heavy menstrual cycle

Metrorrhagia or heavy menstrual cycle is the term now employed to signify uterine hemorrhage, unconnected with the menstrual flow.
 This hemorrhage may be active,-that is, composed of bright, arterial blood; or it may be passive,-consisting of the darker colored, venous blood. It may arise from the general influence of predisposing causes: from accidents; from violence; from excessive exertions of body; from sudden shocks and violent emotions of mind; from the presence of worms in the intestines; from the presence of polypi or other tumors within the pelvis; from ulcerated cancers, or other ulcers of the uterus; from any of the causes which may produce abortion or miscarriage,-and from the abortion or miscarriage itself; from retention of the placenta after parturition,-or otherwise, in consequence of parturition itself; and from the cessation of the menses after the change of life.

 Those hemorrhages mentioned in the preceding section under the head of Sympathetic Menorrhagia, which appear during the course of severe diseases, even if not developed at the usual catamenial period, are still considered as resulting, in persons who have not passed the menstrual age,-from the profound disturbance of the sexual organism; and are therefore regarded as menorrhagic rather than as metrorrhagic. And the same characteristic will be considered as belonging to all hemorrhages occurring between the ages of puberty and of the change of life,-unless some strongly marked cause, such as one or the other of those above enumerated, can be discovered to operate independent of the catamenial function. And while every individual case of metrorrhagia must be treated with exclusive reference to the symptoms and conditions found in connection with itself,-a careful study of the causes of each case of such disorder must be absolutely essential to its successful treatment. This will be made sufficiently obvious by recalling for a moment the fact that the most violent and dangerous forms of uterine hemorrhage may result from the most opposite conditions of body and of mind; from plethoric congestion, or from exhaustion and debility; from the highest emotional excitement, or from the most sudden and profound nervous and mental prostration.
Causes of metrorrhagia : The Causes of Metrorrhagia require to be considered a little more in detail.
 And first, that most vague and common one of general predisposition, should never be lost sight of. Even as we sometimes see in children and others a remarkable disposition to hemorrhage from the slightest wounds or other causes; so in some females, it must always be remembered, there exists a corresponding predisposition to uterine hemorrhage. And this constitutional peculiarity should be carefully studied with reference to its connection with a psoric diathesis. In such cases, the characteristic of the difficulty and of course the key-note of the only Homoeopathic remedy, may really consist in some far-off and apparently unimportant symptom. Our meaning here will be well illustrated by the instance of the picking of the nose as an indication for Cina in metrorrhagia arising from the presence of worms in the intestines,-which has sometimes been known to have kept up for many months a constant stillicidium of blood from the uterus. Here we can readily see the relation between the comparatively trifling symptom of picking of the nose and the irritation of the bowel caused by the ascarides and the consequent uterine irritation and hemorrhage. The fact that in many cases it is entirely impossible to trace any such physiological connection between remote symptoms, which still seem to be characteristic, and the disorders themselves, should not therefore induce us to conclude that such connection does not exist.
 The manner in which violence, accidents, and physical and mental excitement, and debilitating mental and bodily causes act, in producing metrorrhagia, is very similar to that in which in other instances the same influences result in menorrhagia. But it is well to bear in mind that violence and excessive bodily and mental excitement tend to establish arterial hemorrhage; while exhausting and debilitating influences upon the physical organism, and depressing mental emotions tend to produce passive or venous hemorrhage. Mental and bodily excitement go together, equally stimulate the arterial action; while all depressing influences, whether physical or moral, tend to paralyze the peripheral nerves,-and thus arrest the capillary circulation. In the former case, we may find violent and dangerous Metrorrhagia, of bright red blood; in the latter, a passive flow of dark stringy, or perhaps clotted blood, which from its intractable persistence is no less alarming, since the greater the debility which results from the flow, the more difficult it becomes to arrest the flow itself.
