When I turned 40, I didn’t know how or when perimenopause started. I thought it was just that last year, right before periods stop altogether. Over the years, I’ve gathered that that’s what a lot of women think. Boy, are we wrong! Perimenopause can last several years, and for some ladies, can start in their 30s.

In my late 30s, I started getting Menstrual Migraines. I’d never gotten those before. I track my cycles, and so I also started tracking my headaches and migraines. I quickly noticed a pattern. My bad headaches which sometimes turned into migraines, almost always occurred just before, or right at the beginning of my periods, and then I’d sometimes get another headache right at the end, or a few days after my period.

At first, I was able to handle these via taking liquid children’s acetaminophen, but a few years later, I’d sometimes need to go for Advil, instead. Sometimes I could get rid of the pain without painkillers, as often taking a hot shower, and letting the hot water run on my aching head, while breathing in peppermint fumes would do the trick.

I like to try natural ways of headache relief, and only went to pain killers when natural things weren’t working, and I was desperate. These were clearly hormone headaches, and are indicative of my estrogen levels needing help.

About a year ago I got the impression (from the Lord?) that I needed a good source of phytoestrogens to help me out. At the next headache which was turning into blazing migraine, I went to a health food store and picked up some wild yam root capsules. As soon as I got home, I took two capsules with a meal. Don’t take these on an empty stomach, as they can cause stomach upset.

Within an hour, the bad headache was completely gone! This amazed me, because at this point in my life, painkillers usually don’t do anything for my hormone headaches anymore. Not Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, or Naproxen. Yet, wild yam root capsules worked.

I started taking the capsules each day, and my sleeping got better, I had more energy, and most months, while taking the wild yam root, I didn’t get the headaches anymore.

After almost a year of this, I noticed I was getting the headaches more often again. So, I switched to not taking the capsules, except when I was in the week approaching my period, and then I’d sometimes take a higher dose for the few days before, and the first day on. I’d also take them on the last day, and for the few days afterwards. This helped manage the headaches again, to where I didn’t get them each month.

Then, I started getting ovulation headaches, so I sometimes try to take some for the days around expected ovulation, as well.

If you’ve ever seen those charts of the ups and downs of women’s hormones, you’ll notice that a woman’s estrogen dips right before and right after her menstruation, and can also dips at ovulation.

Looking back, I’m thinking I started into what I call “premenopause” at around the age of 38. I personally didn’t call it “peri” for myself until I started getting more symptoms – which I did when I was 40, but didn’t learn it was perimenopause until age 42.

At the age of 40, I missed what was supposed to be my first period as a 40yr old. It eventually showed up quite late, and it was quite odd. Looking back, I now know I skipped an ovulation that month. When I did finally get a period, it was very light for the five days that I usually menstruate. While I was expecting this strangely light and very late period to end on day five, as all my periods do, it did something else.

It started getting heavier and heavier. After two days of this, I just felt like there was something wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. It just felt “off.” That heavy period sometimes went into hemorrhaging, in which I was in the bathroom every 30-45 minutes, changing out soaked overnight pads, and passing golf ball sized clots.

After days and days of this, there was no sign of it letting up, and I was getting pretty weak from all the blood loss. I started taking iron supplements, and started researching into what to do. All the major medical websites said to get on birth control, and if that didn’t work, get a uterine ablation, and if that didn’t work, get a hysterectomy. What?! All of the above significantly ups a woman’s chance of cancer, and all of the above doesn’t fix the problem. More about that, later…

I decided to make myself my own guinea pig, since the medical community had nothing acceptable to offer me. I eventually found a way to significantly slow the bleeding, and that was by taking very high doses of Norwegian Cod Liver Oil. I was taking three tablespoons in the morning, and another three at night, and that brought the bleeding down to a medium.

Before I continue, I should note that I did try one thing that some doctors recommend. I took ibuprofen. Ibuprofen has been shown to slow down menstrual bleeding, and I had read about a lot of ladies who swear by it. I took two Advil, and bled HEAVIER until the Advil was out of my system! Why did it make me bleed worse, when it supposedly slows heavy menstrual bleeding? I didn’t know or understand then, but now I have an idea. I’ll get into that in a bit. Meanwhile, moving on…

I bled for 31 days, continuously. It was like a real life nightmare. I wondered if the bleeding would ever stop. I wondered if I’d ever get to do the simple things again, like showering without having to sit in the shower because I didn’t have the strength to stand during the whole thing. I had to do so many day to day things sitting, or even laying down, at that point.

