NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH...but this bleeding is not funny at all!!!

[pellmell]

Please can someone tell me they have or have had similar?
many months of heavy periods.

Initially taking Tranexamic acid x 4 times daily and now dicynene as well.

I have just been drip, drip dripping blood that as soon as I wipe I can feel the warm drip of blood onto the loo paper...I can't keep up with it
I stand up and it drips like a nose bleed!!

I have a consultant appointment on wednesday but feel really stressed about it tonight.

Sorry, I know it's vile........

no advice but much sympathy here. I didn't get periods after DS was born (BFing) until he was 10 months old, am halfway through my 3rd one now, and it's horrible. I feel like my insides are falling out :(

No idea what can be done about it. I was told as a teen that I had dysmenorrhea and put on random pills but GP was very dismissive about it at the time. I have no idea what to do this time round. thinking about trying the implant or something, I can't carry on with this :(

God poor you

I had this and had to go for camera up fanjo route.

They recommended I go on pill to sort things out.... it took about 3 weeks to get right.

The drip drip dripping is vile though I know... just when you think it's stopping, it starts again.

I can only sympathise.

I know just how you feel you have my total sympathy .. without tranexamic and mefenamic acids I can't even got to bed at night as have to go to the loo literally every 10 minutes! I have to admit to taking extra TA than prescribed but guess I shouldn't suggest it to anyone else. I have had ultrasound etc and they cant find a reason. I am waiting to hear back from hospital as to whether I can take the pill or mirena coil as I have abnormal smears and 6 monthly colposcopies so doc didnt know whether I could have any hormonal treatment. Try to relax this evening .. just think if you are going to the consultant on Wednesday this may be the last one you have like this as I am sure they will get you sorted! I would be interested to hear what they suggest ... meanwhile take some ibuprofen and go to bed with a good book!

selfish as it sounds (because I am not pleased that others are suffering) it's good to know that others understand how limiting it is.
I have to consider every journey I take etc, where are the toilets.
I have to carry something like a rucksack just to keep my sanitary stuff in
gggr!!!
lol....I know! it could be worse, I could be a man

God, mine are like this. You are not alone (neither am I)

I know it is so very limiting isnt it ... I find if I am late with a pill or dont start taking them soon enough then I have a nightmare .. I can't even get home from work! I have had some horrific problems commuting back from central London. It literally puts your life on hold for that entire time of the month.

I know what you mean about worse than that herbitea .. its grim to describe but literal flooding ... the Doctor's suggestion was that I go off and get myself pregnant! Very helpful .. NOT!

I just about made it to work once, I needed to change when I got there so I was late, then I got into trouble, how do you explain that you had niagra falls coming out of your fanjo and needed to change?

pellmell - I was like this for fecking years. I still get very nervous around period time because I know for at least one day I can't really go out because the bleeding could be so bad I need to change towel every half an hour. And the pain too :(

However, I had the scans, and they found nothing and so have had a Mirena coil fitted and fingers crossed this will make them go away or get very light (I've only had it for a week so can't say yet) but it did stop two days early when I had it put in. So hurrah for that at least.

And I did discover the trick is to buy two identical pairs of navy blue trousers for the first day or your period - in jersey material, they roll up small and then if you have any little leaks you can swap trousers and no-one notices!

oh thankyou for your sympathy, really it makes such a difference to offload like this.

I also have a history of daily bleeding which was light but bothersome nun the less and was due to an ectropian across the cervix.

I had treatment for it but it came back and was ablated? for the 2nd time.
The Dr said I could not take the pill as it was causing it.

This heavy blood loss is recent and the pits!!!
Thankyou everyone x
It feels a bit self indulgent to go on about it.

Have you had your clotting factors checked? Often very heavy periods are associated with a lack of factor 10 in the blood, it's a clotting factor (one of about 12 I believe), and you can get treatment for it.

It's not self indulgent, it's a serious medical problem. It can render you very anaemic and it's a vicious circle because the more anaemic you are the more you bleed etc.

If it's not an offensive question, are you overweight - I find the less I weigh the less I bleed. Also I find exercise makes my bleeding decrease by one day a month (weird I know but apparently this is common).

I have this aswell. The pain is excrutiating but combined with the flow it's completely debilitating for a couple of days. Does anyone else get golf ball size clots? (sorry to be grim and hijack but I don't want to start a new thread called 'golfballs fall out my fanjo')

not self indulgent at all .. it is a nightmare and there are other people who understand. I spend 5 days every month walking around in a cold sweat panicking that the pills wont work or that I havent taken them in time etc. As belle said .. Niagra Falls is a tad difficult to explain to people. Get yourself checked out for anaemia as well ... mine are semi under control but I am still anaemic (or so Monday's blood test says!).

Friend of mine had something similar - she had to take the worst days off work, and became severely anaemic.

Turned out to be fibroids, and she was heaps better very soon after having them out.

yep big clots puddlepuss - are you taking mefenamic and tranexamic? I used to just be on tranexamic but Dr gave me mefenamic this month which is meant to help lessen flow but also for pain. That said they really really dont agree with me and I spent the whole time taking them doubled up with gut ache rather than period pains. I can put up with the pain though if it means I can function!

fibroids are a common cause as onimolap said ... they can rule those out with an ultrasound (external and internal) so worth asking Dr for referral if you haven't already had that done. I've been like this for 5 years now and they still haven't found a reason ..

