To think people who say "It's just a period, man up"...

[OvariesBeforeBrovaries]

... are twats?

I see this all the time on social media, on forums, hear it in real life and it's driving me crazy! People thinking they're so tough and hard and saying "Ugh why are some women such wimps, it's just a period, no-one needs time off for a period, just man up". Please tell me this isn't a widespread belief and I'm just unlucky to be surrounded by twats who feel this way? They seem utterly incapable of realising that not everyone has a three-day period that they can manage with a medium-flow Lil-Lets and a paracetamol at the most.

Why is it almost always women that say this? And why do they take such pride and triumph in saying this, like "Yes, I've won the Period Olympics, I am Queen of the Periods, look at me!" and treat anyone struggling with period pain/heavy periods/endometriosis/PCOS/severe PMT like they're just wimps?

This seems to come up all the time on feminist groups of all places. Why is this something people get competitive over?!

I have suspected endometriosis (gynaecologist won't give me keyhole surgery to confirm because of my age). If I take Yasmin, eat dairy free, take evening primrose oil, then dose up on muscle relaxants and peppermint oil the two days before I come off birth control and stagger paracetamol and ibuprofen once my period actually starts, I can pretty much function as a normal human being in a moderate amount of pain. Without any one of those things I will lose three days of my life every month doubled over in pain unable to move. Women who say periods are nothing to make a fuss about should try living with my level of pain every month. I haven't had horrific pain for almost a year now doing the above and I live in fear of the pain coming back :(

don I'm in the same situation, they won't do anything about it because I'm young and I conceived DS easily so no obvious fertility problems.

Weirdly since giving birth my periods aren't that painful any more. Before it was horrific

I think some people, as well as having no experience of how awful menstruation can be for others, lack the empathy to even try to imagine it. I've reached a point, in perimenopause, where whatever period I get is a welcome relief from whatever precedes it. PMS for me tends to involve a stinking cold and ligaments that are so soft I'm in agony, I'm clumsy and folding a pile of laundry exhausts me. I tend to start at tea time and my warning is walking uphill from DS2's school, like I do twice a day and just about passing out with the exertion. Add in the inevitable explosive diarrhoea and the fact that my brain turns to mush and I end up burning myself cooking the simplest of meals and the next 24 hours can be a complete write off.

But no, PMS is just about being a bit grumpy, innit?

I had endometriosis and fibroids and absolutely nothing touched the pain, I often fainted, flooding (I avoided going out if I could) and the feeling of carrying a cannonball around in my pelvis. I'd bleed for 18 days out of 24 but bloody RC consultant refused me a hysterectomy because 'It's natural for a woman' (and he didn't believe in sterilisation either) This was 30 years ago.
Eventually aged 33 I had an emergency hysterectomy after haemorrhaging- the best day's work that different consultant ever did.

It sucks doesn't it cats :( mine started when I was about 14, it's gotten a lot worse since then but since I was having days off school every month it wasn't exactly difficult for others to work it out and assume I was being a wuss. Lots of why does Dona get time off school everyone has periods type comments. I have had normal period pain. I know the difference. Maybe I need to get pregnant!

My problem has been my gyno won't investigate on the basis that most women affected are 25+ and I am younger. Although I would argue that given I started my period years younger than average, really I'm in that bracket. But it drives me insane that people assume the pain can't be that bad because I'm "only young."

Urgh! This attitude boils my piss. I'm currently undergoing investigations for endo too... I've worked out that I have on average one day a week where I'm not in pain, some of those pain days have had me doubled over dosed up on strong meds.
People don't like to talk about 'women's problems' which is why people don't understand that any period pain that stops you from doing normal day to day activities in NOT NORMAL!
It's as common as diabetes, so for every diabetic you know, chances are you know the same number of people with endo.
The main difference is this: it's as though your uterus is built inside out - when you bleed, the blood has nowhere to go so forms scars & lesions. How can that not be painful?!!

Some periods just are a lot worse than others. Until my 30s I regularly had to take co-codamol, and sometimes was still so bad I was lying on the bed in agony. Recently I often don't need any painkillers at all. I haven't miraculously toughened up; THEY ARE DIFFERENT.

