Have you been experiencing heaving bleeding during menstruation? If yes, you should read this article to find out the causes as well as the treatment options.
Heaving bleeding during menstrual period is actually a clinical condition called menorrhagia. Women who suffer from menorrhagia or experience heavy or excessive bleeding will lose about 80ML of blood or even more in one cycle, a lot higher than the 40 ML in the average cycle. A normal menstruation cycle will last for about 4 to 7 days, but if you are suffering from menorrhagia it can go on for over 7 days.
Causes of Heavy Menstrual Bleeding – Menorrhagia Treatments
Uterine Fibroids: Excessive or rapid production of estrogen hormone can cause you to develop fibroids, which are non-cancerous and benign tumors. This condition cause heavy bleeding that can lead to a lot of discomfort.
Uterine Polyps: These are small growths that can appear on the uterus lining. They generally develop due to hormonal changes, especially for women in their mid-forties and late twenties. Polyps can cause blood to flow heavy during your period.
Pelvic Inflammatory Disease: This can develop because of an infection inside the uterine lining, fallopian tubes or ovaries. It is a serious condition and women can get it from unprotected sex, or surgical procedures such as cesarean delivery or abortion.
Medications: In most cases, women experience heavy blood flow during their period when they are using medications or birth control pills. It can also be caused by medications which are given for inflammations.
Lochia: It’s natural for women to bleed excessively after pregnancy, following a normal delivery or lochia (C-section). This happens because the body is discharging any fluid such as placental tissue or mucus that is left in surplus inside the body before childbirth. The bleeding can start almost immediately following delivery and last for around six weeks.
Some other causes include complications during pregnancy, the ovaries functioning incorrectly, intrauterine devices in the body, kidney, liver or thyroid diseases, and cancer.
Common Symptoms of Heavy Menstrual Bleeding
These include blood clots during period; excessive bleeding that requires the changing of sanitary napkin every hour; pain in lower abdomen; difficulty doing regular activities; menstrual cycle that exceeds seven days; spotting in between periods, and tired feeling during menstrual cycle.
The doctors take a number of factors into consideration before treating heavy menstrual bleeding. This includes things like medical history, fertility issues, associated medical condition, severity of the bleeding, and the patient’s preference. The treatment option also varies from person to the next. There are actually two treatment options, surgery and drug therapy.
Hysterectomy: For this procedure, the uterus will be removed completely, leading to sterility as you would lose your ability to have children. The procedure is also done when cancer is present. It is the last option to consider when treating menorrhagia.
Endometrial ablation and resection technique: The ablation method will destroy the endometrium permanently. It will cause you to lose your childbearing ability as well. The resection method involves the removing the uterine lining using a loop of an electro-surgical wire. This can be used if you are bleeding quite heavily and you are not planning to have a child.
Dilatation & curettage: For this method, the doctor would suck out or scrap off any buildup of tissues on the uterine lining gently using a curette. It is not recommended for persons with pelvic infection. Certain risks such as uterine perforation and infection are associated with this procedure.
Myomectomy: Heavy blood loss is associated with this procedure. You can use this treatment if you want to retain your uterus and fertility.
Surgery: Surgical procedures can be used to remove fibroids and polyps.
Contraceptives: These have proven to be great treatment choices for heavy menstrual bleeding. Oral contraceptives can be used to regulate excessive blood loss and the time period of the cycle.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs: A gynecologist can prescribe this to control your menorrhagia or heavy bleeding. In addition, these drugs have analgesic properties that can help to relieve abdominal pain that is linked to menses.
Hormonal therapy: Your doctor might give you progesterone to treat hormonal imbalance and it will reduce excessive and persistent bleeding in the process.
Iron supplements: Your doctor will prescribe iron supplements if the excessive blood loss is causing you to be anemic.
Hormone intrauterine device therapy: You can experience reduced blood loss when using this type of IUD because it will release levonorgestrel that can reduce the uterus lining.
It is normal for women to experience heavy flow during their period every now and then, but you will have a problem if this type of bleeding continues regularly. You should not take it lightly if the blood flow has been very heavy during your period for a while now. Be sure to visit your doctor if you have been experiencing all or a combination of some of the above mentioned symptoms.