# Do women wear pads and tampons all the time, or only during menstruation, or what? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 21, 2021, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996 "2021-07-21T19:23:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/121 "2021-08-10T21:14:55Z")
I know there’s room; I gave birth vaginally. It’s just the getting two in that sounds difficult. The absorbency makes them ‘sticky’ IME. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/122 "2021-08-10T21:18:47Z")
Ah. – It’s been some years now; but I only recall having that problem towards the end of a period when there wasn’t much fluid; and I wouldn’t have been trying to double up on them then. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/123 "2021-08-10T21:37:06Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > 60 years??? > > I hope to god there aren’t really women in their early 70s who have yet to go through menopause. Oops. I guess I meant 40 years. I started when I was 11 and had my last one when I was 51. I think girls start earlier now. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/124 "2021-08-10T21:39:42Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Ah. – It’s been some years now; but I only recall having that problem towards the end of a period when there wasn’t much fluid; and I wouldn’t have been trying to double up on them then. How bad is the menopause, really? And do things get better afterwards? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/125 "2021-08-10T21:44:50Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I think girls start earlier now. Yes, though apparently not tremendously so. This CDC report indicates that the median age for menarche in the US has become slightly younger over the past few decades, from 12.1 years old in 1995 to 11.9 years old in 2013-17. > **[nhsr146-508.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr146-508.pdf)** > > 366.02 KB This Wikipedia article indicates that, comparing the 1970s to the 1990s, there had also been a change of a few months. > **[Menarche | Changes in time of average age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menarche#Changes_in_time_of_average_age)** > > There were few systematic studies of timing of menarche before the later half of the 20th century. Most older estimates of average timing of menarche were based on observation of a small homogeneous population not necessarily representative of the larger population, or based on recall by adult women, which is also susceptible to various forms of error. Most sources agree that the average age of menarche in girls in modern societies has declined, though the reasons and the degree remain subjects o... ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/126 "2021-08-10T21:58:33Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > It’s so annoying that they were more dangerous basically _because_ they were so effective, which means it’s more or less impossible to improve on what we’ve got. Why do humans have to be so badly designed? It’s true in general and doubly true for women. Mooncups and similar are a vast improvement. Switching to them made a significant difference with my endometriosis-related period pains and they hold more than the average tampon. Then of course you just empty it, rinse it (if you’re in a public loo you might not be able to rinse, but it’s fine) and put in back in. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/127 "2021-08-10T21:58:56Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > How bad is the menopause, really? And do things get better afterwards? Depends drastically on the person. I had very little trouble with it; that’s actually pretty common, but some people do have quite a bit of trouble. The ones who do are I think more commonly heard from – nobody’s going to spend a lot of time grumbling about how something isn’t bothering them. And generally it does get better afterwards. And it is _so_ nice not to have periods any more! I started into menopause during the tail end of the period when they wanted to put everybody on hormones; and my doctor at the time was telling me that I ought to go on them. I said ‘would I keep menstruating?’ and she said ‘well, yes’ and I got very reluctant. As it turned out, by the time I was fully into menopause the results of the big study came out and the advice abruptly changed. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > There were few systematic studies of timing of menarche before the later half of the 20th century. Most older estimates of average timing of menarche were based on observation of a small homogeneous population not necessarily representative of the larger population, or based on recall by adult women, which is also susceptible to various forms of error. [quoted by kenobi, not said by kenobi] As a recall by an adult woman: I started in the early 1960’s at 11+ – don’t remember plus how many months, but it was at least several. I was the first in my class, and the school I was going to was clearly entirely unprepared for a menstruating sixth-grader. There were no doors on the stalls in the girls’ restroom, let alone anything suitable to do with a menstrual pad. The best they could do was to offer to let me use the teachers’ restroom; which would undoubtedly have resulted in every kid in the class speculating on or straight out asking me why I was doing that. I refused to go to school during my periods. (By the next year I was in any case in a different school building, set up for older girls.) ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/128 "2021-08-10T22:09:12Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Mooncups and similar are a vast improvement. Switching to them made a significant difference with my endometriosis-related period pains and they hold more than the average tampon. Then of course you just empty it, rinse it (if you’re in a public loo you might not be able to rinse, but it’s fine) and put in back in. I tried one of those things, but I just couldn’t get it to work properly, and the failure mode was considerably more disastrous than a tampon or towel. