Do you lose working days per month to your period?

I'm absolutely less productive due to hormonal migraines which are not so much physically painful (they are but it's bearable) but they sap every ounce of energy I have. It takes 15 minutes to muster the will to do anything. I get them just before a period and they last 3-4 days.

I go to work those days, and as I'm self employed and paid per job not per hour, I can just take longer.

Unfortunately I'm peri now and am occasionally getting the migraines mid cycle too. I don't really have 8 days a month spare to feel like shit.

My periods have stopped now but I was lucky with mine. There was one time not long after they came back after I had my first child I had to go home in terrible pain and then was off next day too but other than that single occasion my periods haven’t been heavy and whilst they were painful I was able to cope with painkillers and still work.

Never. I also used to throw up on occasion when school age but after a few years it sorted itself out. I’ve always been quite heavy the first two/three days and painful but I’ve never missed work due to having a period. I’m post menopause now (which was a breeze thank goodness).

I only have a bad first day, and not every period is super bad, probably one in every three. So I probably have a seriously compromised work day around 3-4 times a year.

I have endo (finally diagnosed when I was 31/32) and I did miss school and uni due to pain and and heavy heavy bleeding.

Once I started working though I just couldn’t take days off every month, so I had to push through. I’ve definitely bled on to more than one office chair 🥲 AND I have to do a timesheet, so if there were days that I couldn’t concentrate, I’d end up having to make up the time back another day! There are a few occasions I can think of that I did have to take days off because the pain was so bad.

I had a lap in 2023 and had the mirena inserted at the same time and what an absolute game changer - I feel like I’ve got my life back!!

I can relate OP. First two days are agony. I take naproxen but some months it's just not strong enough and if i take a stronger dose it really affects my stomach.

It's a nightmare and although my doctor is sympathetic I just need painkillers that actually kill pain. I find working on those days very difficult indeed.

Also I love when people say I just dose up on painkillers and get to work
I used to take paracetamol, naproxen, dihydrocodeine and oral morphine and still be screaming. The ambulance crew gave me gas and air to get me off the floor to hospital once. It’s like being in labour, it’s not standard pain
I thought about stabbing myself in the ovary just so they would remove it and my wait from referral to surgery was TWO years because it needed an MDT meeting and a bowel surgeon

I literally said to a friend yesterday, I am so glad my work doesnt involve having to show up somewhere and be on form in-front of colleagues etc as these days (since turning 40) those 2/3 days of the month are a
bit of a write off. Physically, but mainly mentally. It’s like operating at 50%. I work for myself, mainly alone and from my own space. So I can be useless privately!

I did but now I’ve had endo surgery I’m much better
was averaging 4 days a month off sick due to pain

Never.. tbh I take the pill without any breaks so don't even have periods. But when I have the occasional break it's more of an annoyance than anything else. Guess I'm lucky

What are you doing about it? I presume someone who is in an 'intellectual role' such as a barrister isn't just being unproductive at work, whilst being fully paid, without doing something about it.

I've had days off in the past but that was a good few years ago, I've since had polyps and endometriosis tissue removed which has reduced the pain. I do still get extremely tired and get brain fog though. My productivity is hugely reduced, some months more than others. I manage my own case load and I'm in a pattern of getting behind the week of my period and gradually catching up the next couple of weeks then having one week where I feel on top of things before the cycle starts again. Throwing annual leave into the mix makes things even more challenging, if I'm off on one of my productive weeks (week of ovulation I'm full of energy and really focused) I can end up feeling behind for a couple of months and be really stressed with it.

Periods vary so greatly from one woman to another. I needed to borrow some sanitary products from a friend once and she handed me size small tampon and pads, and I wondered to myself in what world were those going to be of any use.
It never crosses my mind to purchase anything other than super heavy night maxi plus ultra stuff. I always wonder why the others exist but some women don't need anything more.

It's the same with pain. Your experience is not uncommon. It's not universal, but sadly very normal.
The pill never helped me but finally having children did. Then perimenopause hit and we're back to square one.

It varies so so much.

I am exactly like you, I am so exhausted for four days a month that I can make it through the day doing basic tasks but harder tasks have to wait. I also can't parent properly...I'm asleep most of the time.
My partner picks up the slack on the parenting and I do harder tasks at work when I have the energy so long term no issues but in those four days it's so miserable, just scraping through the exhaustion.
I have pmdd so also have horrendous mental illness with mine too. Anti depressants have sorted that out though.

