WEBVTT
00:00:01.564 --> 00:00:04.110
Welcome to the Dear Menopause podcast.
00:00:04.110 --> 00:00:06.777
I'm Sonya Lovell, your host Now.
00:00:06.777 --> 00:00:11.933
I've been bringing you conversations with amazing menopause experts for over two years now.
00:00:11.933 --> 00:00:21.126
If you have missed any of those conversations, now's the time to go back and listen, and you can always share them with anyone you think needs to hear them.
00:00:21.126 --> 00:00:26.089
This way, more people can find these amazing conversations, needs to hear them.
00:00:26.089 --> 00:00:28.198
This way, more people can find these amazing conversations.
00:00:28.198 --> 00:00:33.646
Hi everybody, welcome to this week's episode of Dear Menopause.
00:00:33.646 --> 00:00:37.380
Now, this is a little bit of a shorter episode this week because I am joined by my very good friend, Dr Ceri Cashell.
00:00:37.380 --> 00:00:50.069
Ceri and I have jumped on to have a conversation about a topic that I personally have noticed is being spoken about a little bit more, and Ceri is absolutely the person to get to the bottom of this for us.
00:00:50.069 --> 00:00:51.453
Ceri, welcome to the podcast.
00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:53.226
Hi Sonya, Thanks for having me again.
00:00:53.500 --> 00:00:54.744
Always a pleasure, Ceri.
00:00:54.744 --> 00:01:06.683
Today we're going to talk about postmenopausal bleeding, the reasons why, the reasons when, to get it checked out and to alleviate any concerns when it starts happening and it does happen, yeah.
00:01:06.944 --> 00:01:22.385
So I think postmenopausal bleeding is something that is really quite common, especially for women who are on hormone replacement therapy, but can absolutely occur for women who are not on hormone replacement therapy, and I suppose it's always important to go back to those basic definitions.
00:01:22.385 --> 00:01:31.805
So menopause is 12 months after your last menstrual period, so you've had 12 months where you haven't had any bleeding, and then postmenopause is everything after that.
00:01:31.805 --> 00:01:43.385
So, technically, postmenopausal bleeding is bleeding that occurs after a year of no periods at this time in a woman's life, which is different to somebody that maybe hasn't had periods for different reasons when they're younger.
00:01:43.385 --> 00:02:02.173
And postmenopausal bleeding can, on occasion, be a sign of something serious going on within the uterus or the cervix, rarely in the vulva and vagina, but the big thing we're trying not to miss is a cancer, of course, and that's why it is very important for women to get checked when this happens.
00:02:02.420 --> 00:02:05.691
So there's lots of different reasons for postmenopausal bleeding.
00:02:05.879 --> 00:02:11.132
A common cause would be just an imbalance in the hormones in your hormone replacement therapy.
00:02:11.192 --> 00:02:26.462
So there's a very good analogy of looking at the uterus like a jumbo jet where you want all the switches to be aligned for it to fly safely cruise control and the sex hormones the oestrogen, the progesterone, the testosterone are probably just three of those switches.
00:02:26.644 --> 00:02:33.668
There's lots of other things that will impact the lining of the womb things like insulin, probably other hormones like vitamin D.
00:02:33.668 --> 00:02:40.199
We know there's lots of these other hormones that are playing a role in all of our pathways throughout the body, so including the uterus.
00:02:40.199 --> 00:03:11.185
So we are really looking at trying to get a Goldilocks sweet spot with each of our different hormones for women that are on HRT, and it's really important that women do appreciate when they start HRT in the not had periods for a year or five years or 10 years, it can be really quite frightening to suddenly have a period if you haven't been aware of it.
00:03:11.185 --> 00:03:24.228
For most women it's not heavy and I have had some patients who've had some very heavy bleeding and that has been really very traumatic for them and again, that's something that they really do need to get checked out with their doctor.
00:03:24.448 --> 00:03:36.051
So it's really any type of bleeding, whether it's as simple as some spotting through to more heavy, almost kind of flooding, unexpectedly bleeding once you're postmenopausal.
00:03:36.051 --> 00:03:44.007
Obviously your first port of call with any time that happens is straight to your GP to ask some questions and do a bit of an investigation.
00:03:44.206 --> 00:03:44.909
Yeah, absolutely.
00:03:44.909 --> 00:03:54.822
The thing that we really don't want is for women one to be sitting at home getting very anxious, but two also that you're not sitting at home with heavy bleeding, putting yourself at risk of losing blood.