On day 31, a friend asked me to hang out with her at the local McDonalds. We took a table in the back, right next to the bathrooms. We were working on our planners together, and our children are friends, so they were hanging out at their own tables. We had a McDonald’s supper while we were there, and dessert, as we were there for quite a while.

Then, my friend felt she needed to lay hands on me and pray, and she and all the kids gathered around and did so. It was a long prayer, in which in some parts she went into speaking in tongues. During this time, a whole sports team from the high school just came in from a game, so they saw us, LoL. None of us cared. This was important.

After that prayer, my bleeding stopped. The menorrhagia was over, and I hoped it would never happen to me again.

But it did.

We now fast forward to age 42. By this point I was starting to wonder if I was in perimenopause, but I still thought I was too young to be, but I sure had some of the symptoms. I had the rare hot flash, but it was never too bad. Sleeping became harder to obtain, and I began to more regularly take melatonin before bed. Even with that, I’d still wake up several times a night, and sometimes have night sweats.

Then there was the itching. It started a few years ago, but it became more noticeable. It was mostly on my thighs, and usually happened at night. My thighs would just get itchy, out of nowhere. There’d be no marks, no redness, and no physical, visible reason for the itch. But the itching would be intense. After about five minutes of scratching the itches all over my legs, the itching would finally go away; until the next night.

I now know that that is often indicative of low estrogen, and is a symptom of perimenopause that some ladies have.

At age 42 I missed an ovulation. I skipped a whole period. How freeing it was! I felt great, except that I was a bit more aggressive than usual, and I got acne all over my jaw line, neck, shoulders, chest, and back. What was going on? It was hormonal acne. Something was out of balance, so my acne and aggressiveness was because my testosterone (women have some of that too) was too dominant. This explained it, plus more head hair was falling out than normal. I just thought my hair was in a shedding phase.

I covered the acne with makeup, and went on with enjoying not having a period. I also made sure to not take any DHEA, which I sometimes took with my wild yam root. I wasn’t on wild yam root, as PMS never came, since I skipped an ovulation.

After a 44 day “cycle” from the first day of my last period, I got a period, but I had still not ovulated prior to that. It just started, and like that strange period when I was 40, was very light for the whole five days, but instead of ending, it went heavier and heavier. Oh no - menorrhagia again.

This time the menorrhagia only lasted for 28 days of bleeding, then day 29 was spotting, but this is because the Lord showed me how to clear it up. I learned a lot along this journey.

You see, the Lord has cured me of many things in my life. He either directly heals me or He leads me to what I need to do, in order to get better, that way. Last time, He directly healed me. This time, He led me to what to do.

First off, you should know that perimenopause often starts in the late 30s, and can go for several years, leading up to menopause, which can happen between the ages of 45 and 53, but it’s earlier for some ladies, and later for others. I’ve already mentioned several perimenopause symptoms in this article: Itching thighs (and sometimes other areas of the body) for no apparent physical reason, sleeping issues, night sweats, hot flashes, and hormonal headaches. Another perimenopause symptom I personally have is foggy brain. I forget things; especially words. Many ladies also have emotional issues, such as depression, anxiety, or rage during perimenopause.

Don’t get perimenopause and menopause mixed up. Perimenopause is the time leading up to menopause, and can last several years. Menopause is when you’ve gone a whole year without a period. In perimenopause, you’ll likely notice differences in your cycle. For example, in my late 30s, my period went from happening every 29 days to every 23 days. It stayed at roughly 23 day cycles until age 42, where it started to bounce between 21 days and 27 days.

Many ladies find that their cycles first start getting closer together, and then eventually the cycles start getting further apart, and then they start skipping periods here and there, until eventually they go a whole year without a period, which is menopause.

In my second bout of menorrhagia, I went straight to high dose Cod Liver Oil to slow the flow. It worked, but this time the CLO made me nauseous. It still didn’t stop the flow, but it did slow it, but regardless of that benefit, I had to go off of the CLO for a while, because I just felt too sick on it.

My bleeding then picked up, back to heavy. Unlike the last time I had menorrhagia, this time around I had headaches. About a little over a week in, I decided to take two Advil. I figured it’d relieve my headache, and I was hopeful that it would slow my flow, like some doctors recommend. That ended up being a BIG mistake.

The ibuprofen in my system did just what it did last time. It made me hemorrhage. This time was the worst ever. I was changing out overnight pads that were getting completely soaked, in just 15-20 minutes, and passing multiple clots a bit bigger than golf balls. I knew this was an emergency situation, so I downed a quarter cup of Cod Liver Oil. That worked. It brought it down from hemorrhaging to just heavy. I started taking iron each day after that, as I lost a lot of blood.

