Heavy period bleeding can be one of the most debilitating symptoms you can experience. The pain, the inconvenience, and the boxes of pads and tampons to go through each month – ahh! Some women suffer from heavy periods all their lives, others get it more intensely after pregnancy or develop it during perimenopause.
There are a few ways it might show up for you:
1. A normal (5-7 day) length bleed with a super heavy flow that causes you to bleed through everything
2. Extended bleeding for 2-3 weeks out of the month or more
3. Frequent bleeding – 4 or more days at a time, twice per month
4. Heavy clotting
Often times these are associated with anemia and fatigue, which can make it feel like a drag to get through the day.
What’s the underlying cause?
There are 3 main reasons heavy bleeding can develop:
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Estrogen overload. When your estrogen levels are high, the lining of your uterus can become thicker. Estrogen can also be much higher relative to progesterone, which is the hormone that will keep your uterine lining intact for a longer period of time. Excess estrogen occurs when diet contains estrogen rich foods and when your liver is not able to keep up with detoxification.
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Lack of uterine tone. Both a sedentary lifestyle and pregnancy can cause the uterus to lose its tone. While this is a physical issue, it is also influenced by the quality of nutrients you are getting through your diet.
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Hypothyroidism. One of the signs that your thyroid might be slow is excess bleeding. If you also notice you have a lack of appetite, are gaining weight, feel cold most of the time, and are fatigued easily, there’s a good chance your thyroid function is below the normal range.
With any of these causes, there is an essential, proactive approach you must take if you want a lasting solution.
What you can do:
To eliminate heavy bleeding for good, you must look at the larger picture of balancing hormones. Your diet and lifestyle are the most essential factors in this picture, since how you eat and how you live have a direct effect on your hormonal balance. In each of the 3 underlying causes listed above, you can see how there is a direct influence from food and daily practices.
Our 5-step protocol is designed to help you create a solid foundation with your diet and lifestyle so that you can eliminate excess estrogen, restore proper thyroid function, and rebuild uterine health, thereby banishing frustrating symptoms like heavy bleeding.
So where do supplements come in?
Taking supplements means exactly what the word implies: a supplemental addition to a healthy diet and lifestyle.
If you’re experiencing heavy periods, here’s one supplement you could start taking that will help heal the issue alongside other dietary changes:
Vitamin C with Bioflavonoids – 2,000-4,000 mg/day – has an anti-estrogenic effect on the uterus. A study showed that vitamin C was able to reduce heavy bleeding in 87% of women who participated. Bioflavonoids were also shown to strengthen the vessel walls of the capillaries, further reducing the bleeding. *
Of course any supplement is only a part of the bigger picture of diet and lifestyle. To create sustained healing and a balanced period, you need to address several factors including estrogen overload, progesterone levels, cortisol levels, elimination and blood sugar stability.
In my webinar, Troubleshoot Your Period Problems, I break it all down for you into easy-to-apply action steps that will get you from feeling weighed down by your period to flo-ing freely all month long! I’ll cover:
- The most common period problems and how to self-diagnose: PMS, heavy bleeding, irregular or missing periods, etc.
- Exactly what signs and symptoms to be aware of – and which ones indicate something more serious
- The steps to take to address them all from the underlying causes
Love to your period,
Alisa
Learn What a Healthy Period Looks Like. Watch Now!
Need more Hormone Help?
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Citations:
*(J. Cohen H. Rubin “Functional Menorrhagia: treatment with bioflavonoids and vitamin C. Curr Therap Res 1960: 2(11:539)
I can’t sign up on my mobile, but I’m looking forward to finding out how to banish hormonal acne!
How to help my 17 year old with very heavy painful periods?
I’m 32 and only discovered organic magnesium a few months ago. It works wonders.
What symptoms did the magnesium help?
Please if you learn anything helpful let me know! I’m 17 and have horrible periods too.
Yarrow and shepherds purse tinctures plus nettle tea. 3 times per day during period. I have a blood disorder and this saves my life every months.
Yarrow and shepherds purse tinctures plus nettle tea. 3 times per day during period. I have a blood disorder and this saves my life every months.
Thank you so much Alisa, came across your site through a mindbodygreen link and after having 2 children,thyroid problems (that docs couldn’t be bothered about!)no libido, I’m now suffering really heavy periods ( I’m 31) -So thank you for educating me..I feel a bit brighter that hopefully I can change my body (and mind) for the better.
I’m needing some serious help with my estrogen dominance. I’m taking DIM and Vitex and follow an anti-inflammatory diet. Nothing is helping my heavy periods. I’m feeling very anemic even with iron supplementation. I don’t want to start the mini pill due to the side effects, which my doctor has recommended. I’m hoping Viva Labs vitamin c will help lessen my bleeding. Thanks for the tip!
