Five percent of women have menorrhagia. Menorrhagia can cause discomfort during your period as well as disrupt your regular routine. You may find that the bleeding affects your activities or your sleep.
Read on to learn more about long periods, including possible causes and what you can do to manage this symptom. Changes to your hormones or ovulation may cause a long period. You may notice hormonal changes when you first get your period during puberty or in perimenopause. You may also experience a hormonal imbalance from different health conditions, such as thyroid disorders or polycystic ovary syndrome.
While not actually a period, extended vaginal bleeding may be a sign of an unsafe or nonviable pregnancy, such as an ectopic pregnancy or a miscarriage. You may also have extended bleeding in pregnancy if you have a condition like placenta previa.
Fibroids occur when muscle tissue begins to grown in the wall of the uterus. Polyps are also the result of irregular tissue growth in the uterus and cause small tumors to grow.
Adenomyosis is another type of tissue buildup. The condition occurs when your endometrium, or uterine lining, embeds itself into the muscles of your uterus.
This can lead to a long or heavy period. You may have a long period if your thyroid is underperforming. This condition is known as hypothyroidism. Excess weight may cause long periods. This excess estrogen can lead to a change in your period.
Pelvic inflammatory disease PID occurs when bacteria infect your reproductive organs. In addition to changes to your menstrual cycle, PID can also lead to abnormal vaginal discharge among other symptoms. A prolonged period may the sign of cancer in your uterus or cervix. For some women, this may be one of the earliest symptoms of either of these cancers. Delaying your diagnosis and treatment could lead to a worsening of the underlying condition responsible for the extended bleeding.
You may want to seek immediate care with a long period if you spike a fever or are losing an abnormally heavy amount of blood or large blood clots. There are many causes for a long period, so your doctor will likely begin your appointment by asking you some questions.
Since the time between cycles is counted from the first day of your period, a woman who has a day cycle with eight days of bleeding will experience only 16 days period-free. While irregular menstrual periods can be bothersome, many are caused by hormonal changes, which are common and rarely mean something serious.
Younger girls just entering puberty and older women approaching menopause are most likely to experience these hormonally based prolonged or irregular periods. Usually, a changing level of estrogen is to blame. Estrogen helps build up the uterine lining, called the endometrium, which if it is fertilized will support a pregnancy. If no pregnancy happens that month, the lining is shed as a menstrual period. Doctors use the term dysfunctional uterine bleeding DUB when a hormone imbalance is the cause of the bleeding.
In some cases, birth control can impact the frequency, duration, and flow levels of menstrual periods. The copper IUD may cause extra bleeding, Thielen says. Changing the type of birth control you use may help with this issue.
But if you are on birth control pills you should not stop taking them or alter your birth control strategy without speaking to your physician. A visit with your gynecologist or other healthcare professional is the first step in determining the cause of your prolonged menstrual bleeding.
Your doctor will make a diagnosis after performing a series of tests. Depending on your age and other symptoms, your doctor may test your blood for pregnancy , hormone levels, and thyroid function.
Other diagnostic tests may include Pap smears, endometrial biopsies , ultrasounds, and other procedures. They should be able to explain if your side effects are cause for alarm. Delayed or late ovulation can directly impact your period. Ovulation usually occurs around the halfway point of a cycle, when the ovary releases a mature egg for fertilization. Late ovulation is caused by a variety of things, such as stress, thyroid disease, PCOS , breastfeeding, and some medications. This delay can cause the lining of the uterus to build up heavier than usual for a heavier, delayed period.
Track your period to see if this problem continues. If it does, talk to a doctor about your next steps. If you recently took a form of emergency contraception sometimes referred to as the morning after pill , you could notice a change in your first period after ingestion.
The pill prevents pregnancy by delaying ovulation. This can disrupt the length of your normal menstrual cycle, causing irregularities in your next period including:. These symptoms should only disrupt the first period after taking the medication. Should they persist, seek out a doctor. Both surgical abortions and medical abortions can affect menstruation. First thing to know is that you may experience post-abortion bleeding. This bleeding results from tissue releasing from the uterus.
The first period after an abortion can be shorter if you had a surgical abortion or longer if you had a medical abortion due to the process of your body returning to its normal hormone levels. Pregnancy hormones can also stick around for a few weeks after your abortion, causing a delay in menstruation. One of the earliest signs of pregnancy is a missed period. Light spotting or vaginal bleeding can also occur, mimicking the signs of a menstrual cycle. The most common symptoms of an early miscarriage are cramping and bleeding, mimicking what would look like a heavy period.
Uterine polyps happen when endometrial tissue grows on the lining of the uterus. Fibroids , similarly, are growths of fibrous tissue and muscle in the wall of the uterus.
Both fibroids and polyps can cause periods to be heavy, full of clots, and last longer than a week. These tend to occur in people around 35 to 50 years old, or who are in perimenopause. Other symptoms of polyps include spotting in between periods, vaginal bleeding after menopause, and infertility. Treatment options for fibroids and polyps range from low-dose hormonal birth control to hysterectomies.
Low thyroid hormone production can cause menstrual fluctuation, especially in younger individuals. Polycystic ovary syndrome , or PCOS, happens when ovaries produce an excessive amount of male sex hormones called androgens.
One of the most common symptoms of endometriosis is abnormal periods. Periods can last longer than 7 days with heavy flows that require pads or tampons to be replaced every 1—2 hours.
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