menorrhagia: symptoms and treatment

Effects – statistics

Heavy menstrual blood loss is shown to have a measurable effect of the quality of life. According to one study, heavy menstrual blood loss was shown to be associated with a loss of 3.6 weeks of labour lost per year along with 1692 USD per year. It is also known to effect the social interactions and work performance, ultimately causing the women to seek help. It is estimated that about 4-9% of women are affected by heavy menstrual bleeding.

Symptoms

Heavy loss of blood can take its toll on the daily routine and activities, in addition to health.  It may lead to heavy drop in the volume of blood causing severe fatigue, shortness of breath and palpitations that may be even require hospital admission.

Heavy Menstrual Bleeding and it's cause

Heavy Menstrual Bleeding 

Heavy Menstrual Bleeding

Heavy Menstrual bleeding, also known as menorhagia by the medical professionals can be defined as a loss of more than 80-120 ml of menstrual blood loss during one menstrual cycle. In simple terms, this is the estimated quantity of blood that causes anaemia – blood deficiency- when lost during menstruation. But such simplistic view is actually counterproductive for two reasons. Heavy menstrual bleeding is a highly subjective and personal issue. Secondly, this definition requires actually measuring the blood loss, which isn’t very convenient for most of the women suffering from the condition.  A more practical definition of the condition is the soaking of a pad in an hour or less during every menstrual cycle.