Gynae issues and heavy bleeding. How does it affect your role at work?

[Carlie97]

I have endometriosis and pcos and this means I bleed very heavily to the point of flooding for months on end without a break. No amount of incontinence pads can save me.

In my current role I'm very lucky in that I can wfh a few days a week and in the office I'm mostly sat down. I have leaked many, many times but I carry five pairs of knickers, a change of trousers and I'm usually OK. My work is understanding of my condition and if I need to wfh over my allocation, they're accepting of that.

The new role if I get it would be very much on my feet facing the public most of the day. There's a uniform which consists of burgundy trousers and I think it'll very much be a get a break if you can kind of role, which at the moment, apart from the odd day, I'm free to use the loo, take breaks when I want. I've been known to be on the toilet for half an hour getting cleaned up in work before and no one has batted an eyelid.

My current role is very stressful and I feel unsupported and I do want to leave, but this issue is really putting me off. I've tried transexamic acid, norethisterone, the mirena coil, the pill and progesterone tablets, but non stop the bleeding long term.

Does anyone have similar experience or words of wisdom?

Ask about Zoladex injections.
They were a life saver for me. Stopped all bleeding after everything in your list failed me too.
Also get your iron checked.

When you say none have stopped the bleeding long term did they have any impact at all?

I have endo and running pills together did at least halve the number of periods I had.

is pain an issue as well or is it “just” the flooding?

I found mefenamic acid helpful for the pain.

eventually I went on the implant and that pretty much sorted things for me but I’m aware it doesn’t fit everyone.

i assume you do the usual tampon plus pad etc.

I found an operation and excision of the endo helped but that was mostly pain wise rather than bleeding.

The injections saved me too. Didn't stop them straight away (much to the drs surprise), but did stop them and gave me a break to think of next steps - operation and mirena.

Before that. Biggest size of Tampax (has to be the original with cardboard tube, plastic tube ones are useless) and two to three maxi pads with wings (one left side of knickers, one right side overlapping and one on top) then change hourly if required. Nowadays I would have added period knickers. Mooncap worked better than Tampax on heavy days, but could be unpleasant to empty.