One woman living with menorrhagia has said she is hopeful that menopause will mean 'freedom' for her.
Menorrhagia is a condition that involves heavy period flows in women.
They do not always have an underlying cause, and can lead to problems such as fibroids or endometriosis.
Heavy menstrual bleeding is defined as losing 80ml or more in each period, having periods that last longer than seven days, or both.
Margaret Young told Moncrieff she was put on the pill as a teenager to try to alleviate the condition.
"Like a lot of teenagers in the '90s I was put straight on to the pill," she said.
"It did work, and I was on the pill for over 20 years; it was probably about a decade ago I decided that I'd had enough of taking hormones.
"I wanted to be a bit more natural, and I came off the pill".
Symptoms
Ms Young said there are several symptoms.
"One of the symptoms is not being able to have a full night's sleep... that's one of the clinical symptoms," she said.
"Having to get up during the night to either change your protection or actually clean up the mess.
"Another symptom is having to use double protection; so using a pad and a tampon or using two tampons - which is not recommended medically."
Ms Young said the pain can be hard to describe or even recall.
"It's hard to actually remember pain; I feel like that's probably a function of mother nature so that people will give birth more than once," she said.
"It's very hard to remember pain, but the pain is a lot - it's constant.
"If you have menorrhagia, for that week or whatever, you never forget that you're having your period.
"You're in pain, you've got brain fog, I get really dizzy."
Margaret Young. Picture via Instagram/wildsoulmagsMs Young said there are a number of treatment options available.
"The first treatment option is the coil, which is a form of contraceptive," she said.
"The other treatment that you can have is a drug... that haemophiliacs take.
"It stops your body producing or expelling so much blood.
"The other solution is an ablation, where they basically burn the lining of your womb".
I'm at a point of acceptance'
Ms Young said she opted for the ablation, but it didn't happen.
"I had a D&C and I didn't end up having the ablation," she said.
"To be honest it wasn't communicated to me at the time that I had the D&C, I only found out three weeks ago.
"When I woke up I was ecstatic that I thought I had my ablation, so I was crushed when I realised I hadn't."
Ms Young said she's not sure if the procedure helped.
"I'm on day five of my current episode of hell; yesterday was pretty bad, today is not too bad but it could get worse again tomorrow," she said.
"I think I'm at a point of just acceptance now.
"I'm 46 in about seven weeks, so I'm waiting for the menopause... maybe for me, it's going to be freedom," she added.
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