Anyone awake? I'm so mortified and embarrassed

[FlamingLama]

I'm away for the weekend in a really nice hotel and I struggle with really heavy periods. Slept with a tampon in which I changed before I went to bed and a huge verging on nappy like pad on. Woke up amd the pad has wriggled out the way, tampon has overflowed and there is blood on the beautiful crisp white linen. I want to pack my bags and leave now. I brought my own towel with me from home to sleep on but dh said I was being ridiculous. Sat here so upset.
I'm so sick of my horrendous periods. No Dr takes them seriously and I'm expected to put up with them. They make me horrendously anaemic too. Now this. I'm literally never leaving the house whilst I'm on again.

We've had such a great weekend and this has ruined it. I want to go home. I've had other health problems too so this was supposed to be having a relaxing weekend and I can't sleep for fear of it happening again. Just sat here crying. I know I won't be the first person to have their periods on the sheets but I'm so embarrassed and I took massive precautions and it still happened.

Do I phone reception in the morning and tell them?

This happened to me once in a hotel. I bundled up the sheets when we left, so that the cleaner wouldn't have to touch them, and left a note on top explaining what had happened and leaving a £5 note as a tip (this was some years ago, so not too stingy!).

Don't let it spoil your weekend OP, I'm sure worse things happen.

OP, please don't worry. The hotel will have seen far worse. I have a self-catering cottage and this kind of thing happens. The guest often messages a mortified apology but I really don't mind. This stuff is a blight to many of us!

Hi, depending on your age, and/ or family situation you could ask about ablation. I suffered like you after dd2, blood running down my legs in the supermarket despite robust precautions, and knowing I’d finished having babies I had this procedure. It’s all done in a day and I’ve had no problems since!

Just keep asking and making a nuisance if you have to, you deserve to be given proper help and advice!

As a fellow horrendous heavy period and anaemia sufferer you have my totally sympathy. I hope all has gone well with the hotel, this is not your fault. Doctors need to take us seriously and not expect women to have to put up with this. I have had enough of being housebound every month for fear of bleeding out when I’m away from my house. I don’t know how old you are or what you have tried but on Wednesday I am having a uterine ablation to help reduce or hopefully permanently stop my periods, I am nearly 49 so hopefully this will see me to the menopause. Have you had any scans/investigations? My evil periods are due to a combination of hormones (peri), recurring uterine polyps and a thickened uterine lining. There are lots of options. We should not have to suffer like we do. Hope you get somewhere with it op 🤞

@ohthejoys

Hi, depending on your age, and/ or family situation you could ask about ablation. I suffered like you after dd2, blood running down my legs in the supermarket despite robust precautions, and knowing I’d finished having babies I had this procedure. It’s all done in a day and I’ve had no problems since!

Just keep asking and making a nuisance if you have to, you deserve to be given proper help and advice!

Sorry to jump in on someone else’s thread but can I ask how your ablation went? I have one booked for this Wednesday and I’m getting quite nervous about it.

Please don’t be stressed or really embarrassed. Honestly it happens to many women. I don’t think periods this heavy are that unusual either. I know so many women who flood at night including myself.
Same thing happened to me when I stayed over at my parents in laws once.
Had to fess up to the MIL the next morning and was really embarrassed but she was fine and said don’t worry.
I always put a towel under me when sleeping the first 2 nights of my period because this often happens at home and I’m sick of cleaning it up from white sheets!

@Noisyneighneigh

DH got norovirus while staying in a nice hotel. Well I think you can guess that there was far worse on the lovely bedsheets.

Mine too, in Mexico City on business. Some form of awful food poisoning. Luckily there were 2 double beds so he shifted from one to the other!

He was sweating and quite out of it. He manged to drag the sheets to the bath and run some water. He woke up to them cleaning the room up around him! He would have been super embarrassed but was too ill to care!

Don't worry OP. It happens.

Also, you DON'T have to put up with heavy periods. I had endometrial ablation and it changed my life. l used to sit on a carrier bag at work

I feel for you, OP.

As others have said, try tranexamic acid. It worked well for me, but what really sorted me out was the progesterone only pill. It’s been incredible for improving my quality of life. My periods were so ridiculous I made DH change his car from one with a cream interior to black leather!

You don’t have to put up with it.

I know you weren't asking me, but mine went fine. They threw in a free sterilisation (was private hosp). Prepare for bad wind pains the day after. I had it Thursday was back to work Monday.

That was for @RedPandaWanda

OP if I was you I would just fold up the sheet & put it in a carrier bag with a note of apology on. I think that the housekeeping would probably just bin it.

Try not to let it ruin your weekend

Sorry to hear this. Mine were v heavy when I was perimenopausal , had to call the gp once to stop a 9 day period! Now in my 50s and no more periods, yay.
Definitely go back to the gp.

Thank you CatherineCawood

Sorry you are having a hard time with your health and such horrendous periods. Please don't accept the latter as your lot - push for a solution. You deserve better.

The stain on the sheet is nothing - just a stamp of womanhood.

(It really is a pretty standard thing for much of the population and nothing shameful. )

Sweat (also not something we have total control over - not even with washing) is less visible - but just as present on used sheets, and no-one worries about offending the noses of staff or hosts.

Cold water and soap on the stain and hang the sheet up to dry.

What everyone else said! I wear reusable period pants over the top of normal knickers with a heavy duty pad, and using a mooncup. I was disappointed when they arrived that it's just the crotch that's absorbent, I was hoping the lining of the legs and stuff would be too. Pretty sure you can get ones like that out there for next time.

