You listen to your friends talk about their periods as if they were simply a minor nuisance — just a few days of bleeding and life continues merrily along. Your experience has been much different thanks to heavy bleeding that disrupts your life in significant ways.
We know it doesn’t solve the problem, but you may find some comfort in the fact that heavy bleeding affects between one-third and one-half of women who have menstrual cycles.
When it comes to what’s behind your heavy bleeding, Dr. Fernando Otero and the team here at Women’s Clinic of the Rio Grande Valley want to review some of the more common culprits behind this prevalent women’s health issue here.
Let’s first make sure that we’re all on the same page with heavy bleeding, which the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists describes as:
Heavy bleeding can also describe blood clots in your period that are about the size of a quarter, or larger.
Now that we have an idea about what qualifies as heavy bleeding, which is medically known as menorrhagia, let’s look at what might be behind the issue and how we can help.
Uterine fibroids affect an estimated 26 million women between the ages of 15 and 50 in the United States. The good news is that uterine fibroids are largely benign growths that develop in the walls of the uterus. The bad news is that if they grow big enough or numerous enough, they can lead to problems, such as pelvic pain and abnormal bleeding.
To treat fibroids, we can place you on hormonal medications to prevent fibroid growth, but this doesn’t address existing fibroids. If you have a problematic fibroid, we can turn to minimally invasive surgery to remove the growth.
Another road to heavy bleeding is imbalances in your reproductive hormones. For example, women with polycystic ovary syndrome often face abnormal bleeding. As well, women who are carrying too much weight can experience heavy menstrual bleeding as the weight influences the hormones.
If hormones are at the root of your heavy periods, we can fight back with hormonal medications to rebalance them.
If you have a sexually transmitted infection (STI), such as chlamydia, trichomoniasis, or gonorrhea, you may be vulnerable to having heavy periods. Thankfully, we can treat most STIs with antibiotics, which should normalize your periods.
With this condition, the lining of your uterus (the endometrium) grows into the walls of the organ, which can lead to heavy and painful periods.
Hormonal medications can control adenomyosis, and most women grow out of the condition as they pass through menopause.
There are other, less common causes of heavy bleeding, such as endometrial cancer and bleeding disorders, but the above are the ones that account for the problem in the majority of women.
The best way to find a solution for your heavy bleeding is to come in for an evaluation so we can figure out what’s behind the issue. From there, we can get you on the road to more normal menstrual cycles. To schedule this visit, simply contact one of our offices in McAllen or Edinburg, Texas.
