To think women are expected to put up with unusual amounts of pain?

[EilaLila]

I am irritable due to being up to 2am with pain, so perhaps if men had periods, they’d experience the same. I do wonder though....!

I’ve had awful PMT, bloating to the point of gaining up to 7lbs in fluid, heavy periods, extreme pain alongside bladder and bowel problems during periods since the age of 12. I saw a gyno as a teenager who did a scan, found polycsystic ovaries and put me on the pill. Any time I’ve seen the GP over recent years, they’ve changed my contraceptive and prescribed pain relief. I learned to put up with it. Many years later, I decided that actually this isn’t ok and I’d like more to done. Apparently “period pain is normal”. What the actual fuck?! I know pain, I live with chronic pain for another condition. I’m on the maximum daily dose of paracetamol, maximum daily dose of naproxen, gabapentin and a morphine patch. Yet, I am still getting ‘period pain’, except it’s not just during my period and I have painful bladder and bowel symptoms. I’d suck it up and say that ok, maybe this GP wasn’t very sympathetic if it had only happened once but I’ve had multiple push backs from doctors over the years.

Sounds like you need to be referred to a pain clinic.

I was on naproxen for quite a while and whilst I could walk without pain it caused bowel and bladder problems. So it could be that your many pain meds are interacting with each other.

Has all the pain relief been prescribed by the gp or a group of specialists?

I’m under a pain clinic but they’re not the greatest. They keep suggesting stronger narcotics which I’m not keen on, for various reasons. My medication is all prescribed by specialists.

It’s not just the pain that concerns me. It’s the heavy periods and how unwell I feel for an entire week, at least, once a month. I’m anaemic due to my periods.

The bladder and bowel symptoms have been since around the age of starting my periods. The strong pain medication is fairly new, as in over the last 5 years.

Are you sure you don't have Endometriosis? Sounds like you could to me. I've been in pain for three years and been misdiagnosed with lots of different illnesses (lupus, fibromyalgia, kidney stones, appendicitis, period pain). Also been told by consultants that I had to just get on with the pain as "some people are just in pain". I rejected this idea as found it ludicrous. Finally got a diagnosis: I have a prolapsed disc in my back. Now on Tramadol but Yes, women are expected just to take ridiculous amounts of pain.

I read something like that under test conditions, although women have 20 times more pain receptors, they only react to pain stimulus 6 times faster than men (i.e., if their responses were based on number of nerve endings, they should react 20 times faster).

Keep pushing. Definitely sounds like endometriosis. Why haven't they checked for this!!!

Yes, women are expected to put up with horrendous amounts of pain. Otherwise why would we be discharged after c section with paracetamol but a man having abdominal surgery on a hernia be given decent painkillers that actually work? Sadly, women are still treated differently when it comes to many medical conditions, not just pain.

I often think this. I once described to a male friend, "don't you love that feeling when you've been in pain for hours and you FINALLY get home and can take painkillers and that wave of relief washes over you as they kick in..." He looked at me like I was mad and said he couldn't fathom being in pain like that. And yes I was referring to period pain - nowhere near as bad as yours though, OP; mine could be dealt with by taking paracetamol and ibuprofen. I would call that a 'normal' level of pain.

I was at the hospital a couple of weeks ago for treatment for cervical erosion. The male consultant was very nice, but when I said I have heavy, painful periods since my second child, and cannot use hormonal contraception (having tried everything available over the years) he basically asked what I expected, some women just get heavy periods. I get that. But when I can barely function, having had perfectly normal periods for the first 29 years of my life, I can't help but wonder if something might be amiss!

I've given birth twice vaginally and had very many stitches both times. I've also had wisdom teeth removed under local. My husband had a vasectomy under GA and about three stitches and had wisdom teeth removed under local and you'd have thought the world was ending. When I called him up on the teeth thing and said ifit was that bad he needed to be going back to the dentist he admitted he didn't even remember me having mine done, despite me having them done at the maxfax unit in the hospital due to one being severely impacted...

YANBU. We get fobbed off during/after childbirth and during periods. I think men get taken more seriously with just about every other form of pain, too. It's taken me about 2.5 years for someone to agree to check out and hopefully treat my sinus issues which cause me a lot of pain.

I don't know - my period pain has always been taken seriously and I've always been given things to help.

I really think it comes down to how sympathetic your doctor is!

Very heavy bleeding and pain does sound a lot like endometriosis, definitely worth asking to be checked out for that.

Your symptoms sound very like me and I was finally diagnosed with severe endometriosis from a laparoscopy done by the fertility clinic. I wouldn't be at all surprised by your symptoms if you have too. I was told period pain was normal as a teenager and during my 20s. Actually it wasn't and endometriosis had ruined my reproductive organs and fused my bowel to my womb. Yep the pain was all totally normal............

