Menorrhagia in medical term, is a menstruation disorder wherein women experiences heavy menstrual bleeding that is far from the normal heavy flow that you may or may not have experienced.

Heavy menstrual bleeding is more common than you thought. One of 20 women suffers menorrhagia in ages between 35 to 49 wherein they do regular checkup in regards to their situation. Now, if you are suffering from this situation, then you might want to include some changes in your lifestyle other than taking your prescribed medications.

Explaining Menorrhagia Further

Menorrhagia is the medical term for women who experience abnormally heavy and prolonged bleeding during their monthly blood discharge. This disorder is a common concern in women but isn’t severe enough to be a threat to one’s health.

However, there are instances that there are those women that experience blood loss severe enough to be defined as menorrhagia. If you have menorrhagia, you are not able to maintain your usual activities, since it will be causing you too much blood loss and cramping. Not to mention that it will be very uncomfortable to the feeling since you’ll need to change pads or tampons now and then —except if you’re using menstrual cups.

Symptoms of Menorrhagia

The symptoms of menorrhagia include the following:

• Soaking one or more sanitary tampons or pads every hour for several consecutive hours

• The need to use sanitary protection to control your blood flow

• Longer than a week bleeding

• Restriction of daily activities due to heavy flow

• Symptoms of anemia like fatigue, tiredness, or shortness of breath.

Lifestyle Changes

Lifestyle changes will affect your body and your quality of living. Which is why it is essential to develop a healthy lifestyle to manage your menorrhagia. Thus, here are some changes that you can do to help yourself manage and aid the treatment of your menorrhagia.

Changing Your Birth Control Method

Most of the times, your birth control method has something to do with your heavy menstrual flow. Especially if you are using a copper intrauterine device (IUD for short) or you are currently taking oral birth control pills.

With this, you can say that your flow is heavier than usual since copper IUDs causes vascular changes, which are the ones that regulate blood flow to the uterus. Now, if your birth control method is either IUD or birth control pills, then you might want to talk to your doctor on how you should approach your concerns.

Maintain or Increase Your Dietary Iron

Since you are experiencing severe blood loss, your body is at risk for getting iron-deficiency anemia. Which is why you should opt to eat foods high in iron each day. For example, liver, poultry, beef, and seafood such as oysters and clams are good food sources for getting iron.

For other sources, you can include beans, seeds, nuts, dried fruits, cereals, bread, and dark green leafy vegetables like spinach into your diet to have that healthy level of iron for your body.

However, this type of iron source is not well-absorbed into the body which is why you need to help your body through raising your intake of vitamin C by eating foods like cabbage, broccoli, citrus fruits, and tomatoes.

Take Iron Supplements

Since getting iron from food sources may not be enough, why not consider taking up some iron supplements to help out your body? Just a reminder, you should talk to your doctor first before taking any iron supplement.

Home Remedies

Here are some home remedies that you can do at home to help alleviate your heavy menstrual flow.

Herbal Remedies

There are many herbs that you can use to help control your excessive bleeding and even correct your hormonal imbalances. Herbs like red raspberry contain astringent properties that help mild cramps during heavy periods. There are also banana flowers that can help stop excessive bleeding.

Use of Ice Compress

Place an ice compress or ice pack on your abdominal area to help blood vessels constrict the flow of the blood, resulting in a reduction of your blood loss. Additionally, it can also help soothe pain and swelling during your menstruation.

Drinking Lots of Water

Water is helpful in flushing out the excess estrogen from one’s body, which maintains optimum hormone balance. Now, if you are bleeding heavily for a few days, then your blood level could get too low, drinking 4 to 6 cups of water each day may help maintain your blood level.

Takeaway

If at one point your heavy menstrual blood flow is disrupting your daily activities, then it is time for you to go for a doctor’s checkup so that you will be prescribed some medications that can help you with, like microgestin, which can be bought with a microgestin coupon in local pharmacies.

Now, if you are already experiencing menorrhagia and have some prescribed medications, then it is best to help your treatment by having some changes in your lifestyle.