 In certain chronic diseases or disordered conditions of the blood, such as are found in anæmic and in scorbutic patients; such as are seen to result from the excessive use of salt food,-as in scurvy; and such as follow the long-continued use of potash,-as in bread largely prepared with saleratus, the blood is thin and watery, loses its rich color, its fibrine is dissolved, especially by the action of the potash, and passive hemorrhages readily make their appearance. This state of the system, resulting in many instances from easily discernible causes, is analogous to the hereditary condition just referred to under the names of constitutional peculiarity and psoric diathesis. In either class of these affections, the abnormal liquidity of the blood favors the extravasation; and it is easily understood that the losses of blood,-although replaced as to quantity by the absorption of water called for by the intense thirst so commonly seen after severe hemorrhages,-do but still further aggravate the disposition to metrorrhagia.
 In certain constitutions there is seen in connection with the catamenia, a remarkable disposition towards violent hemorrhage. And the same thing is equally true in other cases unconnected with the menses. This disposition may be termed a constitutional metrorrhagic molimen, in which,-under the influence of appropriate exciting causes,-the blood rushes to the uterus, and flows from it; just as sanguineous congestion and hæmoptysis result from corresponding excitement of the pulmonary organs. Cases of metrorrhagia of this class are mostly to be seen in persons of a plethoric habit, who are thus almost exactly the opposite of those above mentioned as anæmic, scorbutic and scrofulous.
 The alarming, frightful, and sometimes even fatal metrorrhagias, which may arise from even very small polypi, have already been referred to in the description of these forms of uterine tumor. In cancer of the uterus, the metrorrhagia is often periodical, even in those who have long passed the critical age; it is alarming both from its quantity and from the frequency of its recurrence; it may be very sudden and severe from the destruction of some important blood-vessel; it may alternate with a limpid, serous, or extremely fetid discharge; it may form from time to time a sort of crisis in the cancerous disease and congestion; it often augments during the whole course of the case, but may sometimes suddenly cease, leaving the patients entirely free during the latter part of their existence.
The metrorrhagias which arise from placenta prævia, from retained placenta,-and from other causes in connection with parturition, will be more particularly considered in the description of the difficulties of Parturition itself.
 Those which arise from abortion may be due either to the violence or other causes of the abortion itself, or to the prolonged retention of the ovum and placenta. The latter has been known to have remained for weeks, keeping up a more or less constant hemorrhage during the whole time. But this subject will also be more fully and appropriately discussed in connection with the general subject of Premature Delivery.
 Still another most important class of metrorrhagias is found in those which appear after the change of life. These may arise in some instances from disorganization of the tissues of the womb itself; but in most cases the hemorrhage is believed to be due to the real metrorrhagic molimen already referred to, or to the continuance of the same scorbutic or psoric influences in the system, which have been described as producing metrorrhagia in the earlier periods of the female life. In these cases, the hemorrhage may be more or less constant; or it may alternate, in various ways, with a watery or a leucorrhoeal discharge. For even in those persons who have long passed the critical age, a certain amount of periodicity is observable. But the subject will be again considered in the chapter on the Change of Life.
 The attendant symptoms, although always to be taken into consideration in prescribing for a case of metrorrhagia, need not here be recited. They are mostly symptoms of debility and prostration in various degrees and forms; it should be borne in mind however that some patients bear very severe losses of blood with comparative impunity, while others suffer very greatly from every slight hemorrhage.
 The treatment of metrorrhagia requires the utmost quiet on the part of the patient, and the strictest attention to all the circumstances and conditions, on the part of the physician.
 This is not a local affection, but is always constitutional, dependent upon some general disease which, when abated, the hemorrhage is controlled, except in case of actual rupture of the uterus, placenta prævia, and atony or paralysis brought on by too suddenly evacuating the contents of the uterus.
Homoeopathic care : Ambra grisea 30,pis mellifica 30,Apocynum cannabinum 30,Arnicamontana30,Arsenicum album 30,Belladonna 30,Borax veneta 6,30,Bovista lycoperdon6,30,Cactus grandiflorus
1x,3x,6,30,Calcarea carbonica30.   Dr.Bhattacharya