Heavy periods - Tranexamic Acid

[funkycool]

My Doctor has prescribed the above for my heavy periods which have made me anaemic. Feel reluctant to take them as I've never taken anything other than paracetamol before. Has anyone taken/does take these? If so, have you experienced any side effects? Thanks.

ferrous sulphate tablets 200mg.
somtimes you have to take folic acid tablets to help the iron uptake if there is and underlying problem.

sytron as EA says.

Ferrogad tablets(which are ferrous sulphate)
Iron and multivitamin tablets... valuepak is the brand ...about 99p.
All these iron preps can give you constipation big time tho.

But in all honesty the doc shuld be getting to the route cause of you anaemia first

Hi funkycool,

re your comment:-

"attila - I have had a few investigations as to why I'm anaemic but not all. I had a cervical smear, a pelvic ultrasound and a transvaginal ultrasound - all clear".

None of the above tests would detect endometriosis if it is present. I speak from personal experience here too, my endo was only diagnosed through keyhole surgery (the endo deposits are very snall and are thus not seen on any scan).

If GP is unsure you should be referred to a specialist gynae for further evaluation.
Treating the symptoms is all well and good but the CAUSE of all this needs to be properly established. Otherwise you'll just keep going round in circles.

Transexamic acid is bloody brilliant. My sister and I have both used with with no ill effects. BTW, I don't have endometriosis (have had laparoscopy to check) just really heavy periods.

alypaly - Thanks for listing, I've tried ferrous sulphate, glucamate and fumarate - none of them suit me!

attila - My periods have got closer together and heavier the past few years. I'm over 40 so have assumed that it is the perimenopause. My mother started at the same age with heavier periods and closer together before they became irregular and she went through the menopause about 4 years later. However I'm only (and so is the Doctor!) guessing what's going on. What are the other symptoms of endometriosis? I don't have much period pain, just the normal achey, dull aches, during the first day or two.

funkycool...have you been scanned for fibroids... very common at this age. i am a bit older than you (53 to be exact) and my three fibroids have caused absolute hell.still got them but am hoping they will shrink now i am thro the menopause.

has the doctor diagnosed you as anaemic. do you know what your haemoglobin levels are and then you will know how bad or good it is. If it is really low you can have a 3 monthly or bimonthly injection called cyanocobalamin which is vitamin B12 which is deficient in some people with anaemia. the gp often gives it with folic acid to increase red blood cell production.

alypaly - I don't know if I've been checked for fibroids. Would they show up on a pelvic ultrasound? My ultrasound was clear. What symptoms did the fibroids cause?

When I blacked out 6 months ago, my haemoglobin was 9 and my ferritin (iron stores) were 4. I've managed to stabilise my haemoglobin at around 12 for the past few months and my ferritin hovers ranges between 20 and 30, but I'm told that that is still low. I asked my Doctor if I could have a B12 deficiency and she said she hadn't checked it as my haemoglobin had gone up.

I keep meaning to start a new thread on all my symptoms. Briefly, 6 months ago after I started fainting and was diagnosed as anaemic, I felt like my whole body/system went down - I had joint pain, rashes, loss of balance, faintness, nausea, fatigue, weak limbs, dodgy bowels etc. My Doctor thought I had a virus on top of the anaemia. I have gradually started to feel a bit better. I did some research and decided to go on a gluten, wheat and dairy free diet which seems to have made a difference to the joint pain, rashes and loose bowels but I still have the following symptoms:

I have gradually felt better over the past few months but still have the following symptoms:

heavy periods (usually get these every 3 1/2 weeks but the first day of my last period was only 14 days after the first day of the period before that),

lower back ache,

pain on right side of body at the bottom of ribs,

achey bowels.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

9 was abit low for hgb and i am sure you felt tired and dizzy at times. 30 is on the low side of normal for ferritin.

just a question ,you havent been in contact with youngsters with slapped cheek syndrome have you?

it sounds very similar to a very long and tiring bout of human parvo virus( slapped cheek syndrome that i contracted from a clas of 6 year olds at DS2 infant school.

Get the gp to test your IGg and IGm to see if you have had a viral infection and if he is willing get him to do a parvo B19 test too.

Fibroids normally show up on an ultrasound,but mine are actually embedded within the wall of the uterus rather than inside the womb so they are sometimes harder to spot if they are small.

I take my Tranexamic acid for the duration of my period, rather than just the heaviest days.Thats what my GP advised in terms of how long to take it for .I only take 3 tabs a day. It does make a big difference to me.

alypaly, I don't know if I've been in contact with slapped cheek syndrome, but do have children of school/nursery age so could be a possibility.

How did you treat the virus you had? What's IGg and IGm?

