There’s plenty you can do! Heavy bleeding that disrupts your life is something you should get treatment for, no matter how much you’ve been taught that shitty periods are things you just have to deal with. Obviously your doctor will be the one to talk to you about the best treatment for you, but just as an FYI, here are some of the options that might come up:• Hormonal treatment just as birth control pills, hormonal IUDs, and hormonal injections. “These treatments work well for young women because they are reversible most often and allow them to maintain their fertility if they’re interested in having children,” says Basinski. • Other drugs that control blood flow. Things like ibuprofen have been show to moderately decrease blood flow, according to Basinski. Then there are drugs such as tranexamic acid (like Lysteda) that you take during your period that can help you clot better. • Surgery to get rid of fibroids and polyps if you have them.• Uterine artery embolization, which is used to treat fibroids by blocking blood vessels to the uterus so fibroids are unable to grow. Because a doctor uses a catheter to inject embolic agents into the uterine arteries to cut off blood supply, it is an alternative for those who don’t want surgery to treat fibroids, according to Minkin.• Endometrial ablation, which is a procedure to destroy the lining of the uterus to stop or reduce menstrual bleeding. According to Basinski, there are several different endometrial ablation technologies on the market. Most of them take a few minutes to do and can be done in the doctor’s office, though some physicians go to the operating room too. Though it also inhibits fertility, it doesn’t have the surgical risks of a hysterectomy. “You’re not taking an entire organ out, you’re just removing the internal service of an organ,” says Basinski.• A hysterectomy, which is the surgical removal of the uterus. According to Basinski, hysterectomies are attractive to patients because of their 100 percent effectiveness rate — no uterus, no periods! — and are typically discussed as an option for more serious cases of abnormal bleeding when other types of treatment have failed or are not an option.
Original source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/annaborges/heavy-period-bleeding-questions.