Hi
To get rid off heavy period and estrogen dominant use organic flex seed 1 tabs for 5 days a month u will see the difference and if periods are still heavy you can increase more days to take flex but don’t take too much or too many days that will vanish ur estrogen completely I have tried that and it’s really works I hope it will help all with estrogen dominant problem
Hi Tina,
Flax can be estrogenic, which could make a high estrogen situation worse. But it can be great for other things like elimination and omega oils, and these can help with hormonal health.
Alisa
Flax seed is estrogenic BUT it also helps balance estrogen with progesterone and eliminate excess estrogen…so really it helps estrogen dominance
Omg I have dicovered zinc Take at least 30 mg let it get in your system good I have had heavy periods that debillatated me anemia bad even had the ablation that didnt take magnesium helps as well but zinc sealed the deal get it from the health store naturally and tell other women girl power
Bioflavinoids give me heart palpitations. Any suggestions?
I would book an appointment with your doctor and look at other possible underlying health issues, like cholesterol levels.
Alisa
Heart palpitations are nothing to worry about unless you have more than 8 in 1min. Everyone has had them. If you have more than 8nin 60secs then schedule with a cardiologist. (Paramedic/EMT adive
I’m 19 years old and I’ve been having really heavy periods. I have never been pregnant or anything like that so I’m not sure why I’m having this problem but yeah I really need help and advice as to what to do and/or what vitamins to take.
Just to let you know, there are other things that can cause heavy periods. One being endometriosis. The ONLY 100% accurate way to discover endometriosis is to have a laparoscopic surgery and the doctor actually look in your abdomen. Your doctor can ‘guess’ that you may have it, but is never absolutely sure until the surgery is done.
But the symptoms are heavy bleeding, clotting, adhesions in your abdominal cavity, and pain. There are more symptoms that I cannot remember off the top of my head. Doctors do not know what causes endometriosis- so just taking supplements will not work with this. Just like they also don’t have a cure. You can have surgery and have a full hysterectomy- and it can come back.
I think your information on your page is great, but it isn’t all there and you could be giving someone false hope by telling them to take this or take that. Really, see a doctor. If you don’t get any relief or see any difference from that doctor’s recommendations, ask about endo and see what they say. If they blow it off, seek a second opinion.
Alisa….
I have suffered many heavy periods and have made a connection purely by accident. I started taking airborne because I didn’t want to get the flu bug going around. Well, by process of elimination I found my periods to be much lighter when I take airborne daily. In trying to figure out what is in airborne that might lighten my periods, I came upon your site and others that spoke of other vitamins and minerals that can help. Thanks for helping me pinpoint what it. Airborne is my new best friend!!!
Are you using the tabs you put in water? If so, how many times a day do you drink it? How significant of a decrease in your period has it been? I’d really appreciate your feedback! I’ve tried so many things and don’t want hormonal birth control again.
i had very heavy periods until i accidentally discovered miraculous apple cider vinegar! im in love w/ it really. i didnt start taking it for heavy periods, i originally took it for energy and acne. i take it everyday and it has eliminated almost all my cystic acne. i take 2 tbsp. in a cup of room temp. water and 1/4 tsp. of baking soda (to protect the stomach lining). so i do drink this every morning or night, or really anytime, especially if u eat something heavy that makes u nauseous or has a lot of chemicals, its a great detox!!
so i started to notice that my periods were much lighter; they used to be almost a week and now its 2-3 heavy-ish days and the rest of the days are very light….and someone else online figured it was because of ACV. so now i realize that the ACV lessened my periods, so i take 4 cups of this mix when im on my period and ill never stop taking it
Clulu,
Do you mix the baking soda in with the vinegar? If so, doesn’t it bubble up and over the cup, or is it a small enough amount that the effect is small?
For the last 5 years I have suffered from near constant bleeding/spotting,
Except for a pregnancy and about 7 months after pregnancy when I either didn’t bleed or had 2 normalish periods. I’ve tried bites, saw palmetto with no results. The bleeding is even worse than before the pregnancy now with very heavy bleeding rather than spotting, light periods with almost no breaks. Dr says it’s pcos (from scan and blood tests ) and wants me to use an iud but I’m reluctant a would like to try for another baby next year and I hate the idea of having one anyway. Any advice for other supplements? Before my first child ( I have 3) I used to suffer from absent periods …. I wish that was the case now!
Have you gotten this under control? I’m having constant bleeding for 3 months now.
Check to see if you have an enlarged uterus..
There is certainly a great deal to learn about this issue.
I like all the points you made.
I’m now 25 and have been having issues with regulating my cycle and heavy bleeding plus prolonged periods whenever it do show up I’ve had the birth control and all kinds of test everything come back normal no signs of pcos endometriosis or fibroids never been pregnant it’s I can’t if I tried I just want to regulate and ovulate
Hi Jasmine,
Hormonal balance is all about the ratio of hormones and how they work together. You can experience symptoms if your hormones are in the ‘normal’ ranges but are not in the correct ratios. I recommend picking up a copy of Woman Code, Alisa Vitti’s first book – Alisa covers all of this there!
XO, Christina – FLO Coach
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