New and scared.... with questions

Hi, I'm new here... my mom recommended I come here to ask questions. My name is Jennifer, I'm 23, I have a 2 yr old daughter, and I'm recently married.

I have been bleeding very heavily for 20 days with very large clots. I pass probably 15 to 20 at least pecan sized clots a day. I've been through 3 large packs of Always UltraThin Overnight pads (28 pads/pkg).

At first, i thought I was having a miscarriage since my period was late. I had a quantitative hCG test done and my results were less than 2, so I was never pregnant. I was supposed to have an ultrasound, but I cannot afford it because I don't have insurance. It will cost me $250. I have been in contact with my gyno's nurse and she thinks that I'm just having a heavy period.

I have a very hard time believing that because I'm very weak, I'm having headaches, I'm exhausted, and I'm in pain. I started my new package of birth control 12 days ago (Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo), and I began to double up on them 8 days ago (one in the morning and one at night). There has been NO relieve from any of this.

I always have my annual pap smear when I'm supposed to. My last one was in either October or November of last year and it came back normal.

I'm not sure what to expect right now. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for me. I'm about to go to my local emergency room for fear that I'm losing too much blood since I can't afford an office visit with my normal gyno.

I'm so new to all of this that I really have no idea what I may be facing.

Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions!

~Jennifer

Dear Jennifer
I'm sorry you're having this frightening experience. I can't say what this is but many of us have faced this heavy bleeding and had it be different things. Some have been able to find the problem and correct it. I hope that will be the case with you and that you won't be one of the many here who have had to go on to have a hysterectomy.

I have moved you over to the options forum so some of the ladies who have also been looking for answers can share their experiences. Please hang in there and keep trying everything possible. I hope you will find some encouragement here. Please keep us posted on what is happening.
's, Rita

I just got back from the ER. They drew blood... the hCG is negative (though I knew that already), my white count was up slightly, and I was bordering needing a blood transfusion. They also did a pelvic ultrasound and all that came out negative!

The doctor told me that all my problems were being caused by anemia. I can't find anything to back that up... I'm very confused. Does anyone have an explanation or experience?

The bleeding and clots could cause the anemia which could cause your other symptoms. There are so many reasons why a lady can bleed and bleed heavlily so I can not tell you why you are bleeding. I always clotted with my periods and they were lengthy. I had my hyst after bleeding for 2 years with only a day or two of relief now and then.

Did they give you suggestions at ER on how to stop the bleeding? Or what to do about your anemia? Is there a medical facility in your area that charges on a sliding scale for those with financial hardships or self-paying patients who do not have insurance?

in there and I hope you are able to find medical care so you can get to the bottom of your health issue.

"The bleeding and clots could cause the anemia which could cause your other symptoms."

The ER doctor told me that the bleeding and clots were caused by the anemia. Then he gave me a prescription for iron pills and told me to follow up with my gyno! This just makes no sense to me! I'm frustrated more than anything. I mean, anemia is lack of iron in your blood, which means that your blood doesn't clot properly, right?? Please correct me if I'm wrong... that's just what I understood.

I'm just so confused and frustrated

Okay, here is a link I found in our resources about anemia: http://www.umm.edu/patiented/article...c_000057_2.htm. There is a lot of information there, may it will hold some answers! To the best of my knowlege, platelets are what helps your blood clot. Anemia has to do with your red blood cell count being too low. And your red blood cells have to do with moving oxygen through your body. (I am no expert here so I will read this article as well!)

Thanks for that link! I learned some interesting things, like about eating ice. How...weird (?) should I say? LOL. I *love* eating ice chips, and I have since I was pregnant with my 2yo daughter. I don't know if you read that far, but eating ice is an unusual symptom of iron deficiency. I seriously would have never thought that.

I've been told that I'm borderline anemic before, and that has actually prevented me from donating blood several times (I give up trying now after being turned down so often). The blood banks that I used to go to only took a very high iron count, so I never thought twice about my count being under their standards.

I also found this while I was researching:

Iron Deficiency Anemia
In the book, Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, written by Michael Murray and Joseph Pizzorno, the authors state that one of the main factors to be considered in menorrhagia is iron deficiency. The book mentions two studies supporting this theory, including one from the the Journal of American Medicine. (Unfortunately I could not locate either study in PubMed in order to provide a link for more information.) According to Murray and Pizzorno, one study found an improvement in menorrhagia symptoms in 75% of the women on iron supplements, compared to 32.5% from the placebo group.
Because too much iron has also been associated with significant health problems such as cancer and heart attacks, many doctors recommend that women only take iron supplements if they have actually been tested and found to be deficient in iron. Iron deficiency can be determined from a blood test. For people who have menorrhagia where the cause is unknown, iron deficiency would certainly be a factor worth considering, as iron deficiency is a very common problem worldwide. Women with who lose a lot of blood from menorrhagia are at especially high risk for iron deficiency, meaning iron deficiency could become both a cause and effect factor in menorrhagia.

I got it from this website: http://www.ctds.info/menorrhagia.html in case anyone is interested in further reading.

My questions now are for my doctor, I think. If this is common knowledge, that anemia can be both a cause and effect of heavy bleeding and clots, I want to know why I wasn't tested for this in the first place. The ER took the same amount of blood as my doc's office (when they tested my hCG levels) and yet did several tests on the same sample. My doctor could have saved me the pain and embarassment of going to the ER with such a simple test.

At the ER, I had to have a catheter put in before I could have an ultrasound (as per hospital policy.. I tried the drinking lots of water spiel and it didn't fly with them). Because of the catheter, I couldn't wear any undergarments or pants, so I basically had to lay in the hospital bed for about two hours on those big fluffy pad-things, bleeding all over myself. And then when I had to get up to move to or from the wheelchair to go to the ultrasound, I bled ALL OVER the floor in front of the male nurses. It was extremely embarassing.

Anyway, enough of my rant.

Thanks for the additional information. I am going first thing to get the iron pills that the ER doc prescribed to me. Then on Monday, I will be having a little sit-down with my ob/gyn.