I've also copied my last message on to a new thread aptly titled 'What's wrong with me?' which has a bit more info. as to me feeling ill and what tests I've had.

i have only scanned this thread, but i have just been given this today,

my monthlies are not generally really bad but have got worse, my last one was awful, spent the first day in bed as it was really painful and the bleeding wasnt far off a post natal bleed, including clots. it was very scary as it had never been like that before.

so i went to the doc and was given this straight away, i also mentioned that since coming of a mini pill that my monthlies were every 3 weeks now instead of 4, but she didnt really say anything about that, not sure if all these things tie in with anything in perticular but it would have been nice to explore options with her.

well i suppose ill give it a try anyway and see how it goes.

if i can remember IgM immunoglobulin m is present in the serum as a reaction to an acute bacterial or viral infection. IgG is an immunoglobulin that is traced in the serum as a result of a long term infection or a market that indicates you have had an earlier infection. If they are raised it is an indication of an infection of some sort. They do not tell you what ,just that your body has tried to defend itself and these markers show up.

Because i had it so badly..and undiagnosed for three years, i really suffered almost with ME symptoms. I was so desperate to feel well, i virtually ended up self diagnosing and asked the gp for a Parvo B19 test. I had similar symptoms to you...abdo pain ,nausea,fatigue,achy limbs especially hips and fingers. Hands used to feel slighlty hot and face used to flush a bit.Really had no get up and go and just felt knackered all the time. All blood tests kept coming back normal and i began to feel like a hypochondriac...until i got a positive result.
Then i was treated with a blood transfusion of immunoglobulins to mop up the virus and within 10 days i felt like a completely new woman.
slappped cheek is the 5th childhood disease , some exhibit a slapped cheek face others are just off colour for a few days but normally the whole class will get it as it is highly contagious. some dont have many symptoms so it is sometimes difficult to know. Some mums just think the red cheek is due to the temperature but it is the pattern of the infection... sorry to go on

sparkle09 - poor you, luckily I don't often get period pains and even then they are bearable. I hope things settle down for you.

alypaly - thanks for going into such detail, that's really helpful. It's disgusting that you had to end up self-diagnosing yourself after so long. Yes they do seem very similar symptoms, I did ask the Doctor if I had ME or MS as back in May I couldn't even take the children to school. I can relate to the beginning to feel like a hypochondriac but I just want to be back to my old self. I've never been ill before, just the usual viruses and colds. Will ask about the parvo test. Thanks again.

hope it helps... i felt like thrusting the results down the gp's throat after so long and so many negative tests. I thought i was going cuckoo. Know the feeling about just lying in bed... sometimes too tired to sleep other times just general apathy.
i am a really sporty person and always have been and it absolutely ruined 3-4 years of mine and my BF's life. At times we both thought i had something terminal which had been missed. I know that sounds dramatic, but thats how bad i felt

Wow 3-4 years, that's a long time. I can only imagine how you felt when you found out what was wrong with you. These past 6 months feels like forever. I usually rate my doctor but he thinks I'm just getting stressed out about things. Unbelievable. Why on earth would I choose to exhaust myself going backwards and forward to consultants and having loads of tests done? It's really taken a toll on me and my family too. I've also thought that I have something terminal, I've lost count of the amount of times I've woken my husband in the night in tears that I'm going to die.

are you finding it is almost precipitating anxiety attacks to due to the frustrating lack of help from doctors.
they almost seem to try an pacify you with stupid statements..like we have done all the tests..everything is normal.maybe you might need to seek further help to deal with this... What were they insinuating... i actually took a clinical paper into my gp when i had been diagnosed and asked him to put it in my notes incase something else developed as a result of time to diagnose. He said he knew nothing about it... OMG its the fifth chidhood disease...get back to school...
i am sure you can sense how annoyed it made me. I am now six years on from my transfusion and have had no repercussions.....yet

YES!!!! When I was v. ill back in May, I was very stressed about my state of health. I can't tell you how many times I went back to the Doctor after I'd been cleared by yet another consultant, only to be told 'you are very watchful of your symptoms' and eventually after my Doctor didn't know where else to send me said that 'I think some sessions of cognitive behaviour therapy would be helpful'. I stopped going to the Doctor's over the summer holiday because I didn't want to drag the children to the surgery whilst they were off school/nursery, and it would give me time to research on the internet to try and diagnose myself, because that's what it's coming down to.

It's great to hear your story - that you found an answer and have been able to get it treated so that you could move back into your life.

