Prolonged & Heavy Periods After Tri-Nessa: What to Do?

Question
I have a 7 month old Daughter and for the last 4 months I have been on tri-nessa birth control pills.  Each month I have had my period at the the regular time as indicated by my pills.  I Had my period at the end of September and it lasted the normal 4 days.  However, I started again 2 weeks later and have now had a 6 day period and still going.  What bother's me is this is not a normal period.  It is thick clotty blood, that is very dark in color. It is not extremely heavy, just thick.  Is this common, or normal?

Answer
Hi Marie :)

No, this is definately not normal. Especially being on the pill. The pill basically fine tunes your cycle, making you become regular, and ofcourse prevents pregnancy.

I'm thinking 2 things here with you. Perhaps your dosage in pill needs to be changed. This does happen with ladies time to time, and like anything else in life, sometimes you have to try a few different ones, until you find the one that suits you. Perhaps changing your pills, to a lesser dosage might be the answer.

The other scenario. Given the description of the bleeding you described, I wonder if your endometrium ( lining in the uterus) is to thick. Some times ladies get a thickening of the uterus. This causes long bleeds, and clotting issues. Also, brown blood, or dark blood indicates old blood. Which ofcourse would indicate that your induced periods from the pills, perhaps are not completely discharging the lining away from your uterus, therefore constantly leaving old blood to accumlate, month after month. If you are having severe cramping, or a bad odour, it also could indicate that some tissue, or placenta matter has not all been removed, from your previous pregnancy.

You definately need to have this evaluated, because its certainly not normal. Either way, I think its a matter of just changing your pills, or perhaps a DNC to remove your uterine lining, so your cycle can start over completely fresh again.

Hope this is of some help and if you have any more concerns, please feel free to write back.

Thanks for writing :)

-Kristy