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > There were no doors on the stalls in the girls’ restroom 😱 Seriously? Starting that young sounds awful. I was 14 going on 15 and the last girl in my class; it sucked to be so far behind my peers, but I think being an early developer is worse than being a late developer. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/129 "2021-08-10T22:16:37Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I tried one of those things, but I just couldn’t get it to work properly, and the failure mode was considerably more disastrous than a tampon or towel. I really hope this doesn’t come across as patronising (and I doubt you’re going to try again at this point anyway!) but it helps if you use the right size and if you only use it when you have your actual period. I mean that I had a friend who thought they were difficult because she’d tried it when she didn’t have her period, but there’s not much lubrication then, so they don’t fit right. My ex also took a couple of periods to figure out how to put it in properly. I am a bit of an evangelist for them but I admit that yeah, they’re probably not for everyone even if you do everything right. Still, at least they don’t cause TSS. (I always use a towel with them, but then I did with tampons too). ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/130 "2021-08-10T22:16:44Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > There were no doors on the stalls in the girls’ restroom > > 😱 Seriously? Seriously. There was a door on the restroom itself, but none on the individual stalls. And I don’t think anyone thought very much of it. Some girls would have a friend stand in the doorway with their backs toward the john; but most people just used them. Attitudes toward single-gender nudity were a lot different, especially for children. (We did not, however, follow the signs on the two front doors, which had engraved in the stone above them “Boys” and “Girls”; while we lined up in separate lines and sat each gender mostly on its own side of the room with some blurring in the middle, both genders used both doors and hallways.) [ETA: I say “both” there on purpose. We’d never heard of anything else. If there was anybody intersex or trans in the school, I expect they hid it; and anybody trans probably wouldn’t have had the words to use to explain.] ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/131 "2021-08-10T22:18:42Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > (I always use a towel with them, but then I did with tampons too). Do you mean when taking them out, or when wearing them? I never heard of using a towel, other than possibly as an emergency pad. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/132 "2021-08-10T22:20:58Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Do you mean when taking them out, or when wearing them? I never heard of using a towel, other than possibly as an emergency pad. British English - sanitary towel, ie pads. I forgot that might be a confusing term outside the UK. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/133 "2021-08-10T22:23:10Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > British English - sanitary towel, ie pads. I forgot that might be a confusing term outside the UK. Oh, whoops! Thanks. I think I had run into the British usage somewhere, but had forgotten about it. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/134 "2021-08-10T22:27:52Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > I really hope this doesn’t come across as patronising (and I doubt you’re going to try again at this point anyway!) but it helps if you use the right size and if you only use it when you have your actual period. I mean that I had a friend who thought they were difficult because she’d tried it when she didn’t have her period, but there’s not much lubrication then, so they don’t fit right. My ex also took a couple of periods to figure out how to put it in properly. If you want the full TMI: I followed the guide on sizing, but after several hours I would move and the cup would slip, and since it collects the blood rather absorbs it, blood Niagara was the result. There’s only so much experimenting I’m willing to do in those circumstances. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Seriously. There was a door on the restroom itself, but none on the individual stalls. > > And I don’t think anyone thought very much of it. Some girls would have a friend stand in the doorway with their backs toward the john; but most people just used them. Attitudes toward single-gender nudity were a lot different, especially for children. Wow. I don’t think that would have gone down well with my generation. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > (We did not, however, follow the signs on the two front doors, which had engraved in the stone above them “Boys” and “Girls”; while we lined up in separate lines and sat each gender mostly on its own side of the room with some blurring in the middle, both genders used both doors and hallways.) My primary school had a girls’ and boys’ entrance, and we used them, and the girls’ entrance was the back entrance. Second class citizens 🙄. