To think you can't swim when you have a period?

[lostinmiddlemarch]

Just that. How can it possibly be done?

I couldn't, even with tampax super plus.

Sit forward and upright

I think it is what you are used to, I used a non applicator tampon from my very first period. Start with a mini one, try standing up with one leg on the toilet seat.

😷 at the thought of somebody not using anything to go in the water while on their period! This has put me off going near pools

Although when I've been in the shower, I never have a trickle of blood coming out.. surely this would be the same for swimming?

Not as bad as a un toilet trained baby in a pool. A few drops of menstrual blood in a million gallon pool doesn't really fill me with horror. I think there is still a taboo about menstruation from cultural memory.

With no tampon, I would still flow in a bath (hot or cold as in summer I take a cold one in the morning) There are sometimes clots in the water and as I step out, there are big drips on the side of the bath tub or old towel I've put down. So without anything it would run down my legs as soon as I was out of the pool.

That said I do swim with a tampon in with absolutely no issue at all. Even a tampax. I just put one in immediately before getting in and take it out immediately after showering. No problem.

I was given a very vintage leaflet from my mum when I started my period (in 1991) that was obvs from the 60's and it firmly banned swimming even though it said your flow stopped in water, as well as banning any other sports during a period. It had no mention of tampons either, just natural sponges and pads you wore with a belt

Fate has she managed to insert a tampon successfully? As others have said if it's in fully it really shouldn't be uncomfortable at all.
As a teenager I had loads of trouble getting a tampon in initially, I remember trying for months and just not getting anywhere. Until I thought of slathering a load of KY jelly on the end; this worked a treat and after getting that first one in I never had problems (or had to use the lube) again.

Fate has she managed to insert a tampon successfully?

She has three times, yes. But it is very clear inserting a tampon is distressing her. I have tried applicator and non-applicator (she prefers applicator). I have bought the tiny, teenage ones. I have got in my cupboard a pack of every type I could find.

She's tried all different positions. We have tried with me there to guide her, I have left her alone to get on with it. We have watched youtube clips together. We have talked, discussed, I have explained. She has watched me insert a tampon in various different positions. We are not prudes in our house.

Tampon insertion has stopped being empowering for her and has become a mother-daughter battle ground. She does not want to use tampons, does not want to insert one (she has asked me through tears if I could insert it for her - so desperate was she to go swimming). She just doesn't want to - and importantly I am not going to force her to use a tampon when she doesn't want to.

I feel awful because she really, really wants to swim. Its her sport, she loves doing it. It isn't empowering to say "No swimming when your on your period" when she so desperately wants to go, and it is so good for her. So she's started saying her period has finished. Or not telling me it has started. Basically lying about her menstrual cycle so that she can go swimming without having The Tampon Battle with me.

OP, usually your flow should lubricate the vagina enough to slide in a non- applicator tampon smoothly. However sometimes if there is not much flow and the one you have just removed was quite dry, I just pop a little bit of Vaseline or whatever body lotion or moisturiser I have to hand on the tip and that works fine.

I too am intrigued by those who say talons get filled up with water when they swim. This has never ever happened to me in over 25 years of swimming with tampons in, even after several hours in and out of the water on holiday. I have always avoided Tampax though.

Fate

She's tried all different positions

Has she tried lying on her back on a bed with her knees bent up? For first time users this is quite a good position. Put a towel underneath so there is no rush. I think it's because it helps relaxation. If she hasn't tried this position, I'd get her to give it a go.

Also if you haven't done this already, show her a sideways diagram of a vagina/cervix and emphasis the fact it slants backwards a bit. I think a lot of girls even though they can see it on the tampax leaflet still subconciously think it the vagina goes "straight up" and try to push vertically up, whereas it's more of a slight diagonal.

I used to use tampax and now use a mooncup, never had any problems swimming.

Fate a little bit of KY jelly might help

Fate I too swam competitively at that age and also could never insert tampons. I remember ramming one in for a lifesaving exam once and feeling it rubbing internally the whole way through as I'd been unable to insert it properly despite several attempts. I used to go without and never had a problem, until I wore a white swim suit to one training session and a teacher took me to one side and said my period must have just started, it hadn't, I'd just got over confident about being fine without.