00:03:54.822 --> 00:03:59.724
That would make you amount of blood that would make you anemic or iron deficient, or also that we could be missing something.
00:03:59.724 --> 00:04:01.248
That is much more serious.
00:04:01.248 --> 00:04:13.405
So when I see a woman with postmenopausal bleeding, irrespective of whether she is on hormone replacement therapy or not, the first thing we look at is different risk factors and what else is going on with her.
00:04:13.405 --> 00:04:18.283
So, depending on how heavy the bleeding is, it is important to examine a woman in the surgery.
00:04:18.283 --> 00:04:21.620
So we're wanting to look and see if there's another source of bleeding.
00:04:21.620 --> 00:04:25.831
Sometimes women get little varicose veins in their vulva and vagina that can bleed.
00:04:25.831 --> 00:04:28.329
That's not so common, but it is something that can happen.
00:04:28.329 --> 00:04:31.228
If you're able to see the cervix, sometimes you'll see a pull-up.
00:04:31.228 --> 00:04:31.930
That's bleeding.
00:04:31.930 --> 00:04:34.488
Sometimes you'll see an abnormality there that might be more serious.
00:04:34.488 --> 00:04:38.451
But we can't look into the womb inside the uterus in a GP surgery.
00:04:38.451 --> 00:04:42.791
So that's really where we need the expertise of our gynecology colleagues.
00:04:42.791 --> 00:04:46.067
So first thing is to come and see the doctor.
00:04:46.067 --> 00:04:48.562
They can check your blood pressure, check you're not bleeding so much that you've dropped your blood pressure.
00:04:48.562 --> 00:04:49.343
That's very important.
00:04:49.343 --> 00:04:52.142
We can obviously check your bloods and make sure that you're not anemic.
00:04:52.142 --> 00:04:55.817
But then usually we are sending you off to get an ultrasound.
00:04:55.817 --> 00:05:13.144
Ideally we use somebody that is used to doing what we call gynecology ultrasound, so that's a gynecologist that's been trained both as a gynecologist but also as a radiographer or sonographer, very used to doing these transvaginal ultrasounds, looking at the womb.
00:05:13.144 --> 00:05:14.524
So off to see them.
00:05:14.524 --> 00:05:21.473
They will have a look and then they can grade whether the womb lining looks like it is of concern or not.
00:05:21.473 --> 00:05:29.761
And there are different guidelines in different countries that give you a cutoff thickness of the womb as to when we think we should be concerned.
00:05:29.761 --> 00:05:33.341
So at the minute the guidance would be around about four millimetres.
00:05:33.341 --> 00:05:37.355
So the person who does the scan will give an endometrial thickness.
00:05:37.355 --> 00:05:43.375
Dependent on that will determine how aggressive or how concerned we would be about the next stage.
00:05:43.375 --> 00:05:47.045
So four millimetres would be considered a cut off where you're very unlikely.
00:05:47.045 --> 00:05:51.824
If it's less than four millimetres, it's very unlikely that you've got anything serious going on within your womb.
00:05:51.824 --> 00:05:56.264
It's actually probably closer to nine millimetres where the risk of cancer really goes up.
00:05:56.264 --> 00:05:59.692
But we have to always put that in the context of the woman herself.
00:05:59.934 --> 00:06:06.485
So there are other factors that mean a woman might be more likely to have a serious process like a cancer going on the womb.
00:06:06.485 --> 00:06:12.562
And unfortunately, women who are overweight, who are carrying a lot of extra weight, do have an increased risk of endometrial cancer.
00:06:12.562 --> 00:06:15.218
Women who have a family history are at an increased risk.
00:06:15.218 --> 00:06:21.343
Women who have been on tamoxifen or who are on tamoxifen are also at an increased risk, and smoking, of course.
00:06:21.343 --> 00:06:34.899
So looking at those as risk factors, hrt probably isn't considered a risk factor for endometrial cancer, but postmenopausal bleeding is definitely increased in women who are on HRT.
00:06:34.899 --> 00:06:45.675
So I would see somebody examine them, send them for an ultrasound, and I would tend to have quite a low threshold for getting a gynaecologist to consider whether they would then have a direct look into the womb.
00:06:45.675 --> 00:06:46.937
They can take a biopsy.
00:06:46.937 --> 00:06:52.577
They can actually see what the tissue looks like under a microscope, and that can be very reassuring for everybody involved.
00:06:52.798 --> 00:06:53.180
Yeah.
00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:56.052
So my gynaecologist I love this analogy.
