to be able to make it to an appointment before it starts again.

Someone HELP!

[AnnieBrooke]

You might have an ovarian cyst called a "chocolate cyst," though it would take some doing for the blood from that to get into and go through your tiny little fallopian tubes to get out the uterus.  A pap smear is not the only thing you can do, you can have an exam when you are having a period in order to assess the blackness of the blood.  I'd go see the doctor.

[Julie359]

can u not pop along to the ER and ask for an examination and some tests?  I know this proberly anit the best thing to do but if you say ur getting pain as well they will take you more seriously and wont turn you away without giving you the full once over.... sometimes a little exaggeration of the truth can get you what you need to know.