Break through bleeding- sort of.

I am scheduled for TAH 2/21/06, it not coming soon enough.

I have very heavy, clotty, murder scene bloody periods, with much pain and discomfort and labor all over again, a dull pain down the front of my legs, but they don't usually last more than 5 days- I may have them every two weeks, but they end at 5 days... This last one does not seem to be ending. I am not "actively" bleeding, but I am spotting a gross, brownish, mucousy, nasty substance. Same pain as always, no change in anything other the substance. I know I could call my dr, but I really don't feel like getting a PAP today.

Can anyone relate, or does anyone have any ideas what this is, or why this is occuring?

Thanks. T.

From what I have been told, that is old blood. I use to bleed constantly and it was always bright red or a brown color. Call your doctor just to check, but I use to have that all the time.
Good luck with everything!!

Tamque,

I know your situation is more complicated, with having cervical cancer, but perhaps the gushing blood is unable to stop because of anemia (both a cause and result of loss of iron).

I had lost about 40% of my hemoglobin and red blood cells by the time I went to the gynocologist (7.1 hemoglobin and 25% hematocrit- they should have been around 13 and 40% respectively).

You might call and see if you could get a blood test done. It is very possible with that amount of blood loss that you are anemic.

This happened to me because once I started losing blood, I had less iron (hemoglobin contains iron), and then the endometrial lining, once it started shedding, wouldn't stop shedding as it normally would because the newly exposed capillaries wouldn't clot the blood.

This needed to be stopped before the surgery, as you need to have adequate blood for surgery.

I was put on iron pills (don't take these without a doctor's approval- they aren't fun).

I also had a very high iron diet. Iron absorbs better with orange juice so I had liver and orange juice for breakfast, red meat and spinach for dinner. Omaha Steaks ships liver if you can't find any- they ship frozen.

This isn't the easiest diet to live on, but it did solve the problem. I had my red blood cells tested every 2 weeks and the hemoglobin came up each time, until it was normal by the time of the surgery. The bleeding lessened considerably by about 3 weeks into my 'iron diet'.

But don't go on an iron-enriched diet unless you are sure that that is the problem- so you'd need to get a blood test to make sure. Too much iron can be a problem as well.

And this is one reason to look forward to a hysterectomy- it has been about 8 months since mine (an LSH), and I haven't had one drop of blood since.

-Torrie