Get checked for endometriosis.
And I agree. This 'it's just period pain, deal with It's is fucking bullshit.
I'm pregnant with first baby and although my first 18 weeks were hellish sickness, it was a walk in the park compared to what my period pains were.
Mine were only bearable with co codamol though.

I do wonder if I may have endometriosis but I feel weird going into the doctor and saying, “hey, do you think it might be this?”.

I visited my best friend after she had a crash c-section. It was about 20 hours after she’d had her daughter. She was still drowsy from the general the day before and traumatised by nearly losing her child. A midwife practically barked at her to get out of bed because she had a baby to look after. I remember being quite shocked, this was before I’d had my own DC.

Fyi anyone not taking nsaids for period pain is taking the wrong pain killer. High strength ibuprofen is one of the few painkillers that work for the prostiglandins (sp?) released during period pains and you have to start taking them 24hrs before you're due on if possible (if you're lucky enough to be regular).

I say this as someone who's periods were so bad I was once found unconscious on the toilet floor 2hrs after my period started.

I’ve had similar conversations with my DP about this kind of thing before. I think what particularly grated for me was the male contraceptive pill being dismissed because of side effects (all of which women risk).

I think medicine is still a man’s world at the moment, and the natural consequence of that is that men’s pain is acknowledged as real and women’s pain is dismissed as ‘just’ period pain.

Keep pushing and don’t give up! I hope you get things resolved!

YANBU

DD has heavy periods and severe pain, and after research (hers) I am going with her to get the ball rolling on a slow release implant to see if this helps. She wants me there as last time she was at the contraceptive clinic she felt massively fobbed off by the nurse (she's 17).

I have previously thought she might suffer from endometriosis and will be firmly requesting investigation for this. I've seen her lying on the bathroom floor crying in serious pain. And if men were having issues like this, you can be certain there would be proper medication/pain management by now.

I still can't get over the trial for a male contraceptive drug being halted for piffling minor side effects that are no where near as severe as the side effects most women are meant to put up with all the time.

I do wonder if I may have endometriosis but I feel weird going into the doctor and saying, “hey, do you think it might be this?”.

Don't feel weird. You can ask but some GPs are really not at all up to speed when it comes to such matters. I also thought of endometriosis being the possible root cause of your symptoms when I read your initial post. I would certainly seek a gynae referral in your particular circumstances. A scan as well would not have detected endometriosis if it is present; it is usually diagnosed through a keyhole surgery op called a laparoscopy.

I had horrendously painful miscarriages, pain not touched by usual pain medications, I experienced contractions, torrential bleeding.

I needed morphine, gas and air for about 6 hours until the pregnancies had "gone" then it was like switching a switch, the pain stopped.

I remember being in a&e, writhing in pain, unable to talk due to the severity of the pain, when a very patronising male Dr, head tilted to one side enquiring whether I thought my pain was more psychological than physical......
Just fuck the fuck off you stupid fucking dick. I wished at that moment that I could somehow just transfer the pain to him for 10 seconds so he could see for himself.

@WheresTheHooferDoofer - if your DD is going to an FPC or similar, definitely be prepared to fight for what you want. I had to be very firm about getting the birth control I wanted and keep repeating that I wanted a copper coil like a sodding stuck record. Hopefully you'll get someone sympathetic but IME they will try to fob you off :(

When I was a teenager I had very painful periods - at the worst I couldn't walk, and that was after taking painkillers. I was prescribed Ponstan, it didn't help much and my GP refused to believe me

On that other hand the two GPs I saw at my current surgery were absolutely fantastic about the pain caused by a five cm mature teratoma on my ovary, and I can't complain about the painkillers I was sent home with after (finally!) having it removed.

I was told that some times we just have to get on with things and I should go back to work by a young female doctor when I went to ask for about the third when I would get the scan I had eventually been promised it took me crying in the surgery to be taken at all seriously and she still seemed to think I had stress. Actually I had ovarian cancer.

Some of them get it. My DH had a bad accident years ago and used to go on and on about what a brave soldier he had been. Then he saw me go through days of labour and a c-section. He hasn't mentioned it since. And is suitably impressed.

But yeah, I'm going to work today with period pain that I would stay in bed with if it were a stomach bug causing it.

But yeah, I'm going to work today with period pain that I would stay in bed with if it were a stomach bug causing it.

We do that, don't we? Never thought of it like that.

I remember when I worked in retail going over and folding the shirts just because I could sit down to do it and standing was agony. Thank god now I can sit down with a hot water bottle.