Definitely get seen by a haematologist
You should get your B12 checked out as you may have absorbtion problems

funkycool...i really feel for you. i know exactly where you are coming from. Do these doctors think we dont know our own bodies?
did you go to the docs frequently before all this or has it just started recently?
i did the same as you...waking up in the middle of the night,heart racing,sweating,panicking that i was dying of some undiagnosed problem...ex called the doc out several times( really took its toll on relationship) and the doc patronisingly gave me diazepam and said "calm down...everything is fine., maybe we ned to review some anti depressants..grrrrrr

My consultant( who i ended up going privately to) even started looking at the worst end of the spectrum at things like sarcoidosis ( a minute little tunour that lives in the gut that can be the size of a pin head.( i looked knackered and even my partner said i looked awful which didnt help) Consultant, was sure he was missing something serious. OMG you should have seen the list of tests. The urine test involved this 72hr collection to measure chemical levels in it,and i wasnt allowed to eat bananas becos of potassium. Had a colonoscopy to see if there were any obvious malignanacies. Had virtually everything and then it was something as simple as a common virus.At least i had an extremely full MOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ended up seeing a consultant at the MRI who saw the results to my parvo test and he had a colleague who was a research fellow,studying Parvo would you believe. So i then became one of 5 people to be involved in a clinical trial which thankfully worked for me. It actually worked for 4 out of 5 of us. I do hope you get some joy ,it is so frustrating to be doubted.

Ask your gp if you can see a rheumatologist as alot of these illnesses that manifest themselves with your symptoms are auto immune related. BTW i dont mean HIV.

if i can help ,let me know( i have done so much research)...i hate to see people suffering for no reason. Dont know where you live, but you can request to see a doctor that is out of your area,it is your choice.

eldon - thanks, good suggestion, a few people have suggested that so will get that done next week.

alypaly - OMG I cannot believe your symptoms are so similar - the sweating in the night etc. Damn I have to go and do the school run but will post later. Please don't go away!!!

i wont

alypaly - I'm back!

I didn't go to the doctors hardly at all before this whole episode. I've never been ill like before - apart from the usual flu and cold viruses. I started to feel ill mid-March and after I'd been 2 or 3 times in the space of a week, my doctor commented that it wasn't like me to be backwards and forwards to see him. I lost a stone in weight and even some of the mum's at my son's school who don't really know me where coming up to me asking if I was alright and that I'd lost so much weight. One friend who I hadn't seen for 6 weeks gasped when she saw me, which is when I felt really worried that I wasn't going to make it. After that I literally forced myself to eat, it felt like a real survival instinct, I would be eating thinking 'if I eat this whole plate of food then maybe I won't die'. One night at Easter I woke up in the night, felt strange, got up to go to the bathroom, started blacking out and felt the strangest sensation in my stomach radiating to the left and right. I asked my husband to call an ambulance, I've never been so frightened in my entire life. I seriously thought I had internal bleeding. These stories are only snippets of what has happened over the last 6 months.

Fortunately, I have private health cover so have managed to see various consulants without having to wait for more than a week or two for an appointment.

The next test that I was thinking about going to ask for is a colonoscopy. What was your reason for having a colonoscopy? (Hope you don't mind me asking). My bowel feels very strange, but then so does the rest of my body.

About seeing a rheumatologist, I did have some joint pain in my wrist and ankles and the bones in my feet. That seems a little better now although I still get painful knees and my right knee is permanently swollen with fluid on the knee. The cardiologist I saw recently took a blood test for auto antibodies and I'm still waiting for the results of that.

In the 3/4 years that you were ill did you feel better at all? I felt very ill from March to June, and now when I look back I realise that I am better in some ways, although I still have a whole host of symptoms.

Do you live in the UK? I live in the south.

This message seems so all over the place and I feel like I've missed so much stuff out, I wish I'd kept a diary. Did you keep a diary of your symptoms at all?

Hope you don't mind me asking so many questions! It's so refreshing to find someone who understands.

morning..funkycool
sorry didnt get back to you last night. Unfortunately have picked up a tummy bug from some where..so was stuck in the little girls room IYGWIM

