About Heavy Bleeding During Menopause

It is important to remember to distinguish between peri-menopause, the months or years leading up to the final cessation of your period, which is called menopause and which occurs when a woman has not had a period for 365 days. During peri-menopause, your hormones may be imbalanced, which can cause all kinds of symptoms, including missed menstrual periods, light periods and heavy ones. This is fairly typical although you may want to consult with your physician if the situation has become problematic for you. Once you have gone a full year without a period, you can consider yourself fully menopausal. If heavy bleeding should occur at this point, this warrants a visit to your physician.

DUB

• If you are flooding regularly, and know that you're in peri-menopause because of your age and other symptoms, you may be experiencing Dysfunctional Uterine Bleeding (DUB), which happens to a lot of women who are in their 40s or 50s and are still menstruating. It also occurs frequently among adolescents, according to Power-surge.com. DUB is excessive bleeding that is not caused by polyps or fibroids, nor by pregnancy, cancer, adenomyosis or endrometriosis. It is the result of of hormonal imbalances, which more than likely will occur if you are a peri-menopausal women. Your body is trying to transition into menopause and it may not be going that smoothly as far as your hormones are concerned. If you are lacking progesterone, this can make you bleed too much. If you have too much estrogen, this too can cause heavy bleeding. If these two hormones are completely out of sync with each other, that can cause bleeding. However, err on the side of caution and consult with your physician. Menstrual flooding is not normal. It can cause you to become anemic, for one thing.

Drugs, Medical Conditions

• If you are taking steroids or psychomacologic agents, this can inhibit ovarian function and cause bleeding problems. Other causes of heavy bleeding include hypothalamic dysfunction, pituitary or adrenal hyperplasia, this condition being associated with excessive hair growth, or thyroid problems can cause heavy bleeding. Heavy bleeding can be a sign of fibroids, endometriosis, polyps, cancer or pregnancy. Sometimes an abnormality in the arteries that supply blood to the uterus develops and this can cause bleeding. See your physician and find out what the origin of your bleeding is. It might be serious and it might simply be the result of hormonal imbalances, as noted earlier.

Insulin Resistant

• If, during peri-menopause, you have become insulin resistant, this means that you are extremely estrogenic. Your body is converting progesterone into estrogen and this can lead to post-menopausal bleeding as well as cause you to gain weight.

Hormone Therapy

• Undegoing HRT (hormone replacement therapy) or using progesterone cream can also cause a post-menopausal woman to resume bleeding. Sometimes tissue will build up in a woman's uterus and if she begins using progestin or progesterone cream this can result in bleeding. This cream prompts the uterus to expel residual tissue.

Weight Loss

• Dropping weight rapidly, particularly for a post-menopausal woman, can cause her to resume bleeding, according to Womantowoman.com. When rapid weight loss occurs, estrogen, estrone in particular, that was stored in the fat tissue enters into the bloodstream. Estrone relies on fat for nourishment. If the fat disappears, an alteration in the balance between estrogen and progesterone results and bleeding may occur.