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Part 7: Women’s Health Series – Heavy Periods

By August 6, 2018August 9th, 2018Womens Health Series

Transcript

Hi Ladies, Dr. Cris here with another part of the Women Health Series, today I thought I talked about heavy bleeding and heavy periods, what to do about them and when to know if you need to go and see a health professional about them.

A lot of the times we just push on and we just keep going on with our lives and I’m surprised with what women put up with in terms of heaviness of their cycles.  For some women who are losing so much blood they can then become anaemic in between period cycles and obviously that’s an issue. Sometimes it creeps up on us, particularly through our 30’s and 40’s our periods can change and we can get heavier cycles. If our cycles are becoming too heavy to the point where we are not leaving the house because of our periods, we’re cramping, we’ve got a lot of pain or we are becoming Iron deficient in between cycles or after every few cycles, then that’s obviously an issue. For some women that don’t realise how heavy their periods are, they only know because they have to change pads and tampons every hour or 2 hours, that’s still too much. The average blood loss during the normal menstrual cycle should be only around 80ml which isn’t a lot, so if it’s more than that and it’s causing disruption to your life or to your wellbeing then it’s definitely something to look into and to get investigated.

The best way to find out if there is something abnormal going on is to have hormones look into by way of a blood test. The best type is the type that we do just before your cycle so just before your period so on day 21 of your cycle, often I do a blood test and I’ll often do a saliva hormone test as well on that day 21 if you got a 28 day cycle. If you don’t you can roughly calculate when your period will come and you count 7 days before then. And an ultrasound as well of the lining of the uterus just after you have had your period. Ideally after you had your period, the lining should be all gone and ready to build back up. For some women, the lining never fully goes particularly if you’re approaching menopause and that’s an issue cause that can be and to make sure cancer risk but it can also mean you have to have lots of issues with fibroids and bleeding and really just an unfun time approaching menopause and that’s often when special some say or how about consider the history to me where not getting anywhere to get this bleeding under control.

What can you do about heavy periods? So first thing is addressing this hormone imbalance so we can do that lifestyle wise, we can do that with natural supplements if we are still not winning and we’re still needing a bit more of aggressive approach then we can go to hormone therapy or surgical options so it is important to address heavy bleeding if as I said if it’s causing disruption to your overall wellbeing or to your life and it’s important to get it address before it becomes a major issue when your needing emergency surgery for instance to your blood loss so it’s important to address it early don’t leave it, don’t be embarrassed by way we all have to deal with this on some stage and it’s important to get it addressed and looked out by health professional early rather than late so if you got any other questions feel free to ask them below

#healthyhabits #healthyliver

Dr Cris

Holistic Medical Doctor

Author ‘Healthy Habits, 52 Ways to Better Health‘ and Healthy Liver

Creator 12-Week Hormone and Weight Reset Program

 

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