Over the days that followed, I prayed for healing, and my husband prayed over me, but nothing changed. Meanwhile, I was researching hormones, the endocrine system, perimenopause, and menorrhagia every day. I was too weak to do much else. I had my children on mainly just grammar and math in homeschool, and had them grading each other. I just set up their lessons and looked over their work each day. The kids did most of the housework, and eating was whatever I could make, that was quick and simple, or sometimes other family members would cook, or we’d get takeout.

Being so low energy and out of breath, I could at least still use my brain, so I researched and studied – a LOT.

At church (where I’d wear multiple pads, and was always ready with a route to the bathroom) I asked for prayer for healing, and pastor and my husband laid hands on me and prayed. I continued to bleed.

God wasn’t healing me, and I didn’t know why, but I knew I needed to continue trusting Him. He wouldn’t have let me continue going through that, unless it was for a good purpose.

Then, my dentist appointment came up, where I was going to be there for a while, as I had several cavities where the fillings had fallen out over the past few years, and one tooth that a large filling fell out, so I was going to get a ceric crown put on that one.

My flow was down to medium that day, so I was hopeful, but was nervous about how my body would react to the numbing stuff from the needle. I know it makes me need to pee – like every hour or less. It always has. That wasn’t all it did. As soon as that stuff entered my bloodstream, I began to feel my flow pick up. During those three hours at the dentist, I bled through a tampon and two overnight pads. Those were three long hours of bleeding, and needing to pee. I had multiple bathroom breaks, which probably looked odd.

I continued bleeding heavily until the numbing stuff was out of my system, later that evening, and then it slowed to medium.

You may be wondering how I was keeping the flow from being too heavy. I was using progesterone cream. I was rubbing it on here and there throughout the day, which was giving me a total of 150-200mg of progesterone each day. While this kept my bleeding under control (I went super heavy or hemorrhaging without it) it wasn’t the cure for me. The progesterone cream also got rid of my headaches, so in this case, my headaches during menorrhagia were due to low progesterone levels.

I had read that some doctors give progesterone tablets to their patients who have continuous menstrual bleeding, and that sometimes it has to be at high doses to get the bleeding to stop.

I spent two days rubbing on high potency progesterone oil and creams every two hours, to see if that’d stop the bleeding. It didn’t make any difference from just the 150-200mg I originally was doing.

By this point I was on day 20-something. I again prayed for healing. Three times that day the Lord told me only one word: “WAIT.”

In my waiting, I continued my research. I was confident my bleeding wasn’t from uterine fibroids. Women with uterine fibroids usually have horrible cramps and very heavy periods. My periods before this were not very heavy, and never ever painful. In fact, I don’t get menstrual cramps. I haven’t since after the birth of my fourth child when I was 28 years old.

I didn’t have menstrual cramps during the menorrhagia either, with the exception of three evenings in a row, where I got mild cramps in the evenings, and then they went away. One of those nights the cramps actually hurt, but I welcomed them, in hopes that something was getting better. Other than those three times, I had no cramping during the whole 28-29 days I bled. I didn’t have cramping last time, either.

That got me thinking. Maybe this is why taking Advil made me bleed worse, instead of less. The women who were taking the Advil for their menorrhagia were having terrible cramping with the bleeding. The Advil interacts with the prostaglandins that result in the pain the women were feeling, thereby relieving the pain, but also slowing the bleeding. Naproxen does this as well.

Perhaps doctors should rethink suggesting ibuprofen or naproxen to ladies who are menorrhagic, but not having cramping.

I also deduced that I likely didn’t have PCOS – Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. PCOS ladies often have painful periods that are irregular. Again, my normal periods were regular, and never painful. Further, I didn’t have the weight problems, hair loss, and skin discoloration that often accompanies PCOS.

I ruled out uterine fibroids and PCOS as causes of my menorrhagia. It was plainly obvious to me that I was having perimenopausal menorrhagia. My menorrhagia (this time and last time) was caused by Ovarian Dysfunction. The form of dysfunction? Anovulation. Anovulation Ovarian Dysfunction’s primary cause is PCOS, however, there is another major primary cause – perimenopause.

Anovulation Ovarian Dysfunction simply means a missed ovulation. Of course I missed an ovulation. I’m running out of eggs. Women are born with a set amount of eggs, and that’s it. Menopause happens when the egg supply has run out. As women enter perimenopause, they will sometimes not ovulate – again, because the egg supply is low. The body is winding down to menopause.

