Most of what women are told about periods is an average, and an average is a poor description of any individual. This guide sets out the range that is ordinary, and then the specific changes that are worth taking to a clinician rather than waiting out.
The range, rather than the average
For adults, a cycle length anywhere between roughly 21 and 35 days is usual, counted from the first day of one period to the first day of the next. Bleeding commonly lasts between two and seven days. A few days' variation from month to month is ordinary and does not need explaining.
Two stretches of life are irregular by default: the first couple of years after periods begin, and the years approaching menopause. Between those, a cycle that is persistently outside the range usually has a reason worth finding.
How much bleeding is "heavy"
There is no volume that defines it, and nobody measures. What clinicians go by is the effect: changing protection every one to two hours for several hours, flooding through onto clothes or bedding, clots larger than a ten-rupee coin, or arranging your days around your period.
The single most useful preparation for an appointment is counting. Two or three cycles of pad counts, with a note of whether they were soaked or lightly used, turns "a lot" into something a clinician can work with.
Pain, and the line between common and acceptable
Period pain is common. Pain that regularly stops you working, studying or getting out of bed is also common, and it is not the same thing as normal. Pain that began later in life, has been getting worse, lasts beyond the bleeding, or comes with pain during sex or when opening your bowels points towards a cause that can be identified.
The tiredness nobody connects
Heavy periods are one of the commonest reasons for iron deficiency in women in India, and the tiredness, breathlessness on stairs and poor concentration that come with it are frequently attributed to something else for years. A haemoglobin test is inexpensive and free at government facilities. Ferritin, which shows iron stores, is the one to ask for by name.
Five changes worth reporting
Bleeding between periods or after sex. Any bleeding at all more than a year after your periods stopped. A cycle that used to be predictable and has changed and stayed changed. Periods that have become heavier or more painful than they used to be. Three months or more with no period when you are not pregnant.
None of those five means something is wrong. All five mean there is a question with an answer, and the answer is usually reassuring and occasionally important.
When to be seen the same day
Soaking a pad every hour for two hours or more; feeling faint, breathless at rest or with a racing heart; heavy bleeding with fever or severe pain; bleeding in pregnancy; sudden severe one-sided pain with a late period.
How this guide was written
AskHer's editorial team wrote this from the published guidance listed at the end of the explanations it links to — FOGSI, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the ICMR, the World Health Organization, the RCOG and the NHS among them. It has not been signed off by a clinician registered in India, because no clinician has yet joined AskHer and had her registration checked. That is why no clinical reviewer is named on this page.
Nothing here is a diagnosis, and nothing here is advice about your particular situation. When a clinician does review a guide, her name and the date she reviewed it will appear here in place of this note.
This is general education. It cannot tell what is happening in your own body, and it does not replace seeing a clinician.