Menstrual blood

When people talk about doubling up on pads, what do you mean? Do you mean having one lengthways across the back as well? Or do you mean one on top of the other? Because don’t they all have plastic backs that would stop the efficacy of the one on the bottom?

I have done the putting a pad lengthways as well for extra protection. Now I use the extra wide back nighttime pads all day *and two days a period can have to change those after 30 minutes sometimes.

I set an alarm for during the night. Do incontinence pads work as well or better? Do you wear tena and a nighttime? I wonder if that would mean I don’t have to have a doubled up bath towel under me during the night.

I honestly used to think I was unusual until I started to ask my sister and she was the same. I realised then that women just didn’t discuss it and that maybe we weren’t that unusual. It was MN where I learned so many women were like us.

*discovered after always took the female symbol off the packaging and I have to say I am so much happier with the extra wide back.

The period pants they tested were a brand called Knix, and they were their super absorbency range which the brand description stated absorbed "up to 8 tampon's worth" of blood. So not light flow ones at all.

The 2mls must be in light flow rubbish period knickers.

I use heavy flow period knickers and they have changed my life. I have endometriosis and miserably heavy periods and they certainly contain my flow. Yes, it sometimes takes a little while to absorb but I never leak like I used to.

I have had this discussion with a teen family member who was asking for period pants. I mentioned that in our family it was unlikely that these would work except for the spotting days but that they were unlikely to work usually. I was always disbelieving of the ‘just a spoonful a day’ type tripe.

I am glad to now have the figures. I honestly couldn’t see how those pants worked except as a back up.

I remember this too @DraggedKickingandScreaminginto40s and also thought wth! Egg cup in maybe the first bleed of the period and then some. It was minimising women tbh. Men could not cope.

The medical community need to be doing proper research into periods, its shocking they haven't/aren't.

I can say that for me sometimes the blood is thick and clotty, and other times it is pretty much the same consistency as regular blood. I know this from the times i've being caught out unexpectedly, and flooded during the night. Trying to get to the bathroom with it streaking down my legs and filling my hands that I am cupping to prevent a blood bath on the carpet whilst trying to get to the bathroom.

This is normal for me but not every period, I don't have any signs of other issues. some months are painful, some months are really heavy, some months the period has been and gone in 3 days some months it could last 5 to 6 days.

My mum always had low iron and was sometimes enemic, so took iron tablets.(she blamed heavy periods)
So as as adult I've always taken multi vits n minerals (which have 14mg of iron in) plus try to make sure I eat iron rich food.

An egg cup! I've never believed this rubbish

i remember my Dr when I was 16 telling me my periods would get better after I got pregnant

as PP have said clots change the dynamic massively. I remember 'fighting' with my Dr about my issues until I took a photo to show him

Why not though?
Blood is thicker than water, menstrual blood is, I'm guessing, thicker than regular blood (with all the other stuff going on, clots, mucus etc)

I have not once in my life had a tampon actually expand or absorb in the way they're advertised to, and I have very heavy periods.
Maybe my period is abnormal and I need a Dr's visit, but the blood doesn't particularly "absorb" very well at all.
It just kinda... Sits there on whatever product? Being it's "mucusy" self lol

I'm genuinely excited to see the results, I think they'll be night and day tbh!

Yes, you wonder about the knickers they used in the test because 2ml is less than half a teaspoon! And while I've never measured my flow, I've seen a few demo videos when they pour several tablespoons of a blue liquid into the gusset of the pants and let it soak in. So further investigation needed, I think.

I think it must be VERY dependent on the period pants because I have various boring period related problems and as a result a very heavy flow and I find them a total life changer. They definitely hold 50ml, and I would have guessed more like double that. I’m not squeamish, Or hysterical. I too have been told the eggcup nonsense.

Yes! This amount must be in some medical text book because I've seen it somewhere too and it's always stuck with me because of how wrong it was.

Those of us who tend to pass large clots might have a different expectation. In my experience, clots are not absorbed well by any product. One of the reasons why some research might be useful.

I don't expect the results from real blood would be any different from the results using saline

Actually, to be fair to period pants and reusable pads manufacturers, some of them say that they use cough syrup to simulate blood when doing their own absorbency tests. Which is better than using saline, I would have thought.

I’m sure we were always taught it was a tablespoon of blood (maybe two?). We all knew it was a ridiculous misrepresentation yet somehow accepted it. Medical gaslighting for women is so insidious.

It's the first time anyone's done an assessment of period products absorbency using blood and not just saline. Doctors have been using fuck all data to assess whether a woman has a "heavy flow" up until now.

I measured mine recently. (Not due to idle curiosity but pre orthopaedic surgery as my iron levels are poor due to very heavy periods and the consultant was concerned about the need for a blood transfusion).

Took a red Tampax and weighed it before and after. Actually the ml capacity was similar to that stated on the packet. Then counted how many I used in a period to find my total blood loss (on the basis I tend to change them when they're near or at capacity). A slightly grim exercise but it makes it easier to explain to the doctor.

Yes, I was really surprised that period pants performed so badly, given that they are touted as more absorbent than pads and tampons.

I once went for a weekend away and out of nowhere came on. It was awful- I was walking around with tampon and two pads and literally panicking as when I moved I could feel huge clots come out. All I did was put up with it as you think what’s the point in seeing gp about this as I was near the menopause. Looking back now I’m horrified that I didn’t go to walk in centre or somewhere for help as it was so bad. I felt faint and so embarrassed as we were at a hotel and I bled on the sheets. The weekend away was a disaster.Few months later I got an endometrial ablation and it worked but I had to get it done privately because I wasn’t deemed ‘bad’ enough and it was the ‘menopause’

The study looked at one brand of period pants only, called Knix, using their Super Absorbency version. On the Knix website it says that the Super range is for heavy flow and can absorb up to 8 tampons worth of flow. Of course they don't specify which size tampon or what that equates to in ml. But the study showed it was only about 2 to 3 mls of their blood product that was absorbed.

That's the point of the study though, that these brands are only testing with water, not blood so their data is incorrect.

Period pants aren’t just one-size-fits-all for what they hold.

Modibodi say the light-moderate holds 10ml, the maxi holds 50ml.

Other brands sell a range of absorbencies too.

I read on MN in AIBU between 2010 and now that it was one eggcup, and the rest was "other fluids".

I definitely had my leaflet from school all about periods that said it's about one eggcup of actual blood, I guess there are bits of tissue in there too etc. That would've been in the 80s/90s.

This is what I was told as a young teen. I was always therefore convinced that something was very, very wrong with me and I was too scared to go to the doctors about it 😞

It's dangerous to not have accurate information.

I was also told the average period blood loss was one eggcup. Yeah right… unless they mean eggcups for ostrich eggs?!