What happened with me was that I didn’t ovulate, and my hormones were not balanced. I was low estrogen, as indicated by my itchy legs, hormone headaches, sleep issues, and occasional hot flashes. However, I was lower on progesterone than estrogen. Progesterone is excreted by the ovaries upon ovulation. My ovaries didn’t excrete progesterone, because I didn’t ovulate.

I eventually menstruated without a prior ovulation, because my estrogen kept thickening my uterine lining, and there was not enough progesterone to thin my lining. My uterus got crowded, and bleeding eventually occurred because it needed to.

During menstruation, blood is fed into the uterus, which then floods through the uterus, removing the uterine lining, and then it all expels from the body for up to a week, and then the blood flooding into the uterus stops, until the next menstruation.

I didn’t ovulate prior to that menstruation, so I bled, but there was no signal to stop bleeding. The blood kept being flooded into my uterus to clean out the lining, even though the lining was all pretty much out after the first week. The remaining days, I was bleeding mostly bright red blood.

There was no hormone messenger to tell my body to stop pouring blood into my uterus. My menorrhagia was a stuck cycle. I needed to find a way to hit the “off” switch.

Unfortunately, many ladies think the only “off” switch is to get a hysterectomy. In fact, many studies show that 70% or more of the hysterectomies done in the U.S. are because of menorrhagia. This is not right!

The uterus is NOT the problem! Hormone imbalance is. In fact, I came to learn that in many cases, what I ultimately ended up doing to stop my menorrhagia would also stop it in women with uterine fibroids and PCOS. Why? Because those two conditions are ultimately caused by the same hormone imbalance.

Imagine that your car has an oil pressure indicator light blinking at you on the dashboard. You don’t like seeing that light, so you open up the dashboard and remove the light bulb. There. All fixed. Right? Wrong. That indicator light wasn’t the problem. It was the indicator, trying to alert you to a problem. Eventually your motor blows, because you didn’t fix the problem. You only removed the indicator, telling you there’s a problem.

Hysterectomies don’t fix the problem. They only remove the indicator light. In this case, the main indicator is continuous menstrual bleeding that goes beyond several days, or normal length periods of unusual blood loss that leaves ladies anemic each month. Both are forms of menorrhagia.

Removing the uterus, removes the indicator light, but doesn’t fix the problem. Removing the uterus doesn’t stop hormone imbalances, but it can make it worse. Just like removing the low oil pressure light from your car doesn’t fix the problem causing the low oil pressure.

Again: menorrhagia is not a uterus problem. The uterus is functioning correctly, in doing what it is told to do. It is doing what its hormone messengers are telling it to do. The blood is being flooded into the uterus because it hasn’t gotten the message to switch to the “off” position.

I understood this, but still didn’t see how to turn the switch off. I was stuck in a loop. How could I get the bleeding to stop?

After a few more days of bleeding and research, I told the Lord that I just couldn’t “wait” anymore. I asked Him to please just heal me. He did, by showing me what to do. I had learned enough in my research to write this article which I am presenting to you, and I hope this article saves some uteruses out there, as well as helps women find relief from menorrhagia.

Before I continue, I think this is a good time to remind you that I am not giving you, or anyone else medical advice. If you choose to do what I did, you do it at your own risk, and of your own choice. I didn’t tell you to. Do your own research, pray, and make your own decisions. In this article, I am just sharing my experience. I take no responsibility for you, or if you decide to try what I did, or not. You are responsible for yourself.

The Lord told me to go onto Amazon.com, and just type in the word ‘menorrhagia,’ and hit the search button. I figured it’d bring up some book to read that could give me some more ideas to try on my guinea pig self.

Instead, it led me to a supplement created by a naturopathic doctor, who had been treating women with various lady issues for over 30 years. The name of the product was called “Vitanica Slow Flow.”

After reading the ingredients it contained, I could see how it most certainly should slow heavy menstrual flow. The main ingredient was vitamin A, but it also had vitamin C, bioflavanoids, shepherds purse, yarrow, and other amazing ingredients.

I had tried most of those vitamins and herbs already, but was uncertain on dosage. I knew if I didn’t take enough, it wouldn’t make much difference, but if I took too much, I could hurt myself. This naturopathic doctor had worked out the doses.

It didn’t say this on the bottle I purchased, but on the sales page on Amazon, it said that if you’re in the midst of a very heavy flow, or menorrhagia, then take three of those capsules every three hours. It was emphasized that this is for short term management only. That makes sense, as that could add up to a lot of vitamin A, and we don’t want to induce vitamin A toxicity.

