When you're a woman, right from the early teens until menopause. Month after month, your menstrual cycle comes, regular as, well, clockwork. That's bad enough, but when your cycle leads to heavy bleeding, so heavy you have to put your life on hold, it's a bit much.

I was like that for about five years of my life, until the doctor finally prescribed a hysterectomy. Heavy bleeding during your period is called menorrhagia, and it's not natural.

How do you tell if you're bleeding too much? The Healthy Woman blog has these tips:

• Soaking through a tampon and/or pad every hour or less for several hours at a time
  


• Needing to use double protection during your period
  


• Heavy clots in the menstrual blood flow
  


• Periods that last longer than seven days or come more often than every 21 days
  


• Severe cramping
  


• Fatigue
  


• Shortness of breath (a sign of anemia)
  


• Irregular periods (sometimes they come every 28 days, sometimes every 24 days, sometimes every 34 days).

Talk to your doctor. There are methods of treatment, and a hysterectomy is only a final resort. Sometimes drugs like ibuprofen might do the trick, or perhaps you'll need to go on the pill for a while. Also ask your doctor about newer methods of treatment.

Don't suffer needlessly. Not only is it a miserable way to live, but all this excessive bleeding can lead to anemia.