Assalamu alaikum. I am not sure when my period ended. Earlier I used to take it as 5 days. But this time I am confused. After 5 days, for few hours my pad was dry and then I had yellow discharge. I know that discharge after dryness is not regarded as periods but my doubt is the discharge was thick (when I checked by touching my private parts) so that is why it possibly took time to come on to the pad. what shud I do? Also is it necessary to always insert something into vagina to look for dryness? If yes, how much inside shud I insert? Or seeing dry pad is sufficient as inserting something might cause infection?But if I just look for dry pad and then later find discharge, I might have the same doubt as above that may be the discharge took time to come out on the pad.I also wanted to know if it is sufficient for me to do the acceptable form of ghusl rather than the complete ghusl for purity following menses because I suffer from waswasa and doing complete ghusl takes much more time.

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

First of all, we would like to point out to the following matters:

1- Becoming pure from menses is known by one of the two signs: whiteness, which is a white discharge known by women that indicates the end of menses; and dryness, which is when a woman inserts a cotton pad in her vagina and it comes out clean without any traces of blood, or yellowness, or brownness.

It is not enough to see purity from the outside, rather a woman must make sure by inserting a cotton pad and the like in her vulva; she inserts it in the outside part of her vulva, which is the part that appears when a woman sits to relieve herself; there is no harm in doing this, Allah willing.

Hence, if the cotton pad comes out clean and it has no traces of blood, or yellowish or brownish discharges, then it means that you are pure.

2- If you doubt whether or not you have become dry (i.e., pure), then in principle there is no dryness and you are still in menses. But if you become certain that you have become dry, then you should hasten to perform Ghusl, and do not pay any attention to the yellowish or brownish discharges that you see afterwards.

3- If what you mean by "sufficient Ghusl" is the one that involves pouring water all over the body without performing the complete Ghusl with its recommended acts, then this is enough for achieving purity, but the complete Ghusl is better as it entails more reward.

For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 386755, 323464, 358771, and 354310.

Allah knows best.