Are painful, heavy periods normal in the first few years?

Question

Hello doctor,

I am 18 years old and have always suffered from awful period pains and I am having extreme heavy flow (changing a super tampon every hour, otherwise I leak through). I get cramp so bad that if I do not sort of move around I feel as if I am going to throw up or pass out. I am honestly sick of having to live with this, especially at my age. It is preventing me from doing so much every month and I cannot deal anymore.

Answer 1

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I understand what you are going through. Till the age of 19 to 21, the hormonal balance between the brain and ovaries is not proper. So, the bleeding will be altered, not on a proper date and maybe more than normal. When the blood more than normal has to pass out through the narrow cervical canal, it is very painful, almost like the pain of delivering a baby. Those cramps are due to the blood clot or the fleshy masses at the cervix and your uterus is trying to push it out. Once the mass is out, the pain immediately relieves. Do not worry, we can solve this.

To improve your health, have lots of fruits, vegetables, water, juices, high protein food. Have Iron supplements tablets and multivitamins. This will help you to tide over the loss of blood so far. Get blood tested for Hb % (rule out anemia), bleeding time, clotting time, platelet count (rule out any bleeding tendency). I hope you do not have any bleeding gums or too much blood from small wounds or nose. If all this is normal, just have cyclically hormone pills or birth control pills or contraceptive pills (chemical name: Ethinyl estradiol + Levonorgestrel or Desogestrel or Gestodene or Drospirenone) like Novelon or Ovral-G, etc. This is not for contraception, it will prevent the hormone imbalance, so the inner lining of the uterus will never be too thick. So, bleeding will never be heavy. So, no pain. Once bleeding is controlled, your pain will disappear and your daily routine will not be disturbed. Do not get stressed out or lose hope, every problem has a solution, you will do absolutely fine.