Messages about menstrual disorders and unexpected abdominal bleeding has been a hot topic in connection with corona vaccination. Women have spoken on social media, and several have appeared with their stories in the newspapers.
The Norwegian Medicines Agency has received 2379 reports of menstrual disorders – most from women aged 20-49 years.
Marianne Randen (31) took the first dose of the corona vaccine in June. That was the beginning of a nightmare.
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– I was not supposed to have my period until a few days later, but the same day I took the vaccine, it simply came like an explosion. I was in great pain and bleeding a lot. It is not normal, Randen explains to Dagbladet.
It was Gudbrandsdølen Dagningen who first mentioned the case.
– Nothing helped
The 31-year-old from Otta tells Dagbladet that she has always had a fairly regular menstrual cycle, but now she can menstruate both a week too early and a week too late. Marianne is still struggling with the same side effects today, half a year later.
– By the way, I just had my period, and I got it a week early. I was in so much pain that I did not know where to turn. I cried and tried to walk, sit, lie down, but nothing helped.
She uses Paracet and Naproxen for the pain, and says that it helps a little. However, it did not help the pain a few months ago.
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– Before the vaccine, I only had a little pain, completely normal and that it is possible to work with in everyday life. Now after the vaccine, when it’s at its worst, I can not do anything. I remember that I was at the store, and then I was almost fainting, so I had to go home, Randen says.
– Heavy bleeding
The Norwegian Medicines Agency has also received 178 reports of women experiencing unexpected abdominal bleeding after menopause.
Dr.med. Nina Willumsen is a gynecologist at the Nimo clinic in Drammen, and tells Dagbladet that, like the Norwegian Medicines Agency, she sees an increase in inquiries regarding irregular, heavy and unexpected bleeding.
– The oldest patient I have had is a woman of 72 years. She had a heavy bleeding after the vaccine, says Willumsen.
She further says that more people experience bleeding after menopause. Women with IUDs also experience bleeding after vaccination, according to the gynecologist.
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– Those who become most anxious are those who do not expect to bleed. We see a number of women who finished their period a year or two ago. They come here as soon as they bleed, both for examination and conversation.
Unexpected abdominal bleeding after menopause is always classified as severe if it occurs more than a year after the last menstrual period, according to the Norwegian Medicines Agency. side effect report.
– The most important thing is to rule out serious conditions related to bleeding after menopause, and reassure the patient if there is a bleeding after the corona vaccine, she says.
– After Modern
Willumsen has observed that some women may experience bleeding disorders after the second dose of corona vaccine – and especially after Moderna.
– I have the impression that more people get side effects after the second dose. By then, an immune response has already occurred after six weeks, she says.
– People stretch far now
The doctor experiences that this applies to women of all age groups.
– We see differences in side effects by type of vaccine, and there are more of our patients who experience side effects from Moderna than from Pfizer, says the gynecologist.
Dagbladet has not succeeded in getting in touch with Moderna.
40 percent
FHI now uses several ongoing population surveys with more than 60,000 women aged 12-80 years, to study a possible connection between coronary vaccination and menstrual disorders.
The first results – among women aged 18-30 years – shows that there is an increased incidence of menstrual disorders in young women after they were vaccinated against coronary heart disease.
39.4 percent have reported menstrual disorders after the first dose, and 40.9 percent after the second.
The study also shows that more women report bleeding disorders after Moderna than after Pfizer, but the difference is marginal, according to project manager and doctor Lill Trogstad at FHI.
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– In the study, menstrual disorders were reported after both mRNA vaccines. There was a tendency for a slightly increased incidence after Moderna, but the difference between the vaccines was small, and not statistically significant, Trogstad tells Dagbladet.
Two out of three
Nearly 6,000 women aged 18-30 have participated in the cohort survey UngVoksen, and answered questions about menstruation and bleeding disorders.
– Bleeding disorders are very common, and 4 out of 10 women aged 18-30 years reported such disorders even before vaccination. Nevertheless, we see in this study that a few more women got disorders after the first or second dose of the corona vaccine, says Trogstad.
The proportion who reported heavy menstrual bleeding than usual was higher after the first dose than before vaccination. After the second dose, the incidence of several types of menstrual disorders increased.
“Oh, there were many!”
– Most menstrual disorders after the first dose were transient. Among women who experienced menstrual disorders after the first dose, almost two out of three experienced menstrual disorders also after the second dose, she explains.
FHI does not currently have information on the duration.
– Do not know for sure
Dagbladet has contacted the Norwegian Medicines Agency, which points out that they are conducting a study together with FHI to try to clarify whether there is a connection between vaccination and bleeding disorders.
It is not yet known whether menstrual disorders at the first or second dose give an increased risk of experiencing this again at the third dose, it is stated in the Norwegian Medicines Agency side effect report for coronavaksinen.
The Norwegian Medicines Agency has so far processed 2379 reports of menstrual disorders. They can not say which corona vaccine has led to the most reports of menstrual disorders.
– The seriousness begins to sink in
– The reporting system for adverse reactions is not suitable for performing this type of analysis. The purpose of the reporting system is to capture signals that must be examined further, the Norwegian Medicines Agency writes in an e-mail to Dagbladet.
They are now waiting for the results from the National Institute of Public Health’s analyzes, and say that these are questions they hope FHI can clarify in the studies they carry out.
Get serious cases
Dr.med. Nina Willumsen experiences that the bleeding disorders gradually pass; only a handful of patients experience “severe menstrual disorders” after vaccination, she says.
Also according to the Norwegian Medicines Agency, less than ten percent of reports of menstrual disorders are classified as serious.
– We have not experienced that the bleeding disorders have lasted for a long time. Often the bleeding changes last from a few days to weeks. Usually it can be repeated a couple of times, but then it goes away from experience.
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