school not taking dds period pains seriously

[canigetarepp]

my DD has very very heavy and painful periods. she is 14 now and her periods have always been like this since she started aged 11. she takes iron tablets because otherwise she becomes anaemic. she is prescribed the same medication that I used to take before my hysterectomy, for adenomyosis. GP tries to encourage her to go on the pill, but she doesn't want to.
she has also had burst ovarian cysts, for which she was hospitalised in the past.
yesterday she went to 3 different teachers at school because of her period requesting to come home. they refused to call me. one of them even mocked her and asked how she was going to cope in the real world if she can't cope with period pains, teachers can't go home when they get their periods etc etc

I'm really cross. I need to be able to trust that they will look after her. what am I supposed to do, just keep her home when she has her period so I know this won't happen again, that seems extreme. I know this was in the press recently so it's obviously fairly common. how do you/your dds deal with school, regarding periods?

But she isn't actually willing to try them.
Id have sympathy if they'd been tried and haven't worked but OP says ger daughter is resistant.
When it comes to pain medication is proven to be very effective for lots of people, this is a young person who is at the point of missing lots of school yet has not tried the medication available? Nope not acceptable

thanks, i will get her some buscopan. I can't get to the bottom of why she won't take prescription meds. she will only take OTC

And likewise OP cannot then force school to take the issue seriously. Why should they when ops daughter is not taking the issue seriously herself and trying the options healthcare professionals are giving her.
Sounds like OP's daughter only wants one solution - skipping school.
I think there are bigger issues here and the periods are partly being used as an excuse.

Im actually a bit flabbergasted you haven't yet tried everything out there when this is an issue occuring several days a month and causing your daughter to miss school 😱

and I will try this, thanks for the idea

How about paramol if she will only take OTC? That's pretty hefty plus ibuprofen

www.theindependentpharmacy.co.uk/pain/paramol-tablets

Tell her the mefanamic acid is otc!! Im amazed as a teen she even has a sense of the difference, medicine is medicine. No wonder school are frustrated

And these

amzn.eu/d/ixzrimE

are you? no one has suggested buscopan as an option...none of the multiple GPs or the gynae consultants at the children's hospital 🤷🏼‍♀️

she is an odd one tbh

private Gyna didn't suggest it to DD either and neither did any of the GP's or nurses we saw

Worth a try, and led by her but with a discussion as she writes. Can't do any harm given where she is in her views at present and may make her think about it a bit more. Good luck.

this isn't the case. she has an issue with school attendance and as a result we have LOTS of conversations about that. this is not related to wanting to skip school

It makes me livid to read posts like this, OP, on your behalf.

One of DD2's issues with secondary school and school refusal and an issue for so many girls is worrying about leaking and lack of privacy in toilets.

I'm sure some girls take the piss but this should not be the primary assumption of the teacher or school.

Would you want to go to work in a place where you were not allowed to go to the toilet and change your sanitary protection when you needed to, and then leaked through your clothes onto your chair, or had to put your hand up and ask to so do in front of 30 of your peers?

FFS OP, I am sorry you are having to defend this.
We are not talking about a bit of an inconvenient twinge here that gives an opportunity for bunking off.
Many women and girls are uncertain about taking something hormonal at a young age for potentially the rest of their lives and while it may help its your DD's decision

thank you for saying this. I'm sure the school also incorrectly assumed it is related to wanting to avoid school (which has been happening since she was 5 and is related to SEN and anxiety)

I'm not sure how she would manifest ovarian cysts and burst them as a strategy to bunk off school?

That would be quite some feat. I do think you should speak to the school, they are being totally unreasonable.

Well we've all done it to avoid PE I'm sure 🙄

🤣🤣🤣 as someone who HATED PE at school

Likewise. After I came out of hospital for eye surgery for double vision, I totally blagged that i could see two balls at once to get me out of hockey, tennis and rounders for a good 4 months 😅

Gave me time to get my homework done while others were out there being picked on by Miss Trunchbull the games teacher.

No regrets.

But you can't fake having actually had surgery...

brilliant!!

as an aside but relevant actually. dd badly sprained her ankle couple of months back. she didn't take her crutches to school. her drama teacher gave her a detention because she wouldn't do the jumping up and down warm up exercises. don't they put this information into some kind of system so that all teachers can see it?

I was at school in the nineties, I'd imagine they'd be more joined up now, but I would have been milking those crutches like a blagger. Everywhere I went in front of teachers. And I was a straight A student who appreciated the extra homework time and hated sport.

She shouldn't have got a detention for that.

Oddly I could.manage to read the music in orchestra at the same time. Can't imagine why that might be. Teens can be sneaky.

But this isn't that, your daughter is in pain, and they need to be aware of that.