I’ve had a continuous period for a THOUSAND days and counting… doctors tell me it might never end
For most women, the idea of having a period lasting more than seven days is daunting.
But Poppy’s reality is much more grim.
The 23-year-old has now had her period for nearly 1,000 days — two years and eight months — and she’s still bleeding.
Her harrowing experience began in 2022 when she began bleeding, as normal, but then didn’t stop. After three weeks, she went to her doctor — who prescribed medications to lessen the blood flow.
But when that didn’t work, two weeks later she went back to her physician with ongoing bleeding. Scans revealed she had small cysts on her ovaries which can cause irregular or frequent bleeding.
Poppy was given more drugs, scans and birth-control medications, which over the next two years helped reduce the bleeding — but the cysts turned out to be only part of the problem.
On day 950 of her period, Poppy, who is also disabled and a wheelchair user, found out she had a uterine defect.
Poppy, 23, a plus-sized wheelchair user has had her period for nearly 1000 days has shared the harrowing ordeal she underwent before doctors discovered she had a bicornuate uterus=
The uterus is normally an upside-down pear shape, but less than five percent of women have a heart-shaped uterus due to a developmental abnormality that occurs before birth.
Doctors say the shape can cause the uterine lining to grow outside of the uterus, which can then lead to regular bleeding.
Pictured above is Dr Dympna Weil, an OB-GYN who said Poppy’s condition could be down to the heart-shaped uterus
Usually, a menstrual period lasts for three to seven days — and it is abnormal for it to last for more than a week.
There is no official record for the longest period ever, but in 2016 Australian native Chloe Cristos told reporters she had had her period for five years. Doctors found this was due to a disease she had that stopped her blood from clotting.
Poppy, who is from the UK and whose second name was not revealed, is still experiencing her period now and says she has no idea when it will stop. She is chronicling her journey on TikTok, and has so far amassed 22,800 followers.
Speaking in a video yesterday, Poppy said: ‘I have had every kind of pill, every kind of medication, every treatment, every scan, everything you can think of has been done so far.
‘I have been on every kind of birth control, and nothing has helped.’
‘The only thing that they didn’t tell me about, the bicornuate uterus, they found on my very first scan, they just didn’t tell me about.’
A bicornuate uterus is described as a uterus that appears heart-shaped instead of its regular round form. While a typical uterus is shaped like an upside-down pear with one hollow cavity, in this condition the top of the uterus dips inwards at the middle rather than staying flat
Poppy said that when she first returned to her doctor, she was referred to a specialist.
She underwent a hysteroscopy — a scan where a thin, lighted tube, with a camera on the end, is inserted into the vagina and the uterus for an examination — and a trans-vaginal ultrasound — a scan to create a detailed image of the uterus.
Doctors said they had found polyps, and suggested these might be behind the bleeding, but she was still bleeding and it was now month eight, they said this likely was not the cause.
She was then referred to another specialist, who had an intra-uterine device (IUD) — a small, T-shaped device, put into the uterus to prevent a pregnancy — inserted, saying it would stop the bleeding.
But more than a year later, she returned to the doctor and said the bleeding was continuing — with the doctor then saying they were not sure what was causing it.
She has now been for further scans and tried many treatments, but nothing else worked.
It was only on day 950 that a doctor suggested the bleeding may be down to her bicornuate uterus. This was detected on month four but had not been mentioned to her before.
Explaining how this may cause the long-term bleeding, Board certified OB/GYN Dr Dympna Weil told DailyMail.com: ‘ Ovarian function is unaffected.
A bicornuate uterus may be surgically treated through a surgery called metroplasty
‘However, as we do tend to see more cases of bicornuate uteri also having endometriosis (a condition where cells from the uterine lining – the ones that grow and shed each month – are located in other places in the body, outside the uterine cavity).
‘Due to endocrine or hormonal effects of this process, you can see abnormal bleeding.’
Her condition may be treated via a metroplasty, or surgery to correct the shape of the uterus by removing the tissue causing its heart shape.
Poppy also mentioned a hysterectomy, or removal of the uterus, online — but said she didn’t want this because she wanted to have children.
Symptoms of a bicornuate uterus include painful menstruation, painful intercourse, irregular vaginal bleeding and repeated miscarriages.
The condition can be only discovered through ultrasounds or through an MRI.
A woman with the condition is still able to get pregnant, but the shape of the uterus may cause a developing fetus to lie in an irregular position and it may affect childbirth.
According to Dr Weil, a bicornuate uterus can put a pregnant woman at the risk of ‘preterm labor, cervical insufficiency, low-birth weight and malpresentation, such as breech’.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘In many cases, the bicornuate uterus goes undetected throughout an uncomplicated pregnancy that perhaps requires delivery by cesarean section because the baby is in an abnormal position owing to the unusual shape of the uterine cavity.
‘In the case of recurrent pregnancy losses surgical removal of the piece of the uterus that create the heartshape can be performed.
‘However, this does increase the risk of uterine rupture during the pregnancy and labor; it also increases the chances of infections, bleeding, and scarring from the surgery.’
Heavy menstrual bleeding affects over 10 million American women each year with every one in five suffering from a long cycle, according to the the CDC.