Please don't be upset OP! Half the worlds adult population get periods. The hotel staff will have seen it all before.

"Just adding to the advice- go back to GP and insist on an ultrasound plus a referral to gynaecology. It's not just something to put up with. I'm currently under investigation for fibroids and have the same. No man would put up with this. I'd also not recommend a coil until you have had investigations to find out what's going on"

This. So, so much this.

I ended up in hospital over the summer for severe aneamia, caused by my horrendously heavy periods. I fainted and broke my wrist, so was whisked off to hospital where they realised that the iron in my blood was so low, it was a miracle I hadn't suffered a heart attack (apparently...). My cycle is 39 days of flooding, maybe 3 or 4 days break, then perhaps another 32 days of flooding. My (female) GP at the time had spent the previous 5 years telling me that it was "the menopause" and would eventually "settle down". The doctors at the hospital referred me for scans and to an obs-gynae as a result of the scans - and my uterus has (to quote the fantastic gynea I saw) "gotten itself into a bit of a pickle" because, even though I bleed heavily, not all of the lining is being shed, so over time it's built up to a level where there will never be an end in sight to it naturally. I also have ovarian cysts which don't exactly help the situation. So I had biopsies taken (just in case), and am waiting for a panel to decide if an ablation will cure it - or if I need a full hysterectomy. I don't care overly about losing my uterus (I have children who're adults now, so definitely don't want to start again!), I just want it to stop so that I can enjoy living my life again. Transemic acid didn't do anything for me, weirdly, but I was put on 30mg of progesterone daily, which has reduced the bleeding incredibly - I'm at a level now where I knew I wouldn't flood if I went on a dog walk yesterday (tampons and night time pads still being used, though, because... well, just in case I did flood, y'know? My DP thinks I've developed a phobia about bleeding... and he may well be right).

Please, OP, see another GP and insist on a referral. Because bleeding so heavily that you're afraid of doing activities designed to relax you? Is not something that, as a woman, you ought to be expected to just put up with. As the poster I quoted said, no man would put up with this if it were happening to them - so why should we be expected to?

As women, we deserve better.

If you can take it, ibuprofen can reduce the flow a bit. www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/can-ibuprofen-reduce-menstrual-flow

Might help to make things more manageable until you can get proper help.

And honestly, don't worry about the bedding. It all goes through an industrial washing process and the staff will absolutely have seen worse!

Your post made me see red mist, OP. This kind of scenario makes me unspeakably angry. So frequently women and out their health concerns, including our reproductive health which can cause some of us a great deal of pain, discomfort, and misery, are customarily dismissed by supposed healthcare 'professionals'.

My aunt was turned away from her GP's surgery with Prozac and the suggestion that she was being 'hysterical', after confiding in him that she feared she had a brain tumour. Tragically, she did.

It took me 15 years of utterly horrendous periods before being diagnosed with endometriosis. Before this I was making a silly fuss: all women have period pain, it was just something I'd have to learn to live with. 'Silly girl' was one phrase I remember hearing, and as a gauche teenager I didn't question much less challenge their patronising attitude.

Please, OP, get a second medical opinion and do not let this go. It's completely unacceptable.

The issue with the sheets is small-stuff: no one at the hotel will judge you. These things happen

Oh, @FlamingLama I feel your pain, have been there: brought my own towel everywhere, wore mooncup, pads and tena pants (as recommended on here!) it’s just awful. I couldn’t book hotels for pleasure or go anywhere.

Finally, I booked an appointment with a private gynaecologist. She was amazing. Horrified by my NHS treatment she referred me back in and performed an ablation as a day patient. That was a year ago, and touch wood, not a single period since.

💐 and I’d really suggest trying a private consultation.

I was a chamber maid while at university and honestly this happens all the time, no one cares they just change the sheets and move to the next room. Enjoy your stay and don't give it a second thought.

contrary13 I totally understand the bleeding phobia thing. Mine are so heavy that I start having panic attacks when they are due. Throw in aura migraines and an exacerbation of my IBS at the same time it’s enough to drive anyone insane! Have you considered an ablation?

OP, would you be as embarrassed if your child had an accident? Or if you left a mess from having sex or breastfeeding?
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Strip the sheets and throw them with the dirty towels. Warn a cleaner if you see one, but try not to let it ruin your holiday.

I once leaked over my friend’s bed when I stayed at her house. I left shortly after and it was never mentioned. It’s embarrassing, but it probably happens everyone.

Keep pushing at the GP, or a different GP, until this is dealt with. This isn't a normal level of bleeding and you deserve treatment.

I was presribed something (sorry, can't remember what now) to ease the bleeding on my heaviest day, and iron tablets. Because I also had mid-cycle bleeding and very long periods, I had to keep pushing for investigations: ultrasounds (both external and vaginal), smears, and a camera showed nothing. Eventually I had to have a more invasive procedure and they found a massive fibroid, for whatever reason it hadn't shown up on any of the other scans. It took 4 years of me insisting on getting to the bottom of it and not accepting that going on the pill or getting a coil would be enough (both would have treated the symptoms but without finding out what was causing them), but eventually we got there. My periods are so much lighter now the fibroid has been removed, unfortunately some of the symptoms are returning and I think I may be getting more fibroids ... but I now know what to do about it! Please keep pushing at the doctors, don't take no for an answer!

@5YearsLeft

What an excellent, supportive and considered post. You totally hit the nail on the head. 💐