The average menstrual flow lasts four to six days, but during perimenopause, it can go on — and on. Some months you may not ovulate at all (often the case during these years), and your ovaries may not pump out predictable levels of estrogen and progesterone. This imbalance can cause the uterine lining to become too thick. Then, when you get your period, it can take forever for the lining to shed.
• IT COULD ALSO MEAN you have uterine polyps — mushroom-like "skin tags" growing from the walls of your uterus — which can lengthen bleeding.
• TELL YOUR DOCTOR IF you've had periods that last more than seven days — or several days longer than is normal for you. "If you usually have two-day periods and now you're bleeding for six or seven days, that may signal there is something different going on," says Julia Schlam Edelman, M.D., a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. "You might have precancerous changes to the lining of your uterus, which won't show up on your regular Pap test."
2. "It's so heavy!"
There's a reason your drugstore's feminine-products aisle is jammed with 20 different varieties of super maxi pads: Women commonly experience heavy bleeding during perimenopause. And if you're overweight, heavy periods are even more likely — 50% more so, in one study, and for extremely overweight women the chances of heavy bleeding doubled.
• IT COULD ALSO MEAN you have a fibroid, a noncancerous tumor that starts in the muscle wall of the uterus (or you may have multiple fibroids, as is often the case).
• TELL YOUR DOCTOR IF heavy periods interfere with your life or you're feeling extra tired. You could be anemic as a result of excess blood loss. But simply taking iron may not correct the problem. It is important to learn the cause, since other, more serious conditions — precancers and cancers of the uterine lining — can cause heavy periods as well.
3. "I'm spotting!"
Some women may bleed a little at mid-cycle, when they ovulate, notes Dr. Wieder. And hormone shifts often explain spotting between periods.
• IT COULD ALSO MEAN you have a polyp, which may bleed between periods. Or, you could have a condition called adenomyosis, in which lining tissue lodges in the muscle wall of the uterus and blood may leak out between periods. Spotting can also signal an infection or precancerous changes in the lining of your uterus.
• TELL YOUR DOCTOR IF you have any spotting. A regular gyno exam can pick up many of these causes, though you may need an endometrial biopsy.
4. "It's baaa-ack!"
(After five months!) You're planning a menopause party when, out of the blue, you're wrestling adhesive-backed pads into your panties again. "This usually means that your brain and your ovaries were actually still having a conversation and, finally, one reluctant egg responded," explains Tara Allmen, M.D., a gynecologist at New York City's Center for Menopause, Hormonal Disorders and Women's Health. The time between periods does lengthen as your hormones lurch toward menopause — in one study of 120 women, the average cycle length was 80 days in the 12 months before their final period.
• IT COULD ALSO MEAN an underactive or overactive thyroid gland.
• TELL YOUR DOCTOR IF you do not bleed for 90 consecutive days and then get your period again. Building up several months' worth of lining in your uterus can put you at risk for precancerous changes called hyperplasia.
WHATEVER MAY BE going on with your cycles, one piece of basic biology hasn't changed: You can still get pregnant. Yes, it's harder when you're older, but more than 30% of pregnancies in women over 35 are unintended (maybe because many, especially in their 40s, skip birth control?). Consider yourself fertile until you've gone 12 consecutive months without a period. Then you are officially out of "peri" and into menopause.
Copyright www.gohealthnaija.blogspot.com Disclaimer: We do not tend to cure or treat any disease.
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