Ding! Ding!
(Experience)
Yuuuup. I was at the drugstore with cramps and thinking I’d get Midol since we’d had it at home and I’d used it before (I was in college at this point). But I always examine the drug facts panel of medicines to know what’s in them or to double check I’m getting the correct version. And so I looked at Midol’s and see:
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acetaminophen
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caffeine
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pyrilamine maleate*
So it’s Tylenol, a diuretic that wakes you up, and a diuretic that makes you drowsy. Uh. Huh.
After that, I just made my own Poor (Wo)Man’s Midol: Two Tylenol (later ibuprofen) with coffee. 
- not “malware”, autocorrect!
What are men supposed to “get” without being told? It’s not like all women have the same experience of periods.
The non-contact Vulcan mind meld so we know what is going on without asking.
I mentioned, too, that I get none of the symptoms in my post above (albeit couched in literary metaphor).
These threads make me grateful that that time of the month when Arsenal are at home so that painters can come in, it never lasts more than three days tops, a packet of ‘supplies’ (napkins/towels/whatever) can sustain me for at least three months, and that I don’t suffer some of the awful pains and attendant side-effects some suffer. (As for people who have turned their beds into abbatoirs - :eek: How does that even happen? Or ruining your knickers on a regular basis, yikes.)
As a kid, I would get cramps when my period came in because of stress-related problems, but ibuprofen turned out to be the wonder drug for me, thank fuck.
If a women wears sweatpants at night this is a message that not only do they not want sex, but that they’re on their period.
Is this a whoosh? Because it’s obviously not a universal truth.
Unless it’s not.
Ok busted - it’s a little bit wooshy. 
Heh! It’s either that or you realise you havn’t eaten for two days and are not so much mood swinging but HUNGRY.
It means I want to be comfy. Or I am cold.
Nope. They vary. I may be dense here, but I am not understanding the “bloated” concept. Are we talking about water retention an the general I’m a big fat pig feeling?
I have had it pretty easy compared to some women. I get cramps, but they are more annoying than painful. I can have BOTH constipation and diarrhea in the same day!! About 10 days prior to my period, I get so freaking horny. This continues into the first day or two of my period. I tend to get food cravings and breast tenderness about three days before.
In the last 8 months or so, I have been getting migraines. Part of the reason I have been tracking my period is to try to figure the pattern. It seems as if the beginning and ending of ovulation trigger them
if you loved her then you would know what she was feeling.
My husband understands completely. He doesn’t even want to have sex when I am on the rag. He even gets me chocolate and takes care of the kids if I am feeling particularly miserable. Maybe I am just lucky?
You got me with this one. I laughed pretty hard.
PCOS with endometriosis, and a very thick endometrial layer. I could fill a 1 oz diva cup in under 2 hours, or go through a super plus tampon in an hour. I was regularly dropping golfball sized clots repeatedly for 7-10 days or longer. At one point in time I bled continuously for 7 months. [The Navy doc in his infinite wisdom told me since I had PCOS and endometriosis it was ‘normal’ and to take a suppliment with iron. Yay.] When mrAru retired and I got a civilian doc, she happily ultrasounded me, took an endometrial sample [OU_fucking_CH] and immediately put me on norethindrone to totally suppress everything until my other ovary developed cancer and I lucked out into getting a hysterectomy. [heavenly.]
There is nothing like that internal slithery sensation of a huge clot obeying the law of gravity when you stand up, realizing that you have about 10 seconds before your lap will be swimming in blood.
Sounds almost like my father. Two years ago he had this horrible red rash on his back that he kept insisting was a bug bite. My mother finally dragged him to the doctor who diagnosed him with shingles. And a pretty bad case of it, too. The doctor also found out that he had a hernia that needed to be operated on. :smack:
If there’s an opposite of a hypochondriac, that’s my dad.
When I was a teen I went in for surgery in that area, and afterward the doctor said “…and I saw you had a hernia, so I fixed that for you too.” I couldn’t have told you. I felt fine.
I’m lucky too. My husband doesn’t pretend that he can or should understand, anymore than I can understand what it’s like to sit on your balls wrong (or your dick, or whatever it is), and be in some situation where it’s inappropriate to adjust. But he can sympathize with my feeling crappy, and being in a bad mood because of it. He takes our son out by himself, brings back take out, asks if I need Tylenol or anything, and gives me a backrub.
My husband toughed his way through a bout of the shingles with nothing but hydrocortisone creme. I couldn’t believe it. His boss had to order him to take a sick day. I’m sure if it had been me, I would have accepted the prescription for narcotics. He was only 40 when it happened, but now he qualifies for the shingles vaccine that normally you can’t get until you’re 60, or something.
Funny thing was, he was the third child in his family, and his father and older sister couldn’t remember whether or not he’d had the chickenpox, so we were debating whether we should eat the $70, and have him get the vaccine for it that our insurance wouldn’t pay for on the chance that he hadn’t, because when our son was little, even though he (our son) had the vaccine, there were probably kids in his preschool who hadn’t.
Problem solved.
Yes, water retention. I gain ~5lbs - I go up a cup size, and the rest of the weight centers on my belly, even making me look fatter fully dressed. It sucks. But I still fit into most of my normal pants while retaining the ability to breathe, though.