Unusually VERY heavy, painful period...

[whycantwegoonasthree]

Hi,

I'm 45, and have only ever had anything like this once before, (way back in my twenties).

I woke up this morning with blood everywhere, massive pain, huge clots. It's carried on all day.

I'm on the combined pill - my periods are regular because of this, and generally very light. I was expecting my period to arrive in a couple of days, but it's never like this...

Is this just an age thing? It's horrible and weird, and I don't feel very well with it, TBH. I don't want to bother the GP with it if i'm just making a fuss about nothing. But it's a little alarming.

Sorry to bother you lovely ladies over probably nothing...

TIA
x

Any chance it could have been a miscarriage?

If you are going through a pad or tampon more than once every 2 hours you need to seek help.

Thanks Sylvanian - I mean, I guess it's possible - but at my age it's gotta be unlikely, right?

I'm pretty good about taking my pill but I'm not flawless, I've probably got a bit lax assuming my age made an accidental pregnancy a pretty low risk...

I a going through a super tampon every couple of hours, with some massive clots (sorry if TMI). It just hurts a lot - which might just be the period pain.

Could it just be that I'm peri (I have other symptoms of that) and that shit like this will start happening now?

Should I just give it 24 hours and see what happens? Is there any risk to doing that?

Thanks for replying… x

My mum had a few like this when she started the menopause...

It could well be peri. I have had periods exactly like that and I am in peri. ..of course ring the dr if you are concerned

Just coming into say sounds like a miscarriage. I’d ring 111 for advice just in case.

Oh and the worst one I had was a month long..,heavy and clotty. .dr was not at all concerned!

Ok, so if it was a miscarriage (outside chance, worst case scenario etc.) would they actually do anything anyway? Or just wait for nature to take its course? Meaning - if I wait 24 hours, keep taking paracetamol and go to bed, is there any risk to this?

It's just I'm a single mum and have the school run in the morning, so I can't go anywhere or do anything about it tonight anyway…

Thank you for taking time to respond - I'm not dismissing anything, I just don;t want to cause hassle all round only to be told it's just menopausal nonsense... And if the worst case scenario is that it's a miscarriage but they wouldn't do anything anyway if it was, there's no harm in waiting.

I can manage the bleeding with a tampon pad combo...

Sounds like a shit menopausal period to me. Bitter experience
If it happens again, there are things the doctor can prescribe to try and slow the flow, so you don't need to suffer in silence.

You can definitely still get pregnant in your forties!

When I had my most recent miscarriage (age 42) I had very heavy bleeding which became an emergency. That would be the main concern - I would call the non emergency number for advice, just in case.

Hope it settles down soon, and you feel better.

I have experienced many extremely heavy periods. The long term risk is anemia, but there have been no short-term consequences aside from pain.

Thanks all - bleeding has eased a lot (must do - there can't be much left…) and pain reduced. Still have a bit of a temperature and feel a bit sick, but it's much more manageable than yesterday - which to be honest had be a bit scared. I guess the only way I'll know if this is peri-menopause will be if/when it happens again…

I hate not knowing though...

Your support yesterday was much appreciated. x

Get a cheap pregnancy test, there will still be enough HCG to confirm if it was a miscarriage.

Hmmm. If there's no medical reason to need to know, I think I'd rather not know… :-(

How are you feeling today op?

Thanks I'm ancient. I'm ok thanks - feel a little washed out, but I'm anaemic with low bloody pressure anyway, so that's probably not much of a shock.

I'm trying to decide whether I want to investigate it more, partly to know if it's likely to become a regular occurrence, But on the other hand that if I found out it was a miscarriage then that would be really hard to deal with on a number of levels...

Given it's been a couple of days, I guess it looks like I'm waiting until next months… and I've decided without deciding. IYSWIM.

Thank you for your help and your concern - it's really appreciated. This is MN at it's best - good informed people prepared to help out others. x

I had something very similar a few months ago and rang the doctors because I thought sod this, I can't be doing with This each month. The doctor was fab, we discussed HRT, the coil but he said he just wanted to send me for a scan just to check things out. Had the scan which has picked up thickened womb lining and am going in for a hystercopy(sp) next week to check it out. I don't think it is anything sinister but it might be worth a call to your doctor to discuss your concerns.