RE the clotting factor.
dd1 has factor 9 deficiency(haemophillia B). She is a bleeder rather than just a carrier.
I don't have a problem as far as I am aware.
She has it because her dad does.

Golf balls...eek and yes I have them and they are gross!!!

just as well we aren't squeamish isn't it ... most men would probably faint!

mefenamic acid is what I had in my teens.

I'm going to ask for another iron test, I came back as borderline anaemic last time.

so the coil can stop periods then? I'm limited for contraception options as still BFing, and I feel really uncomfortable with the idea of a bit of metal (or whatever it is) in my womb but if it helps...

I will be back. DH wants to nick the comp for a bit....
Thankyou all so much for your interest and sharing your experiences with me.
I'm glad to be back on here x

Im the same Algebra .. for some strange reason I really really dont want the coil but they seem to promote it as the answer.

bodiddly, I haven't been to the doc yet. I have PCOS so I never had proper periods until after I stopped bf dd 18 months ago. I just assumed that they would get lighter once my body got used to having them. Each month dh tells me to go but I don't want to go while bleeding and then when I stop life gets in the way and before I know it I'm back on again. I also assumed I was the only person this was happening to but now I know I'm not I'll make sure I go - thanks pellmell for starting this thread.

Am I right in thinking with the coil you have to be careful about monitoring weight?

Hi - yes I have this too. Have had it for several years now, getting worse and worse. Now I am bleeding continuously, ridiculously heavy for about a week and a half out of every four - bleed for the other weeks too, just not as heavily. It it now at the stage that I do not leave the house if at all possible for that week and a half. I struggle in to work, with about five changes of bottom half clothes (all black obviously!), and change clothes several times during the day. I need to go to the loo and change about 3 times an hour or it is running down my legs - literally, flows down like I am weeing blood... sometimes I end up just sitting on the loo for an hour (or just stay standing in the shower), I am losing so much, including many big clots (some of them up to the size of an orange), that there is no point getting off..two minutes and I'll have flooded again and be back there. My friends cannot believe me when I tell them how much I lose, DH does because when I am really feeling dreadful after several days of it and am cleaning the floor/toilet/myself up for the umpteenth time that day and have been about to pass out, he has had to come in and help me and makes jokes about chainsaw massacre to try and lighten the situation!

I keep getting taken into hospital for iron/blood transfusions as it now takes me two months to go from normal iron levels to severe anaemia...It has got this bad gradually over about 6 years, so I think I have just got used to it and learned how to cope as I have gone along and it is now second nature to have spare clothes in the car, to watch the time all the time, so that I am monitoring how long before I need to be back in the loo again, I work and I have children, you just have to keep on going... I know what mine is caused by.. I have fibroids - my uterus is now the size of a 5 month pregnancy.... my GP has now said that I need to Urgently have a hysterectomy. A hysterectomy has been on the cards for a while (obviously), but I have been putting it off because I don't know how I am going to cope with the children and work whilst laid up (no family to help, friends all work etc), but it has now got to the stage that I will end up in hospital for Iron infusions every month and they are running out of veins to use (they had to go and get a chemo nurse last time to get the IV in as the other nurses weren't able to) which is going to be a nightmare logistics wise (it takes 7 hours to do IV and hospital is an hour away.. that means at least 9 hours out, childcare only runs 9 hours a day, therefore DH has to take time off work to do pick ups etc plus I have to have the day off work). I am now waiting for appoint with Gynae, so can get it all set up, I don't know how quick "Urgent" is though and how long it will take to get it all booked in.

Anyway, sorry, very long reply there, but what I was trying to say, is yes I do understand how you feel... it is crap... but it can be caused by something like fibroids, which are not bad themselves, they are just a total pain in the arse if they cause all the bleeding. I have tried Tranexamic acid, I found it just held the bleeding off for a few hours whilst they were in my system, as soon as the levels started to drop I lost all the blood that they had been holding off, so had a huge flood, plus worse than normal cramps whilst my uterus was trying to get rid of it all. So I stopped taking them.

Practical wise - wear lots of black, take spare clothes with you, leggings fold up small, easy to carry in a bag, wear long t-shirts dresses that cover your bum/tops of your legs, take plastic bags to put your used clothes in... use tampons and sanitary towels together, when you go out or maternity pads...don't wear lace up shoes (difficult to take on and off in a public toilet when changing your clothes), plastic bag or towel on seat of your car etc... all stuff I am sure you have already thought off..

The Gynae will want to know the pattern of your bleeding, so if you have it in a diary, what days your were heavy, how long for, how many times you changing tampons etc, then get it all written down to take with you on weds rather than them sending you away for another few months to fill out a diary. If you are bleeding this heavily, are you tired? - you may be anaemic, maybe ask for a blood test, if you are anaemic, it not only affects your energy, it also affects your pain threshold and your ability to cope, when I am low, I get very weepy and down. The bleeding gets me down a hell of a lot anyway, but when my iron is low it is even harder to mentally cope with it. I hope it goes well for you on weds and you get some answers of what is going on!! In the meantime, lots of sympathy from here too... men have it bloody easy!