TREATMENTS FOR EXCESSIVE BLEEDING: NONSTEROIDAL ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DRUGS.

Posted in Women's Health on May 8th, 2009

Several nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (often shortened to NSAIDs) have been used successfully to reduce excessive menstrual bleeding. The NSAIDs concerned include ibuprofen, mefenamic acid, naproxen and flurbiprofen. (Some of these substances, for example mefenamic acid, are also anti-prostaglandin drugs or prostaglandin inhibitors.) While helpful, NSAIDs are not drugs to be taken lightly. The lowest possible dose of the least toxic NSAID should be used initially as this group of drugs produces side-effects in about a third of women, resulting in nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, headache, dizziness and rashes.

Blood clotting mechanisms. Success in halving blood loss has been reported with several drugs that act on the body’s blood clotting mechanisms. They are of particular value to women with blood clotting defects. The drugs include tranexamic acid and ethamsylate. Once again, however, about a third of women on them experience side-effects of nausea, headache, dizziness, vomiting and rashes. Research studies have also raised the concern that these drugs may precipitate strokes in some women.

*29\198\4*