I’m 46 and never missed a day of work because of my period. Nor a PE lesson. Last week I went to a water park in Europe in a swimsuit whilst on my period. Apart from changing a tampon when we stopped for lunch it didn’t impact my day at all, went down water shoots, rapids etc. The day after I went cycling in Spain in a large group. At risk of sounding like a Bodyform advert in the 90s, my periods have just never impacted my life at all.

I think that is quite unusual. I’ve never had a day off related to my period.

Yes because I have pmdd. I spend the week before thinking about how I want to blow my whole life up by just fucking off and not telling anyone or by doing something more prem (it’s not great). That doesn’t include the new migraines I have been getting.

Sadly I made a bad career choice wheni was younger so I have no choice but to go in and work as normal no matter what. I’m self employed so if I don’t work I don’t get paid. Plus I’m working with patients all day so I need to work exactly the same every day. Can’t slack or do a lesser job any days. I’ve even worked through a miscarriage where I bled through my clothes and even on the floor. Luckily I managed to hide it from the patient I was with. My other miscarriages I worked through thankfully weren’t as bad. Mainly because I’m limited to when I can use the toilet if I’m with a patient etc.

I feel I’m too old and can’t really afford to change careers now unfortunately. Not looking forward to menopause etc as my periods are really getting heavier now.

I was fine til I got to my mid 30s. I started getting very painful and heavy periods, as well pain at other times, and was diagnosed with adenomyosis. There is very little that has helped me. A hysterectomy wasn’t an option for me years ago and now that it could be, being as adenomyosis usually gets better after menopause and I’m mid 40s now, I’m reluctant to put myself through it.

I’m peri menopausal now and that side of things has improved as my periods are lighter and I only get a couple of days of very bad pain. I use naproxen prescribed from my GP. I now get a lot of brain fog and hot flushes with peri and feel hot much of the time which again impacts on my life and work. I can’t take HRT so I have to put up with it. I work from home so manage it and if it’s too bad I have to be off sick. My work have been great but I know that’s not the case for everyone.

You have my sympathies OP. Do see your GP to see if there is anything underlying that you can be treated for. Unfortunately as much as people think everything can be treated and you don’t have to put up with it, that’s not always the case. There is a lot of dismissiveness and ignorance around women’s health, even from doctors and women who should be more understanding.

I had a frozen pelvis which they were able to go in an sort out. That gave a lot of relief. Unfortunately I still have pockets of endo around including some deep infiltrating endo on my bowel and bladder. For now, they're monitoring via MRI every 6 months and will only go in again if it progresses too far. He said they typically leave the lungs as the risks of surgery are just too high.

It's a hideous disease. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

I've had excision surgery, it was removed from bladder/ureter/bowel/rectum/pelvic ligaments and pelvic sidewall, together with hysterectomy/oophorectomy. It has helped enormously. The disease has come back in my bowel and rectum and at the moment it's medical management because another surgery is very high risk and I would need a stoma. But it's nowhere near as bad as it was. I can manage the pain at home, at least. It needs a very experienced surgeon at a bsge centre once you get to this point, and they should be able to help you.

I get you. I've spent my whole life pretending I'm not in pain. That is just so lovely of him. Did your surgery end up relieving the pain? I'm told mine would very very complex because it is everywhere including the bladder and bowels. They really don't want to do it as they say it may not help the pain anyway.

Yes! At school, I genuinely believed all the girls were in the same amount of pain and I was just the wimp who couldn't handle it.

I'll never forget after my third surgery, but the first with an endometriosis specialist, he came and sat by my bed and just said "you must have been in a tremendous amount of pain". I burst into tears because he was right, I was in a horrendous amount of pain most of the time, and he was the first person who acknowledged it.

I find it infuriating when women are so dismissive of other women's pain. Someone above actually said "I just didn't believe in taking a day off".

It's worth knowing that endometriosis isn't always visible on an MRI. Just in case you have one and that also comes back clear. If possible, I would ask to be referred to gynae, but search for an endometriosis specialist rather than someone with "an interest in endometriosis".