What helps with period pain?

[EveryPlanetHasAYorkshire]

Am currently sat in a hot bubble bath and feeling sorry for myself and feeling a bit silly asking this question at 29 years old.

Other than hot water bottles, painkillers, baths and chocolate is there anything else I can do to make this thing get lost .

Depo.

The menopause.

A hysterectomy.

Go see your GP, depo was a life saver, my symptoms were nothing, no period, no pain, no bloating, no javelin arse, no vomiting, no clots, no flooding or any of the other stuff I'd been putting up with since I was 11.

Ibuprofen and cocodamol alternating every 2 hours

Now on mini pill no periods fantastic

Go to the GP, and keep going back - asking for different GPS if necessary - until they are able to figure out what to prescribe you so that you are able to live your life pain-free.

This is a huge trigger for me. We judge other countries who allow prudish attitudes to reproduction to put women's lives at risk. Yet we similarly allow taboos over 'women's problems' and some misplaced idea that we should 'just deal with it' to put us off getting the medical help we need to live pain-free lives.

It took until I was 34 for me to finally get the help I needed with my periods. 2 medicines - mefanamic acid and tranexamic acid - taken for a couple of days each month, changed my life.

Until then - for about 20 years - my quality of life was severely affected by unmanaged pain. I lost a day every month: curled up with a hot water bottle and OTC painkillers willing the minutes to pass as pain washed over me, and then spent the rest of the day weak and exhausted - barely able to stand - from the aftermath of the pain. That's 240 days, or almost 8 months, of my life spent in serious pain - missed work, missed trips, just missed life! - which could easily have been prevented with appropriate medication.

We shouldn't accept this.

Nettle tea it doesn’t taste great but a cup when I’m cramping seems to take the pain away

I’m another vote for seeing your GP as well