Even now as an adult, I can't use them, I tense up and feel really squeamish whenever I think about using one which is obviously counter productive. This this is causing me a fair bit of anxiety as I'm now training for a Channel swim in the summer. I still swim several times a week and usually take a week off when I have my period, but this won't be an option in the run up to a big event like that. I truly believe I worked myself into such a state about them as a child that I have some kind of a mental block over them which has lasted throughout my life. Can I suggest maybe letting her decide for herself how she wants to play it for a good few months and coming back to have another go? If not, on the odd occasion I don't have any other option (my 40th birthday party spent in a spa and coming on that morning was a good example), KY or vaseline smeared copiously helped, along with a stiff drink beforehand - obviously the last bit not an option for your dd mind!

OP YANBU

Even now as an adult, I can't use them, I tense up and feel really squeamish whenever I think about using one which is obviously counter productive.

I am very worried that I may have created these kinds of long-term anxiety in my DD. I fear she will always be anxious about using tampons because this battle has been ongoing for so long, and she is so young. I have been having The Tampon or No Swimming Battle since she was 10 1/2.

I thought I was being empowering. Girl Power and all that. Menstrual blood will never stop my daughter from doing anything she wants. So I have really pushed tampon use (in a way that horrifies my Mum friends with 11YO non-swimmers). In a supportive way, but none the less always there with it - try this, have a go at that, look at this, maybe try this one instead.

If she wasn't a swimmer, any other Mum would have just gone "OK, if you don't want to then pads are fine. We'll try again in the future when you are ready". But because DD is a swimmer, I not only have to make it a battle rather than a choice, I also have to have this battle every, single month.

She is just sick of it all. That's when the lying about her periods started. Seems like anti-empowerment now. That she has to be secretive about her periods with me, her Mum, so that she can continue with the sport she loves.

Strikes me as all manner of wrongness.

At the moment I am just turning a blind eye. I don't want her to have to lie to me though.

Yy to tucking string inside, makes a fair difference.

I used to swim with a tampon in when I was younger, but now at 49 I am peri-menopausal and it would just be impossible.

My periods are floods. Tranexamic Acid just about keeps a measure of control but the worry about leakage is constant. If I go into full flood mode then no sanitary protection in the world can deal with it.

I truly hope mine stop in the next two or three years as they should, but for now no such luck.

Just not with sharks.

All I can say is that I did swim, for many years without using them and the world didn't end. I was told when I went on to have children that my vagina is quite tilted so maybe that had something to do with it and I was always going to struggle, but like your dd, swimming was a huge part of my life and there was no way, as a head strong 11 year old at an all girls school who were all for empowerment, was I going to let a period and/or my inability with tampons stop me. Maybe best to simply stop asking her when her period starts so she doesn't need to technically tell you a fib? As she gets older and her flow gets heavier she may well change her mind about 'risking it' or one embarrassing incident and she may change her mind for herself - I feel for you both, I really do.

I use Lilets Ultra (the biggest you can get) and there is no way I could go swimming on my heaviest day. I flood through if within half an hour so have to use a pad as well.
I don't want to take hormonal contraception (I have done in the past) or anything else so I just avoid swimming on that day.

I wish someone would invent swim proof pads, I really do.

Also a,swimming costume which is styled like tight shorts ( speedo do some nice ones, they are popular with serious swimmers) on the bottom might catch any, unlikely drips when getting out the pool.

Not sure I would be brave enough to risk it, but possibly this may work for your dd Fate?

www.livestrong.com/article/246721-how-to-swim-with-your-period-and-pads/

I can't even get on with tampons or moon cups they all just leak. So I never go swimming when I'm on. My Dr says the problem is I'm plumbed backwards which is why they never fit properly it's such a pain plus they hurt so much

Has anyone here used a spa - steam room, sauna etc while on their period? It's just that my calendar says I'm due when we have booked a luxury spa hotel and I'll be gutted if I can't use the spa, it's such a rare treat for me...

What on earth do I do if it's one of these European full naked policy ones!

This has been really helpful - thanks all.