The pain. The floods. The lost days.

[BlastedPimples]

So I only get periods every quarter now. I'm almost 52.

I'll be bumbling along, happily then wham! Here comes a period.

Pain like I have never known. Painkillers don't touch it until I have had about 8 neurofen over 6 hours.

Volumes of blood and clots like I have never known.

Exhaustion - I'm flat out for two days. Literally unable to move for sheer bone weary tiredness.

What the bloody hell, for want of a better phrase!

What can I do about this?

Go and talk to your GP!
There are treatments- drugs, the Mirena coil, an endometrial ablation.
The NHS has a page on this if you google Heavy Periods.

The Mirena coil fixed this for me. I don’t really have periods at all now.

Transexamic acid worked v well on my menopausal flooding.

HRT - pills at first and then the coil and gel sorted mine out. Also had a scan to check for fibroids.

The flooding had also made me anaemic which makes bleeding worse - who knew? So I needed iron too.

But I basically pestered the GP till I got it sorted.

I was like this at 43 - heavy periods ruling my life. I couldn't go anywhere without working out first where the nearest toilets were. Also I was teaching so not the easiest job to get to the toilet if you need to in a hurry.

I was prescribed tablets that lessened the volume of bleeding but as soon as I stopped taking them it was back with a vengeance.

Eventually after about 2 years of this I had a hysterectomy and it was the best thing I could ever have done - the freedom to do what I liked and go where I wanted was amazing!

So, I had this but every 6 months.

I was told I could have a mirena coil fitted if I wanted but I decided to go it alone because it was every 6 months and it stayed every 6 months until it just...stopped, yippee.

I bought incontinence pads which I wore in addition to heavy sanitary protection. I flexed work although, typical, it would often fall at my holiday times!

I had about 3 years of it and now I'm through.

Feel for you, it was a horrible time and my poor brain was like mashed potato too.

Suffering greatly with flooding and pain myself. Still have monthly periods. I have fibroids too. Transexamic acid useless. It's so humiliating. Stained my clothes many times. Asked for more WFH which I actually don't like but no choice.

I am scheduled for a hysterectomy because I insisted on it and made a fuss. But guess what, I am not getting it in this country because the waiting list is too long.

If men suffered like this, there would be better solutions and not so much faff.