I had already strongly suspected that the reason high dose cod liver oil slowed my flow was because of the high vitamin A content in it. There are a few somewhat obscure studies published online that mention the finding, that most menorrhagic women are deficient in vitamin A, and that by giving them high doses of vitamin A, their flows slowed, and sometimes stopped altogether.

What I liked about the Vitanica Slow Flow, was that it also included astringent herbs, such as shepherd’s purse and yarrow, which help staunch excessive bleeding in the body.

During my menorrhagia when I was 40, shepherd’s purse was one of the things I tried. It didn’t help, but I may not have taken enough, as it was upsetting my stomach every time I took it.

This time around I was getting the shepherds purse along with the other supplements in these capsules. The capsules also had ginger in them, which tends to settle my stomach, so these capsules didn’t upset my stomach at all.

I was excited when I got these in the mail. I started taking three capsules every three hours, but instead of my flow slowing, it got heavier. The Lord told me to keep going, so I did. I got heavier with doses one and two, and at the third dose, it seemed to be going lighter, and by dose four, I noticed that the flow was definitely getting lighter.

That night, I went to bed with only a light flow. At six in the morning, that changed. I awoke to a gush of blood, and ran to the bathroom. My flow was back to very heavy. I changed pads and went back to sleep for a while longer.

During this bought of menorrhagia, my body was using up a lot of calories to maintain systems and to make more blood. I was eating 2500-3000 calories a day, sleeping for around 10 hours a night, and was still losing an average of 2 ounces of weight each day.

Once I got up, later that morning, I was at a heavy flow. I immediately began taking the Vitanica Slow Flow – three capsules every three hours. Like the day before, I got heavier with the first two doses, then leveled out at the third dose, then started becoming noticeably lighter from dose four and on.

This time, I set alarms on my watch, and was determined that I would get up every three hours during the night, and do this regimen around the clock. I did. The only problem I had was that the capsules are large, and a bit hard to swallow. I had to stay upright for at least 10 minutes, while eating a bit, and drinking a lot of water, or the pills would get stuck in my esophagus when I laid down to go back to sleep. All of the extra water intake had me getting up about every hour to urinate. This was a small price to pay for the results I got.

In addition to taking the Vitanica Slow Flow, I was also taking two to three additional supplements of retinoid vitamin A throughout the day (I took EZ Melts A), adding an additional 10,000-15,000 IU’s of A a day, and I was rubbing on 100mg worth of progesterone cream or oil (I alternated between Source Naturals Progesterone Cream, and Progestelle Progesterone Oil) three times a day – once in the morning, once in the evening, and right before bed. This totaled to 300mg of progesterone a day.

By the time I went to bed that night, my flow was back to light, and I was feeling MUCH better. I continued the capsule regimen through the night, and by the next morning, I was on day 29, but only spotting blood. I continued the regimen through the day, but started dosing down on the Vitanica Slow Flow, by taking less capsules, and taking them further and further apart. I figured I’d dose back up if the bleeding picked back up, but it didn’t. By that evening, I was off the Vitanica Slow flow, and only took two vitamin A’s that day, but still rubbed on a total of 300mg progesterone cream/oil.

The next day there was no bleeding, and I felt back to normal, except a bit tired. I dosed down on the progesterone, to 100mg total, and took two vitamin As – one in the morning, and one in the evening. The menorrhagia was finally over. The day after that, I didn’t rub on any progesterone, and I only took one vitamin A.

The first time I had menorrhagia, the Lord healed me right then and there. The second time I had it, He healed me by leading me to research perimenopausal menorrhagia, and learn why it happens, and how to stop it. This is how the Lord heals me: Either instantly, or through leading me to proper research.

I didn’t specifically have Estrogen Dominance in this situation, but in a way I did. I was low on estrogen, but I was lower on progesterone. The progesterone I was giving my body was only able to help a bit, because my body was deficient in vitamin A.

Vitamin A interacts with the thyroid, pituitary gland, and ovaries. In fact, vitamin A has been shown to prevent ovarian cancer, but also to help treat ovarian cancer already in progress. Vitamin A interacts with the endocrine system much more than much of current medical literature shows. While there have been studies on vitamin D and hormones, little research has been done on vitamin A and hormones, yet it was the high doses of vitamin A that had helped provide the “off” switch to stop the “send blood signal” to my uterus, thus ending my seemingly never-ending menorrhagia.