When the 'Monthly Visitor' is Nothing but a Pain

The Women's section of the Republican-American today features a story a new pill called Lybrel that can reduce or eliminate menstrual cycles. That's a women's story, to be sure, but it's also medical news that belongs in the front section of the paper. It seems to me that menstruation, an ordinary and obvious fact of life, never quite makes it out of the girls' bathroom. As a result, the miserable side of menstruation--pain, heavy bleeding for days--has been an open secret for a long time.

It's no wonder, then, that only now are doctors learning that more than 56 percent of women in the US suffer from heavy periods that cause them to adjust their lifestyles.

"Increasingly, physicians find that heavy bleeding is a common medical condition that patients often ignore," the NovaSure website says, adding, "This can have a major impact on their lives. Consequences of a very heavy period can include severe pain, fatigue, embarrassment, and iron-deficiency anemia. A heavy period may be caused by such conditions as fibroids, polyps, and hormonal changes." (more)