00:06:56.052 --> 00:07:12.733
She describes it in this beautiful way where she's like imagine it's a garden and you have your lawn and you want your lawn length to be, as you said, that endometrial thickness, to be at a particular level, and if your lawn is a bit overgrown and maybe you've got some weeds in there.
00:07:12.733 --> 00:07:17.012
So she was referring in my specific instance to some fibroids and some polyps.
00:07:17.012 --> 00:07:26.476
She goes, you know, and this was a procedure that I had done recently through a hysteroscopy where they go in and they mow the lawns as she described, and she pulled out some weeds.
00:07:26.476 --> 00:07:31.153
But it was a really good analogy for me to understand that endometrial lining.
00:07:31.153 --> 00:07:49.211
I guess that it can kind of get a little bit out of control and there are other things that can grow in there the fibroids, the polyps and obviously, wanting to eliminate any concerns around there being a cancer growing in there as well, yeah, absolutely.
00:07:49.232 --> 00:07:53.067
And for a lot of women finding something like a polyp and removing the polyp in that hysteroscopy is perfect, because then the bleeding source is often removed.
00:07:53.067 --> 00:07:58.843
They're the women that will bleed because their womb lining has got so the grass has got a little bit long.
00:07:58.843 --> 00:08:05.829
But you also know when your grass gets a bit short and a bit dry that it can also bleed, and we know that is.
00:08:05.829 --> 00:08:10.382
Another cause of post-menopausal bleeding is actually the womb lining is too thin.
00:08:10.382 --> 00:08:16.007
It can sometimes be that the little superficial veins in the uterus become a bit dilated.
00:08:16.007 --> 00:08:25.952
That sometimes is related to too much progestogen and they actually bleed because we're kind of thinning the womb lining too much and that can require a slightly different approach.
00:08:25.952 --> 00:08:32.518
It's not serious, but it is a cause of that persistent bleeding which certainly can be a nuisance for women.
00:08:32.518 --> 00:08:38.198
So the approach really is one very important that we rule out that there's not anything sinister going on.
00:08:38.198 --> 00:08:46.673
And then two then what we do to manage your bleeding can be very different depending on what we find in that ultrasound or that hysteroscopy.
00:08:46.833 --> 00:08:47.775
Yeah, fantastic.
00:08:47.775 --> 00:09:01.702
So just a little bit of a recap, going back to what you mentioned at the start about for somebody that is perhaps starting HRT for the first time but they are postmenopausal that there is a chance that they may experience some bleeding.
00:09:01.702 --> 00:09:04.639
When is that most likely to occur?
00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:06.274
From when they start their HRT.
00:09:06.414 --> 00:09:21.410
So it's most likely to occur within the first three to six months of starting HRT or if you change the dose and obviously if you've been somebody that hasn't really been on medication, you can forget to take a couple of days of maybe your progesterone or your progestogen.
00:09:21.410 --> 00:09:28.124
Usually people are quite good at taking their oestrogen but definitely stopping and starting progesterone or the progestogen can trigger a bit of bleeding.
00:09:28.124 --> 00:09:44.461
So light bleeding within the first three to six months we wouldn't be so concerned about Anytime that it's heavier, like a period, and certainly if it's heavier than a period you should really be getting seen by your doctor like I would say really within a few days if it's heavier than a period.
00:09:44.461 --> 00:09:47.092
But it is a common side effect.
00:09:47.092 --> 00:09:54.601
So, being aware of that, so light bleeding within the first three to six months, you should still tell your doctor about it, but I wouldn't consider it an emergency.
00:09:54.601 --> 00:10:06.131
Heavy bleeding or bleeding that is beyond that three to six month of starting or changing dose definitely needs a consultation reasonably quickly to progress to other investigations.
00:10:06.472 --> 00:10:07.154
Yeah, great.
00:10:07.154 --> 00:10:10.283
And, as you said, those other factors to take into consideration.
00:10:10.283 --> 00:10:23.558
So if you were someone like myself, for example, who has taken tamoxifen, then you would want to make sure that you were having that conversation with your GP straight away, as soon as there was any bleeding, just to make sure that everything is as it should be.
00:10:24.139 --> 00:10:27.014
But there are some women who do have persistent bleeding.
00:10:27.014 --> 00:10:34.484
So you've done a scan and you've done a hysteroscopy and everything is fine and they continue to have bleeding and that certainly can be a nuisance.
00:10:34.484 --> 00:10:44.495
So it can be a process of trying to find out what is your Goldilocks for your oestrogen, progesterone and even testosterone has a role in bleeding.
