Menorrhagia symptoms affect women differently. Not all women respond the same to the same approaches. Here are some available options.
You can first try out these natural options, but if the situation does not improve, you better contact your doctor and make an appointment.
Menorrhagia symptoms
To define how to treat menorrhagia, the first thing that health professionals look for is to resolve its origin. This disorder means an increase in the amount of menstrual bleeding or its excessive prolongation.
It is usual that the clinical form is due to an alteration of the menstrual rhythm, which would be metrorrhagia. In this case, the more correct name is menometrorrhagia. Anyway, the treatments are coincidental.
What is metrorrhagia and what are its causes?
Strictly speaking, there is metrorrhagia when a woman menstruates more than 80 millilitres of blood in her period. That is the technical limit in concrete measures to establish the pathology.
As for the days that are considered to establish that it is a prolonged bleeding, there is scientific discussion. As a general rule, almost all global diagnostic protocols consider more than a week to be abnormal.
We can summarize the causes of the disorder as follows:
- Hormonal imbalance: many hormones are involved in the menstrual cycle, so a small imbalance in any of them is enough to cause more or less bleeding. It can be a thyroid, estrogen, progesterone, or prolactin problem.
- Uterine fibroids: the presence of fibroids in the uterus is the cause of metrorrhagia. Fibroids are benign tumor growths of muscle in the wall of the organ. They deform the surface of the endometrium and cause it to bleed more.
- Anticoagulation: women with coagulation diseases or who take anticoagulants for another pathology may experience very heavy bleeding, even with the risk of iron deficiency anemia.
- Perimenopause: when a woman enters the ages of completion of menstrual cycles, rhythm disturbances are frequent. This leads to changes in the amount of monthly bleeding, ranging from stages of amenorrhea to periods of heavy blood that does not clot properly. For many it is the announcement of the onset of menopause.
How to treat menorrhagia naturally?
Before addressing the medicinal ways to treat menorrhagia, it should be mentioned that there are natural alternatives for mild cases. Always consult a health professional on using these alternatives. The usual thing is that they are adjuncts to other medical therapies.
Hydration
Menorrhagia leads to dehydration due to the loss of fluids that go with the blood. Especially around period days, women with the disorder should increase their water intake.
If they do it through isotonic drinks, the benefit is greater. An isotonic drink is one that has the same concentration of electrolytes as those in blood. In this way, you avoid silent dehydration due to poor replenishment.
Diet for anemia
A complication associated with menorrhagia is anemia. Iron loss with bleeding leads to iron deficiency forms of red blood cell depletion, leading to extreme tiredness syndrome, fatigue, hair loss, rapid heart rate, and pale skin.
Recommendations are to help treat menorrhagia with a diet rich in iron and vitamin C. Both components help to replace the losses caused by bleeding. For this, citrus fruits, broccoli, red meat and spinach are ideal.
It is important to follow a medical control if you have been detected anemia. You must control it, either with food or with the use of pharmacological supplements to reach the normal hemoglobin levels.
Pharmacological treatments for menorrhagia
Once the doctor evaluates the causes of the menorrhagia, management options are considered. Contraceptive methods can be prescribed, which in a secondary way regulate the cycle, or the use of certain analgesics and anti-inflammatories with special action on the female reproductive system.
Let’s take a closer look at these ways of treating menorrhagia:
- Contraceptives: the hormones used in contraceptives have the ability to regulate the menstrual cycle. This helps women with menorrhagia, as it decreases the amount of blood they evacuate each period. It will depend on which option each chooses, but beneficial results have been found with pills, injectables, and patches.
- Hormonal IUD: The hormone-releasing intrauterine device has been a paradigm shift in this contraceptive method. It is the typical IUD, but impregnated with some hormone that intervenes in the menstrual cycle. It was designed, in specific terms, to help women with irregular bleeding.
- Mefenamic acid: this is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory that, having little analgesic action on almost all tissues, is an excellent reliever of menstrual cramps. It has also been associated with the possibility of reducing the amount of bleeding in women with painful menstrual syndromes.
When to consult the doctor?
The menorrhagia symptoms are always recognizable because it is an increase in the amount of blood in the periods. You should consult the doctor without letting time pass, since the diagnostic process can take time.
In the long run, if the doctor does not establish, there will be anemia and alterations in the quality of life due to the pain or lack of energy that the disorder brings. Once doctor carries out the complementary methods, they will define the best option to regularize the cycle and correct any complications, such as anemia.
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