Young girls and women of all ages that menstruate could experience heavy bleeding during their periods. The technical term is menorrhagia, which means menstrual bleeding that lasts longer than seven days and is heavy in nature. You may be wondering why am I bleeding a week after my period, but the answer is not as simple as most women would like.
Causes
There are only a few reasons why a woman would experience excess bleeding. The most common reason is a hormone imbalance. This happens to all girls and women at one point or another in their life of menstruation. The danger is when it becomes the norm each month. If this is the case, you will want to contact your gynaecologist to determine if it is a simple hormone imbalance or something more serious like cancer, Polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS, or thyroid disease. It could also be something as simple as polyps or fibroids. This is why a doctor should be consulted.
Another cause could be a sexually transmitted disease. Have your doctor check for Gonorrhea, Trichomoniasis, Chlamydia or endometritis.
Symptoms
Some of the symptoms you may feel include:
Anemia – too much blood loss causes an iron loss and is not good for your body, it is also known as iron loss.
Fatigue – the loss of too much blood will make you tired and downright exhausted.
Blood clots – these will be bigger than a quarter in size and happen several times a day.
Possible Treatments
Besides medication from your doctor, or something more drastic like a hysterectomy, you may want to treat your symptoms at home.
Heating pad – using a heating pad during your period is not only comforting, but it helps to relax the muscles in and around the abdominal area where cramping and general pain are located.
Menstrual cup – this is a soft silicone cup that is inserted into the vagina to collect blood before it leaves the body. This will not fix the heavy bleeding, but it will help to make you more comfortable as well as limiting your trips to the bathroom.
Period underwear – this will also help to keep you from excessive trips to the bathroom, but not fix the problem of heavy bleeding.
Medication – use an OTC medication such as ibuprofen or Tylenol. You could also request a birth control pill prescription from your doctor that will help to regulate your hormones. There are also hormone replacement therapies to help with heavy monthly bleeding.
Get plenty of rest, reduce your stress as much as possible and change your diet to a healthy option.
If your period lasts more than seven days and is heavy, and is the same month after month, you will need to seek medical help. Make an appointment with your primary doctor or gynecologist so that they may help determine what may be the cause of your heavy bleeding. The doctor will also be able to try several different options to relieve your pain and possibly help reduce the monthly bleeding to a minimum.