00:10:44.495 --> 00:10:50.517
So trying to find out what's right for each woman can be a bit different, like everything else, between individuals.
00:10:50.517 --> 00:10:58.508
The Mirena IUD is a great option for women that tolerate it and you can use it in the postmenopause environment possible years.
00:10:58.508 --> 00:11:00.952
It does seem to really control bleeding.
00:11:00.952 --> 00:11:08.556
Progesterone the natural progesterone is not as effective as the synthetic progestins at keeping womb lining thin.
00:11:08.917 --> 00:11:15.577
So, you know, while it's great in the brain, it can take higher doses to keep the womb lining thin for women.
00:11:15.577 --> 00:11:31.256
So there is a lot of personalized, individualized titrating and tweaking of the medications to get it right, and that can certainly be quite frustrating for women who have loved the no period part of postmenopause that's the bit they're delighted about.
00:11:31.256 --> 00:11:38.851
And then you've put them back to having a period every two to three months, which is it's interesting, but some women that certainly does happen.
00:11:39.092 --> 00:11:41.482
And that was certainly my experience and my situation.
00:11:41.482 --> 00:11:42.647
I found it really confronting.
00:11:42.647 --> 00:11:48.587
I hadn't had a period for eight years and then all of a sudden I went to the bathroom and there was blood.
00:11:48.587 --> 00:12:04.090
And it is confronting, it's scary, and I was straight on the phone to you, who happens to be my GP, because it is something that kind of really does come out of left field that you weren't expecting, and for me it wasn't within those first few months of starting my HRT as well.
00:12:04.090 --> 00:12:10.169
So I guess this is also just a really good reminder that hormone therapy is very nuanced.
00:12:10.169 --> 00:12:20.918
It takes some tweaking for some women to get those levels of all three factors, if you're taking all three of the hormones, to get that interplay between them all right.
00:12:20.918 --> 00:12:31.052
And I loved your analogy at the beginning of the jumbo jet and making sure that all those little levers are sitting at the right levels to make sure your engine just hums along.
00:12:31.232 --> 00:12:39.056
And I think it is also like HRT although it is body identical hormones and it is extremely safe, it does still carry these side effects.
00:12:39.056 --> 00:12:46.335
So it is something that people have said we don't talk enough about that it's not a perfect magic wand.
00:12:46.335 --> 00:13:07.178
There are these side effects, and bleeding and irregular bleeding on HRT is certainly one of the biggest, most common and most troubling side effects of HRT for a proportion of women, as is breast tenderness and headaches, but certainly the bleeding is the thing that causes distress, causes concern and requires investigation.
00:13:07.178 --> 00:13:11.514
You know HRT is a wonderful treatment but it is not perfect.
00:13:11.635 --> 00:13:17.231
I think that's a really great reminder, and thank you for bringing it back to that really overarching theme of you.
00:13:17.231 --> 00:13:27.716
Know it must be investigated, because we always, always want to ensure that we've eliminated anything that could be a little bit more sinister than just getting your hormone levels right.
00:13:27.716 --> 00:13:28.966
Awesome, Kerry.
00:13:28.966 --> 00:13:30.532
Thank you so much for this quick chat.
00:13:30.532 --> 00:13:33.288
Was there anything else that you wanted to leave the listeners with today?
00:13:33.528 --> 00:13:34.591
No, I think that's perfect.
00:13:34.591 --> 00:13:37.568
So, always leaning into your body If something is concerning you.
00:13:37.568 --> 00:13:43.667
Your doctor is there to listen to your concerns, so never feel that you are bothering your doctor.
00:13:43.667 --> 00:13:46.251
Women are far too good at sucking things up.
00:13:46.251 --> 00:13:52.956
We are here to deal with your concerns, address your worries, make it's our job to make sure there's nothing serious going on.
00:13:52.956 --> 00:13:55.934
But we can only do that if you come and speak to us about it.
00:13:56.125 --> 00:14:00.332
Yeah, great point and a really good reminder for us to finish up on.
00:14:00.332 --> 00:14:01.455
Thank you, Ceri.
00:14:01.455 --> 00:14:19.919
I will point in the show notes to the amazing Healthy Hormones platform, which does provide an online community with access to amazing GPs like yourself, so there's a great opportunity for women to jump into that community, be able to ask any questions that do crop up, obviously working alongside their GPs as well at the same time.
00:14:19.919 --> 00:14:27.837
Thank you, thank you, Thank you.