Periods. We as girls all have them well mostly all of us. But we never talk about them or how they actually affect us. Your taught in School about periods at some point I remember maybe around year 9 we had sex education and periods were mentioned in that but nothing I really remember. We all shy away from talking about periods and men don’t often understand how painful they actually can be. I actually heard this somewhere a film or something but a male said ” How can something living bleed 7 days every 4 months and not die”. It is actually crazy when you think about it.
I am going to be completely honest and open about my periods. Yep completely TMI ( to much information) but I think its important. As a teenager I remember being taught about periods but I don’t ever being told how much they would affect my life! So if you don’t want to listen to a bit TMI then you probably should stop reading now lol! I want to be open and honest for the teenager girls, the young women, the older women who think they may be alone in how badly there periods are, because I know I sometimes feel alone in the 7 days of hell. I’m actually nervous about writing this I don’t know what I’m going to write other than the truth which I hope doesn’t give a gruesome insight to my personal life maybe a bit to detailed or not enough I don’t know but we shall see….
MY PERIOD STORY
I started my period aged 11 I was in the end of year 7 so nearly 12, I was about to go on a school trip to Germany for a week. I remember this so clearly I had felt panic at the thought of being away from home on my period I had started a few weeks before so it had worked that I would be in Germany and to my luck I was. I came on after a long day exploring and I remember a girl I shared a room with being really supportive. Anyway the first few weren’t bad at all but as I got older they started to get worse. The first day I would be continuously sick from pain. I would sit in a ball rocking back and forward. My mum would give me hot water bottles and pain killers but they didn’t help. I would miss a lot of school. I would talk to friends and no one else seemed to be suffering like me? I would go through 3-4 packs of towels/pads in the time i was on which could be anything from 7-12 days. And the thought of a tampon scared the life out of me! I would be stuck on the toilet for ages with massive clotting. It just didnt seem normal.
We had visited the doctor and it was agreed to put me on the mini pill to try and ease it which it did make it regular but it did not help the pain. Teachers wouldnt understand they would tell me i couldnt go home or had to do the PE lesson. Some days id be screaming in pain and throwing up. I remember none of my friends had this and i felt alone. I would hate being at school completely while i was on as i would bleed so heavy i was always worried about a leak. I will never forget a time in a music lesson i sat down and as i stood there was blood on the chair, the boy next to me noticed, he was a friend and straight put his jacket over the chair and wiped it off. I remember it so clear he then got my jacket off the chair and handed it me to tie around my waist and said thats between us and i burst out crying at his kindess i took his jacket home for my mum to wash and ill never forget his kindess. Kids can be so cruel espeically teenage boys.
In school i missed alot of school ALOT! All due to my period it gave me severe migraines aswell but the worse was the pain i would have it day and night for at least the first 3-4 days it was horrendous i remember getting up at 5am one morning rocking in our livingroom and sobbing until my mum came down and helped me back to bed i cant even explain how bad the pain was. It definatly effected my schooling and exams. It also sucked the enegry and life out of me i would be so weak and sleepy the whole time.
As i grew older and went into work it was just as diffcult, i had noticed a pattern of a few days before i would be weak, tired, snappy and head achy. I would have to ring into work on occasions each month and in the end i lost my first job becuase of it and it would go onto effect all my jobs. Id visit the doctors and try different medicines but nothing worked at all not even cocodomol the strongest i even at one point at around 20 was put on tramdol to try and help aswell as many different contreceptions but nothing worked. My boss was becoming increasing annoyed to the point i felt like i couldnt work there anymore. The sickness would last a few days which meant every 3 weeks i was sick for 3 days and curled in a ball for another 3 days no life to live. The bleeding so still so bad. Around 23 i was due to see a specalist when i fell pregnant and boy was i glad not just for a baby but for a whole 9 months without periods haha! It was amazing to not have the dread of them lurking.
Fast forward 9 months and the return of the devil came but something had changed! Although they were slightly painful for a day there was ZERO sickness or curled in a ball screaming? I dont know what changed but wow i was beyond glad. I would still have cramping but it was bareable and im guessing normal!. I then went on to have my second pregnancy. In the csection of this i had my sterlisation and then everything changed again!
After a few months i started to get really heavy periods again and my mood would drop dramatically. A few days before my period i would be a nervous wreck so depression so angry so snappy so not myself. I would get incredibly painful head aches literally bang on the dot 3 days before that lasted to the exact moment the period came. I would cry at everything, i didnt have a clue what was happening i knew this was baby blues or psot natal depression this was all down to my period. The sickness on the first day returned and the cramping. It wasnt as bad as my teenage years but it wasnt the light cramping. So i visited the doctor and was told about how a sterlisation can really effect a womens hormones as the body isnt sure what is happening and can throw everything into an inbalance im going to go into a full post at a later date about how badly the sterlisation effected my body but for now ill leave this link to a great page i found that explained everything im going through here.
Now ive been diagonsed with a few conditions such a pernious aneimia which is a blood condition and a b12 defiency where my body cant obtain iron or b12 in my blood which can cause severe tiredness weakness etc which i think back now if id known back then about this condition could this have been why i was suffering so bad. But even now at 27 i struggle nowhere near as bad as my teenage years not even a fraction. My teenager years were hell and no one knew how to help me. But i 100% believe pregnancy changed my periods. I still have pain but its not often im sick on the first day anymore. The effects of the sterlaition have changed my hormomes and cycle alot so the PMS leading up to my period is can be diffcult. I am now on 2 different types of medication to try and balance out the hormones plus i have an injection every3 months and vitamins aswell as evening primrose all given by the doctors to try and balance the effects out.
Periods are something us as women all have to deal with. Every 28 days if your lucky for others the days are all over the place making planning things,working and school life diffcult. I dont think we talk about them enough. Like its a forbidden subject like a miscarriage we know they happen but we dont talk about them. They are apart of our lives. Open up that gate and talk about these bloody awful periods!
HELP AND SUPPORT USE LINKS
NHS, Womens health, Always
Have you had a bad experience with them? or Do you not have any problems? Leave us a comment!
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