my periods have gone haywire and i'm wiped out.

[queenrollo]

my body took ages to settle after ds was born, eventually into a 30 day cycle. then the last three months i've had some spotting at about 14 days before AF....wasn't too concerned, but this time the spotting lasted 4 days and was more like a period. that was 21 days ago and i have now been bleeding for a week. heavier than usual, some clots and i am wiped out. i've had to go to bed the last three afternoons when ds napped because i could barely keep my eyes open.
this is not at all normal for me.......should i go to my doctor? and if i do, give me some info to take because they'll just pat me on the head and send me away. (they will just tell me it's my age, i'm 31, and it'll be ok) i just need to know when i should see this as a problem rather than body being out of sync.
my poor ds wants to go out and play and i barely have the energy to get to the park let alone chase him around.

I put up with symptoms like these and various others like bladder leakage and mood swings and cramps for years. I kept telling my doctor who kept telling me it was "normal" after childbirth and that I would get better. After 3 years of not getting better, I finally got to see a specialist both in the UK and in the USA and both said that I was experiencing peri-menopause, which is basically the 10-15 years leading up to menopause. Most women have no problems during this period, but some like me, start getting menopausal symptoms. Luckily for me (since I didn't want more children) the solution is to go on the pill as it evens out your hormones. It cleared up all my problems and a few I didn't even realize were caused by hormones like bad hair.
You are quite a bit younger than I am (I am 43 and had my last child at 39), but perhaps your issues are hormonal anyway. But whatever they are, they definitely need to be dealt with. Go to your gp and ask them to refer you to a specialist. (I saw Dr. Panay at Hammersmith in London. He is the expert on hormones in the uk).
Good Luck.

thankyou.....i'm keeping a seperate diary now of my symptoms, and will try for an appointment with my female GP as she tends to be more understanding.

Sorry to be personal, but you're not on the mini pill are you? I had problems like this and they never went away, got so bad that I've now got a coil. Now, much better, but the mini pill made the spotting and bleeding much worse and the doctor hastily took me off it after he realised that I hadn't stopped bleeding since I'd been on it.

I should add that the doctor was very specific that I needed to take a full (not mini) monophasic (same hormone dose all month) pill.

i'm not on any contraception.....i started the pill at 16, took it until i was 28 when i came off it to ttc. i decided to give my body a break and let it find it's own rhythm because i would like to have another baby (but not just yet), and didn't want the pill to mess my system up again. but if this is going to happen then i might go back on the pill.