7 Period Problems You Shouldn’t Ignore

7 Period Problems You Shouldn’t Ignore

7 Period Problems You Shouldn’t Ignore

only one side of my tampon gets bloody

As basically anyone who menstruates knows, certain period problems are just an unfortunate fact of life, like pain radiating through your midsection, a shorter fuse than usual (or other mood changes, take your pick, really), and bleeding more than you would like to be bleeding from your vagina.

On the flip side, some menstrual cycle problems are a clear sign that you should chat about what’s going on with your doctor—just in case—because they fall outside the bounds of what’s normally expected during menstruation. Here are some period problems that are worth discussing with a medical expert.

1. You bleed through a pad or tampon in an hour or less, your period lasts longer than seven days, or both.

The medical term for an exceedingly heavy or long period is menorrhagia. (The non-medical term? “Hell on earth,” perhaps?) Menorrhagia affects more than 10 million American women each year, or about one in five, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

These are basically periods that would fit right into a scary movie, but some people don’t even realize this kind of bleeding isn’t normal. “One of the biggest problems is someone being so used to heavy bleeding that she underplays the amount,” Lauren Streicher, M.D., an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, tells SELF. “She’ll come in and say her periods aren’t too bad, then say she has to change her tampon every hour.”

One huge sign you may be dealing with menorrhagia: Passing period clots larger than a quarter, according to the CDC. While that’s technically a good sign that your body’s clotting mechanism is trying to prevent you from losing too much blood, it also indicates that you’re still passing much more blood than you should, as SELF previously reported. Even if your clots aren’t that big, soaking through a tampon or pad in an hour or less is a tip-off that your bleeding is too heavy and intense. Bleeding for more than seven days is another period problem that points at menorrhagia, the CDC notes.

Bleeding way too much or for too long is messy and inconvenient, sure, but there’s a bigger issue here. Losing more than the typical two to three tablespoons of blood during your period or bleeding for longer than seven days can lead to anemia, the CDC says. If you have anemia, you don’t have sufficient healthy red blood cells to get oxygen to all your tissues, so you may feel tired and weak, according to the Mayo Clinic.

This post was last modified on November 23, 2024 2:57 pm