Heavy periods

[Teddy7878]

I'm not sure if my periods are heavier than the 'norm' so just wanted to see how often some of you have to change your tampons during your heaviest days.
I wear the super plus size and have to change every 3 hours and also pass clots around the size of a £1 coin. I get awful cramps and can feel dizzy and sick with diarrhea. After the 3rd day my flow becomes quite light and the cramps ease off.
Does this sound fairly standard?
Oh the joys of being a woman!

Anyone?

Minimum 2 a day. Mine differ from heavy to light though, but it still remains at 2.

On my heaviest days i sometimes wear a super plus tampon AND a towel otherwise I start leaking after about an hour. And I have to also use both at night and usually have to change tampons about 4/5am. It only lasts for 1/2 days the lightens up. I used to vomit as the pain was so bad and so get the diarrhoea too. I do have the copper coil which does exacerbate heavy periods but I've had them since I was 12 so didn't really make any difference to me.

I think that is heavy! Mine used to be similar, but I would also have hours I couldn't move from the loo.. I had an ablation (and was sterilised). Best thing I ever did - although I knew I couldn't want anymore kids.

Mine were vv heavy then I had to start taking warfarin so they got 10x worse.

Saviour for me was an endometrial ablation. No more periods.

Can only be done if your family is complete but oh the relief!

It doesn't sound too bad, but some posters on the site have horrendous periods, so my view of what is heavy is skewed. I switched to a mooncup because I was flooding through tampons and getting large clots that neither tampons or towels could deal with ( think thumb sized).

If I were you I would try out a moon cup to give you a good idea of how much you are losing, I can fill mine 3 times over in the space of a couple of hours on my heaviest day, which is about 100ml. Go and speak to your GP as well, and see if they can suggest anything for the blood loss and cramps. I have tranexamic acid tablets, which reduce the blood loss (but do seem to produce some fairly large clots), ibuprofen helps too.

Super plus tampons are a complete waste of time for me until at least day 4. Until then I have to use lillets ultra tampons which are the biggest I've found. They (along with a night time towel) give me between 90 minutes and 2 hours without having to visit the toilet. But that is only as long as I don't do any major walking or lifting or coughing or laughing. Then I flood.
My periods are horrid. But have been for over 10 years now through 5 kids, coils, pills. The only thing that reliably stopped them was the depo injection but that made me into a true monster so can't do that again

You can find period tracking diaries online, but basically, they all help you keep track of what protection you use, how frequently you change it, whether it's soaked through or partially stained, if there's any flooding or clotting, and if there are clots, approximate size. A large clot is around the size of a 50p piece apparently. Also any other symptoms like stomach cramps, nausea, headaches, mood changes.

I went to the doctor because I knew what I was experiencing was heavy for me, but I didn't know if it was heavy in general. (A super plus tampon and a towel and large clots all in an hour is heavy.) She said, "no woman in this day and age should have her life interrupted by periods," and there's a whole range of treatment options from meds like tranexamic acid through contraceptives up to hysterectomy, and we'll start at the bottom and move up till we get something which works. Tranexamic acid mostly does it for me, but it doesn't for everyone.

But there are still some GPs who will just say that's part of being a woman and not really do much. Don't let them fob you off, if you'vé got one like that.