Baptist Health Gynecology Services in Elizabethtown, KY

Karlee Grace, DO, OB/GYN

Baptist Health Hardin

Karlee Grace, DO: Menstruation is different from woman to woman, but to maintain good health, women need to understand generally what is normal versus abnormal. Normal can be a flow of five to seven days. A total cycle can be 21 to 35 days. Normal menstruation can change over a woman's lifetime. It's usually due to hormonal changes, which can be perimenopausal, which is that time period before you go into menopause versus when you were younger, and things were more stable. When you think it's too much bleeding, you want to be evaluated.

It is time to seek medical advice when it is heavy bleeding, more than one pad an hour [that] you're saturating, and you are getting dizzy or lightheaded. Those are the reasons to call your on-call GYN. Some potential concerns that are related to abnormal uterine bleeding can be thyroid dysfunction, PCOS, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome, [or] endometrial hyperplasia, which can lead to endometrial cancer. Those are things that need to be checked out if you experience abnormal uterine bleeding.

It's important for women to have a GYN visit every year to stay on top of what their normal menstruation is and to make sure there's no change. If there is, it's time to ask questions and be evaluated. Here at Baptist Health Hardin, we are happy to take care of women throughout all stages of their life.