regarding the colonoscopy....i had discomfort and a strange lumpiness especially on right side. If i laid down i could almost feel the lumps and at times it was really painful and quite noisy. It wasnt irritable bowel or constipation, according to doc anyway.My consultant did a colonoscopy because i had other weird symptoms basically all over my body...
my hand and fingers felt hot and a times my fingers felt puffy..so did my feet.
My scalp itched..and burned and my face used to feel and look hot at times.My eyes went dry and really sore too which was really uncomfortable.My hips used to feel as if someone was dragging on them and my knees also ached( i didnt put all this in my post to you to start off with as it wud have been v. long.)
Just generally felt really unwell but couldnt put my finger on one thing.( and i am a very person normally despite being 53...play loads of sports,ski etc)
Felt as if i had permanent flu without the snotty nose.
My private consultant said there was a rare tumour called sarcoid ( as i mentioned in my last post) that can be the size of a pin head,but it can reek havoc with the whole of your system. He was great becos he looked at the worst scenario first as he thought the gp,s had done all the normal tests. ( usual poor communication with medical records)He went as far as he could up the bowel, but did say that if it was very small he probably wouldnt be able to see it, so he was looking for larger ones as i felt so ill.Alongside that i had to do this 72 urine collection as the tumour puts out a chemical that can be detected in the 24 hour collection. Thankfully worst scenario was rulled out which was a relief as he had already told me that if it was that it was only a matter of time....i was really scared.
After that he went through every blood test urine test,ct scans, mr scans,he was so thorough. I cant fault his work. Then after weeks of despair i tried to think about what was going on when i first stated feeling unwell and recaled the outbreak of parvo at school which funnily enuf had been documented at our local community infectious disease unit.
Because of joint problems Gp then referred me to a rheumatologist and that when i asked if i could this parvo B19 test. Low and behold, it came back positive.
The rheumatologist said it was quite rare in his knowledge for adults to get it as,like chicken pox,most people have had it as adolescents. But it was strongly positive.
He then had a chat with one of his clinical associates who happened to be working on Parvo and a possible treatment and then i got involved in this trial with 4 others.
I was in the MRI for one week and had and immunoglobulin tranfusion. This is a combination of approx 100 peoples antibodies (as he reckoned my auto immune system was compromised). Basically once in the blood stream it mops up all the nasty viruses and hopefully stops them from being replicated. After one week of really painful transfusions, as it was like syrup. One large bottle a day which i was told cost a fortune...but i didnt care cos i felt like death warmed up.i went home and then within 10 days,my energy returned and all the symptoms started to diminish.
The clinician then wrote a paper on all of his trials and has posted it on internet.

I did have ups and downs and some years(but never felt completely well ever) it almost seemed to come back at specific times of the year ( normally sept-april...)Yes i did kep a diary and have still got them all from yr2000 in case it rears it ugly head again.
The consultant did tell me that it can get into bone marrow...therefore red blood cell production so when i read up about it, i was really perturbed to find that it wa related to leukaemia,rheumatoid arthritis and believe it or not AIDS( just because they are auto immune diseases they are structurally related)
I am surprised the cardiologist is doing your immune test because you have joint problems...maybe rheumatolgist might be better.
The cardiologist will be able to check IgG and IgM but like i said they cannot define what has caused the problem. You need the specific Parvo B19 test.
Sorry this is so long..apologies for any typo errors, if i can help just post...it is horrible when you fel like this and you feel like doctors are just humouring you. I dont mind any questions if it helps

would it be easier to start a seperate chat line so it is not confused with tranexamic acid posts?

Tummy bug ... yuk. I hope you are feeling better and it's not dragging on too long.

Thanks for explaining about the colonoscopy. It's the one test that I feel petrified about if I were to have one. Is it painful? Did you have sedation? Also, like you said, you went through all those tests only to find out that your symptoms were caused by a virus. I do feel that if I were to have one then it would rule out any other nasties.

I just can't believe how similar your symptoms are, I've had the burning scalp sensation, as well as hot and red hands and feet and face. No problem with my hips, but the joints in my knees ached so much. One knee remains permanently raised with fluid on the knee cap. Did your feet hurt to walk on? I can't remember if I've asked you this but did you get itchy rashes?

One other awful symptom was that it felt like I was drunk but without the staggering around. One friend wondered if it was 'depersonalisation' from anxiety, but I knew it really was something else going on. That's why I ended up asking for a (MRI) brain scan, I couldn't believe that it was all clear.

You refer to your private consultant, was he a gastro-enterologist? He sounds amazing to have taken you so seriously. It must have been a very stressful time having the transfusions, and all because of some virus. My doctor and the neurologist I saw both said that they thought I'd had a virus and that if I had, it would sort itself out in due course. Yeh, right.

The blood test for auto immunity that my cardiologist has done - do you know if that is to check IgG and IgM? Did you have that done before the parvo test? I'm just wondering if I need the parvo test if the results come back ok. I called the cardiologists office on Friday but the results are taking a long time for some reason.

Hope I'm not rambling on too much, it's such a relief to find someone who understands what I'm talking about. Today my upper arms ache so much and my lower back.

Good idea to start a separate thread, my mind is way off worrying about the tranexamic acid now. I did start one another one but put perimenopause in the title so think I'll start again with a better title. Can I copy and paste our messages in their in case anyone has something to add? I'm not sure if I can do that. If not I'll just post my original thread about my main symptoms.