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/135 "2021-08-10T22:37:15Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > If you want the full TMI: > > I followed the guide on sizing, but after several hours I would move and the cup would slip, and since it collects the blood rather absorbs it, blood Niagara was the result. There’s only so much experimenting I’m willing to do in those circumstances. Maybe it’s because you’re a demon? (ducks and runs) No, seriously, it’s a shame they didn’t work for you. I don’t know if different brands are better than others - I’ve only ever used one, which works for me, and I wouldn’t expect people to be willing to spend on trying a different brand when one hadn’t worked. It’s a shame that there really is no way to just try one out before buying your own. I mean, there really _is_ no way, obviously. I’m just so very glad they exist. Apart from everything else, I and all other users can prove that the supposed “5ml of blood per period” thing is utter codswallop. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/136 "2021-08-10T22:39:58Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Wow. I don’t think that would have gone down well with my generation. Probably not. The current attitude seems to me to be the oddest mix of increased license (you can walk down the street in the middle of town with half your ass hanging out and nobody blinks) and increased prudery (but nobody must ever be entirely naked!). > [@DemonTree](#): > > My primary school had a girls’ and boys’ entrance, and we used them, and the girls’ entrance was the back entrance. Second class citizens I’m surprised, if you’re that much younger than me, that that was acceptable. They’d given it up before the 1950’s where I was – and even when they were doing it, both the doors were front doors, and basically identical. Did you use separate classrooms? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/137 "2021-08-10T22:48:52Z")
I used disposable cups towards the end of my menstruating days. What a vast improvement over tampons and pads! Yes, the catastrophic failure mode could be a problem, but it almost never happened to me. And i could use the same cup for hours, and it didn’t get nasty if i pissed (a problem i had with tampons after having children.) I never tried the reusable ones, but i would have if i couldn’t get the disposables. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I started into menopause during the tail end of the period when they wanted to put everybody on hormones; and my doctor at the time was telling me that I ought to go on them. I said ‘would I keep menstruating?’ and she said ‘well, yes’ and I got very reluctant. As it turned out, by the time I was fully into menopause the results of the big study came out and the advice abruptly changed. Those studies were misleading. The question they set out to answer was, “if a 70 year old woman has mild heart disease, will estrogen help?” And the answer was a resounding “no”. It increases her risk of death, including her risk of heart disease. But if you piece apart the data by how old the women were, and how long it had been since they hit menopause, it turns out that estrogen has a minor health benefit to women who take it within a year or so of menopause. (As measured by all-cause mortality.) Until that study, no one ever tried to give estrogen to women long past menopause, which is probably why all the observational studies suggested it was helpful – they had observed younger women who started estrogen closer to menopause, usually because they were troubled by the three symptoms of menopause. (I’m also an estrogen evangelist.) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/138 "2021-08-10T22:49:25Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > I wouldn’t expect people to be willing to spend on trying a different brand when one hadn’t worked. When I was menstruating, menstrual cups weren’t generally on the market. I saw some for sale at, of all places, an organic farming conference in the late 70’s or early 1980’s, and wanted to try them – but they cost about as much for one as a year’s supply of tampons, and I didn’t know whether I’d like them or not, and was unwilling to spend that much without having any way to tell whether I could in practice use it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/139 "2021-08-10T22:59:35Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Apart from everything else, I and all other users can prove that the supposed “5ml of blood per period” thing is utter codswallop. As in, it’s more than that, or less? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996/140 "2021-08-10T23:00:43Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > No, seriously, it’s a shame they didn’t work for you. I don’t know if different brands are better than others - I’ve only ever used one, which works for me, and I wouldn’t expect people to be willing to spend on trying a different brand when one hadn’t worked. It’s a shame that there really is no way to just try one out before buying your own. I mean, there really _is_ no way, obviously. I cut the stem short, but I probably needed to cut it right off, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get the thing out if I did that. And yeah, I’m not going to pay £20 each to try different brands with no guarantee they’ll be any better. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Probably not. The current attitude seems to me to be the oddest mix of increased license (you can walk down the street in the middle of town with half your ass hanging out and nobody blinks) and increased prudery (but nobody must ever be entirely naked!). No one said it had to be logical. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I’m surprised, if you’re that much younger than me, that that was acceptable. They’d given it up before the 1950’s where I was – and even when they were doing it, both the doors were front doors, and basically identical. I don’t know why they did it. The school wasn’t particularly backwards in other ways. And no, we didn’t use separate classrooms. The were only two classes for all seven years, so we had a table for each year group. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-wear-pads-and-tampons-all-the-time-or-only-during-menstruation-or-what/946996.md?page=8)