Overview of all symptom categories of menorrhagia
Main symptoms: Menorrhagia is a prolonged period bleeding that lasts more than 7 days. This is often increased and can lead to a complete leakage of blood clots with large blood loss.Other symptoms: Intermenstrual bleeding or bleeding between menstrual cycles and severe, very painful menstrual cramps can also occurSide effects: Symptoms of anemia such as fatigue, muscle weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, or lethargy may also occur. Accompanying symptoms are often non-specific, so that an accompanying symptom that occurs does not necessarily indicate a specific disease. Rather, it is a secondary sign when other symptoms are already present.
Main symptoms
Menorrhagia is a period bleeding that lasts longer than 7 days. This can, but does not have to, be accompanied by increased blood loss. If increased menstrual bleeding of normal length occurs, it is referred to as hypermenorrhea. Both forms of bleeding disorders can have similar causes.
When bleeding increases, women notice that they have to change their tampons or pads more often than usual. In many cases they are soaked for several hours every hour. In addition, large blood clots can come off. In such cases, blood loss can be more than 80 milliliters per cycle, significantly more than the average 30 to 40 milliliters. It is important to take such symptoms seriously and see a doctor to find out the cause of the increased bleeding.
Other symptoms
In addition to the symptoms mentioned above, there are other symptoms that are associated with menorrhagia. These include intermenstrual bleeding, continuous bleeding and a bleeding pattern that hardly shows the regular cycle anymore. Painful menstrual cramps can accompany prolonged periods.
If the cause of the prolonged bleeding is inflammation of the uterus (mucosa), pathogen-related symptoms such as changed vaginal discharge, pain, burning, and fever may occur.
If there is endometriosis that occurs in the uterine wall (a so-called adenomyosis), this can lead to prolonged, increased, painful periods as well as many other symptoms, depending on the further location of the endometriosis foci.
Side effects
Symptoms of anemia such as fatigue, muscle weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, or lethargy may occur as a result of menorrhagia with increased blood loss.
Menorrhagia can severely limit the quality of life of affected women. A possibly heavy and painful menstruation makes normal everyday life even more difficult, which can result in great psychological stress.
Conclusion
It is therefore important to seek medical advice if you have prolonged or increased period bleeding in order to determine the cause and treat it specifically.
Most of the time, the causes of menorrhagia are benign changes in the uterus or due to a hormonal imbalance, but in rare cases a malignant disease can also lead to bleeding disorders, so the cause should always be clarified.