A curse. I suppose I had fibroids back then (13) because the pain was extreme and I ruined a lot of clothes.
Even 1200 of ibuprofen didn’t help. Finally, I am on a pill (low dose as I am 50) and its all better. Cannot wait for menopause. I think any woman should be able to get a hysterectomy whenever she wants it.
I had debilitating back pain when I was in my early teens, and then again in my early twenties, the praying-to-die kind. But it wasn’t every month; in fact, only a couple of times a year, and because my mother died when I was little, I had nobody to tell me it had something to do with my period. I thought I had a back problem. I remember one time walking to a convenience store with a couple of my sorority sisters and the pain hit while we were there; they had to call for someone to come get me. I was so embarrassed, but I could not have walked back to the house.
I have had the kind of heavy periods **kittenblue **describes. I usually lay some towels down before I go to bed; that helps me sleep.
Though I wouldn’t call it a blessing, I’ve pretty much skated through that aspect of womanhood with very little difficulty. Very little cramps, pretty light bleeding.
Nursing keeps me from ovulating for a long time and I’ve nursed my babies for a long time, which, coupled with pregnancy four times, has mean very few periods over the last 11 years. With my youngest, counting the time I was pregnant, I went three years with no period, and after such a long break, I must say, as easy as they are for me, I was indignant with what a pain in the ass it is to spend 4-5 days bleeding.
Who designed this system?! How does it possibly work well enough to be evolutionarily adaptive? Really the whole reproductive system with it’s emphasis on frequent chances to get pregnant instead of conscious choice is a terrible plan.
effing selfish genes!
There’s a birth control called that? I thought it was just an SDMB poster!
She is. She comes over and dusts phouka’s bookshelves.
I have an ex that likes it. It’s empowering or something. She painted a picture with the blood.
Curse. Mine have always been weird. I was always very lucky when I was younger, I rarely had cramps, if at all, and when I did, it was just a weird sort of deep ache that I couldn’t define.
I was on the pill for 10 years, didn’t really have any problems with it (unlike two of my friends who got really crabby on it) but weird things started happening after about 8 years. I got off them and my periods went from being a week long to being anywhere from 7 - 17 days long!! I found out I was hypothyroid and after going on meds, that’s when I started getting the PMS stuff that I’d always heard about but never experienced: weepy, sore nipples, heavy bleeding, cramps. However, the cramps are still a weird deep ache, but just a lot more severe. Aleve will help, but I will have zero energy for the day. Weird stuff.
Looking forward to when I don’t have to deal with this crap anymore…
I had pretty bad cramps in my teens and early twenties. They did lessen a bit while I was on the pill.
After having children, the pain is much less and in the back of my upper thighs (weird!) instead of the uterus area.
I frequently get sick right before getting my period. I keep wondering if it affects my immune system somehow.
I am a recent convert to the Diva Cup and it is terrific. Almost like not having a period at all!
I think we get screwed more on duration than frequency. Why on earth does it take 3-8 days for an organ the size of a pear to shed its lining? Personally, I’d sign on for both more pain and more mess if it meant it only took a day or two a month rather than five.
Yeah, unfortunately our cavegirl ancestors were pregnant or nursing so often that menstruation was an infrequent annoyance, and so there probably wasn’t a lot of selective pressure against it.
I’ve heard the idea that humans and great apes menstruate simply because we produce way too much endometrium to reabsorb completely after the fertile window is over (covert menstruation–what many lucky animals do).
I’m not a fan of such silly evolutionary byproducts. Not at all.
On my first day I tend to feel tired, achy (especially in my feet), and intestinally clogged up, but rarely crampy. Strangely, my cramps arrive on the third day, when things are kind of tapering off. But compared to how they used to be, they are easy-peasy. I don’t even have to take drugs (usually going to the toilet is all I need ;)).
What’s gotten worse through the years is the PMS. My thoughts become straight-up disordered (they loop nonsensically, if that makes any sense to anyone). Sometimes it’s really hard to communicate effectively, and I also experience anxiety, depression, and insomnia. So during that week, I gobble magnesium pills and Valerian root extract. They help a little.
I’ve never had much of a problem. A little cramps here and there, a headache. The flow is pretty light compared with my friends and their “waterfalls”. I was on the pill for years, after I had my kid I went to the coil, which has also been great. I’m thinking of getting rid of the coil now and going to the Depo shot - having 12 periods a year is just not natural, I think my body needs a rest from that.
My kid suffered the debillitating cramps so I put her on the pill at about age 14 - after her dad had carried her out of school when they called us saying she’d gone completely white (she’s brown normally) and was lying on the tile floor! It made a big difference for her. I’ve only had a bad cramp once at high altitude so I wasn’t as sympathetic to my kid as I could have been. Also she wouldn’t eat much in the days leading up to the event which can be part of the whole PMS thing.