Services
Painful and heavy periods
Pain that stops you working, or bleeding heavy enough to make you anaemic, is not something to be endured.
Escalating pain relief year on year is not a diagnosis. It is a reason to investigate. I see a consistent pattern of women managing worsening period pain with higher and higher doses of over-the-counter painkillers, sometimes for a decade, without anyone having looked properly.
Painful periods
Primary dysmenorrhoea is period pain with no underlying pelvic condition, driven by prostaglandins. It typically starts within a year or two of the first period and often improves with age. Secondary dysmenorrhoea is caused by something identifiable — endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroids, or infection — and characteristically worsens over time. The difference matters, because the second kind needs its cause treated.
Heavy bleeding
Menorrhagia is common and consistently under-reported, partly because there is no obvious yardstick for what counts as heavy. Flooding through protection, passing clots, needing to plan your day around your period, or a ferritin level that will not come up — any of those is enough reason to be assessed.
What assessment involves
A proper menstrual history, examination, and usually a pelvic ultrasound as the first investigation. Blood tests to check for anaemia and, where the pattern suggests it, thyroid and hormonal causes. From there the treatment follows the diagnosis rather than the symptom.
Every case is different, and what is right for one woman is not right for another. The purpose of a first appointment is to work out which applies to you. Arrange a consultation.
Talk it through
A consultation is a conversation first. Nothing is booked in until you want it to be.