Like many women, Chloe Christos, 27, remembers when she first got her period.
She was 14, and her friends all started menstruating around the same time.
She didn’t think anything of ituntil she kept bleeding for a few weeks.
Courtesy of Chloe Christos
She knew something wasn’t right.
I was just told to tough it out."
But it only got worse for Christos.
Chloe Christos gives herself an infusion of a blood clotting medicine. It wasn’t until recently that she found a medicine that lets her live an almost normal life.
A few months after her period began, she says, her period still persisted.
She couldn’t swim or do sports as she continually flooded through sanitary products.
And, her blood pressure levels dropped dangerously low.
“I fainted on a daily basis and it was for me considered normal,” she says.
“I was just one of those people everyone knows who says ‘Im a fainter.’
She started regularly getting iron transfusions, but nothing helped.
“I thought I was going to die,” she says.
She didn’t stop bleeding for the next five yearsuntil she was 19.
TheCDC reportsthat about one percent of the general population suffers from vWD.
Margaret Ragni, M.D.
Of all women with heavy menstrual bleeding, Ragni estimates that 10 to 15% have vWD.
While vWD is a lifelong condition, there are treatments to improve someone’s quality of life.
But it was a long road for Christos to find the right treatment for her.
After her diagnosis, she started using a synthetic drug to try and increase clotting.
It was a very memorable day for Christos when she first tried the blood clotting medicine.
She now uses it regularly.
I dont have to take painkillers and I dont get severely fatigued which is also awesome.”
vWD is much more widespread, but little known.
“They can have a bleed in their head or a bleed from surgery from which they die.
Those are very, very serious and fatal.
Heavy periods is not usually fatal.
She says it will be the first year the event has a booth for women.
She posts photos on her Instagram showing her daily life with a bleeding disorder to raise awareness, too.
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Do you have periods that last greater than seven to ten days?
Do you have flooding?