Don - evidence of poor advice you've received there.
Check out endometriosis UK & their chat pages on health unlocked x

It must depend on the doctor - I was worried I wouldn't be taken seriously because of my age (21) but none of the doctors or nurses I've seen have questioned it when they've seen on my notes that endo is suspected. I can't believe we're still stuck in this idea that just because a condition is rare in people under a certain age, it never happens under that age :( it's preventing so many people from getting a diagnosis and treatment

I have contemplated getting pregnant again just to prevent periods for nine months - it was heaven when I was pregnant with DD. Morning sickness, SPD and labour felt like nothing compared to periods!

This is a hobby horse of mine! (Sorry everyone!)

Why, why, WHY do women have to compete with each other over gynae issues? I've had so many hurtful remarks over the years, that I've even made a rough draft of The Great Gynae Code (additions and corrections welcome)

1. Listen! Do not assume that your experience of ANY gynae issue is necessarily representative of anyone else's experience.
2. Share! Talking is power and periods have been flushed down the conversational bog for long enough. But don't compare your experience competitively with other women because it helps neither you nor them.
3. Empathize! If someone sounds in pain and looks in pain, they probably are in pain. Just because you don't get the same degree of pain with the same triggers does not mean you are stronger than they are or that they are a wuss.
4. Recognize duration! Especially, do not compare acute and chronic conditions - because what is tolerable over a 24-48 hour stretch and what is tolerable for ten years non-stop are very different things. Neither represents more or less suffering - they are just very different.
5. Raise awareness! The serious of a symptom isn't necessarily proportionate to the seriousness of a condition - just because someone isn't bleeding like a geyser doesn't mean they don't need to see a doctor.

And also:

1. Campaign! For more funding for gynae issues, for more rapid referral of cases from GPs to specialists, for earlier diagnosis of gynae cancers, for better public awareness of common gynae symptoms, for an end to the tampon tax, for working-from-home rights for those with heavy periods, for women to be given all the facts of their case and to be given the right to choose what is acceptable to them personally (this does not currently happen in many, many cases).

I was 23 when I was diagnosed with endo, though I'd had symptoms since 16. Its not that it affects older women it's that it takes a disgustingly long time for diagnosis - due to attitudes like the ones described here. My boss rang the chief exec of my local hospital and asked him how his team had ruled out something more serious (I had the same symptoms as ovarian cancer as I had a 8cm cyst). My goodness was I seen quickly because they realised they might have missed something. It shouldn't have taken that though.

Honeysuckle, wishing you a positive labour and all the best with your little one.

I hate this type of attitude.

For me the problem is very heavy flooding, especially now that I am peri- menopausal. I now take tranexamic acid to help control it, but before going onto that I would be virtually house bound for several days each month.

I would never judge any woman needing time off work for period related matters.

Periods themselves are not an illness, but they can sure render some women very ill, especially if problems like flooding regularly aren't monitored. A few years ago a neighbour of mine was rushed to hospital after collapsing in front of her then 15 year old DD. It was found that years of very heavy periods had rendered her dangerously anaemic, leading to the collapse. Scared her and her DD badly.

YABU... I have PCOS. Very heavy and long periods. Do I stay in bed? No! I get on with it. There are people with disabilities and cancer and all sorts in the world that have to just get on with it everyday. When I hear anyone complain about their period I think they are pathetic and feeble.

Of course I would never say this to the person or write about it on Facebook. But since you have asked that is what I, and I imagine a lot of women, think.

dona that's my experience too. I once forgot my painkillers and asked if I could go home at lunch to get them, was told "no, periods are normal what's the problem" within an hour I was screaming on the floor.

I used to get sent away from the GP because "teenage periods are always bad they'll settle" ignoring the fact I had regular periods they were just severely painful.

Have you tried the mirena? I had one at 18 and it was brilliant. I did it find it painful to get fitted either.

I suspect mine is better because I had a cesarean, so I imagine everything got cleared out. I get really bad ovulation cramps though still so I'm going to insist they investigate.

