How To Treat Menorrhagia?
To define how to treat menorrhagia, the first thing health professionals look for is to resolve its origin. This disorder is defined as the increase in the amount of menstrual bleeding or its excessive prolongation.
It is usual that the clinical form is associated with 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, metrorrhagia occurs when a woman menstruates more than 80 milliliters 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.
The causes of the disorder can be summarized as follows:
- Hormonal imbalance: many hormones intervene 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 clotting diseases or who are medicated with anticoagulants for another pathology may have very heavy bleeding, even with the risk of marked 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. A health professional should always have been consulted to see if these methods can be applied. 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 of the blood. In this way, silent dehydration due to poor replenishment is avoided.
Diet for anemia
A complication associated with menorrhagia is anemia. Iron loss with bleeding leads to iron deficiency forms of decreased red blood cells, leading to extreme tiredness syndrome, fatigue, hair loss, rapid heartbeat, and pale skin.
It is recommended 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 check-up if you have been detected anemia. It must be corrected, either with food or with the use of pharmacological supplements to reach hemoglobin levels considered normal.
Pharmacological treatments for menorrhagia
Once the physician 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 to treat 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 in almost all tissues, turned out to be 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 symptoms of menorrhagia are always recognizable because it is an increase in the amount of blood in the periods. It should be consulted without letting time pass, since the diagnostic process can take time.
In the long run, if approaches are not established, there will be anemia and alterations in the quality of life due to the pain or lack of energy that the disorder brings. Once the complementary methods have been carried out, the doctor will define the best option to regularize the cycle and correct the associated complications, such as anemia.