Hopefully we will both find a sympathetic doctor

nutella congratulations on being a dickhead. I didn't find my cesarean painful. Does that mean everyone who had pain after an EMCS is a pussy and should man up? Of course not. Different people heal differently and feel pain differently. You're not superior to me because you've never been bed bound by a period

For the record my periods were worse than my labour

I agree, it gives me the silent rage - and lots of jealousy. A friend of mine once complained her period was so heavy she had to wear an actual sanitary towel at night that month, not just a panty liner Normally I'm in a super plus tampon, a night time towel and have a towel under me just in case.

Went on the pill a year or so ago after a period from hell (soaking a sanitary towel every twenty minutes!) and it was heavenly. I finally understood why some women can't comprehend other women asking questions like "how can anyone go swimming when they're on?" and the like.

It's the same as people saying "you're just pregnant, most women go through it, just stop complaining." Yes, because all women experience it the same. If you sail through pregnancies with few complaints, you'll not know what it's like to have HG or SPD.

Cheers for proving my point Nutella.

FWIW I also have a disability. I'd take a dozen joint dislocations/subluxations (which, thanks to hormones, does actually happen most days during my period) over the period pain/mid cycle pain.

I sailed through a long, induced labour and birth. Regularly pop joints back into place with no pain relief. My pain tolerance is sky high. And yet the levels of period and midcycle pain I get have seen me almost have my appendix removed needlessly and on a drip in A&E for hours.

Why do you think people who complain about period pain are "pathetic and feeble", but not people who complain about, say, pain from arthritis or a disability? (assuming, of course, that you don't think people who complain about pain from a disability are pathetic and feeble too). Is it because periods only affect women?

nutella Some women have periods that are so bad that they can't actually get up and get on with it. It's not just pain symptoms - it's the practicality of managing flooding that is so heavy it's like turning on a tap. We're talking not being able to nip out to a local shop and back without soaking clothes and dripping on the floor. Even if you can get to a loo, it's sometimes so bad that you have to clean yourself up and then the entire room around you.

Also, anemia can be so severe it leads to a state of collapse, as a PP has stated.

I am hoping to be sterilised this year as I don't won't to be on hormones until the menopause. The only problem is that my periods will return. For me it is not blood loss - extremely light - but the pain oh god the pain. Most doctors irrespective of gender are extremely dismissive imo.

And at no point nutella has it occurred to you that just because you have pcos it doesn't mean the pain you experience is the same as anyone else's?

For what it's worth, I have objective evidence of my pain tolerance. I see a chiropractor after SPD and she tells me that any other patient with a back like mine would be barely walking. To me, it hurts 'a bit'. I know when I've been in serious pain I also have an extremely rapid heart rate and high blood pressure because the pain is that bad.

I also bet everyone on this post soilders on a lot, because it's only the worst days you even bother taking painkiller. So feel free to think I'm a wuss and I'll feel free to think you're a bit dim.

I used (pre kids) to regularly pass out and throw up with my periods. Dr told me. (& my mum) when I was 15 that the only cure was to have children ! My mum almost punched him (although it did help ). I had a boss (female) when I was in early 20s who was very dismissive & refused to allow me to kiss a tribunal I was working on. So as I went to stand in front of the judge I projectile vomited all over the bench and then fainted. Judge (male) was awesome. And tore strips off my boss when he was told the problem (by a paramedic !). Turned out his daughter suffered really badly too. I hate the competitive pain thing - it's the same with labour stories. Woman - stop it.

Apologies for typo. On v bumpy train

nutella
Before I had surgery and went on the progesterone only pill, my pains were the same as mid stage labour pains as the endo on my uterus was causing it to contract (I have a direct comparator having given birth and managed the first 24 hours of labour with DS2 with a tens machine because it wasn't as bad as my period).

So a women who has pains like mid-stage labour pains lasting 24 hours a day for a week should just get up and get on with it. Seriously.

Yes, you really have proved the OP's point. Just because your pain wasn't as bad as that doesn't mean it is the same for all women.

Why is it almost always women that say this?

Because no man with a pea-sized fraction of brain would dare. And most of us would not want to.