To say a period does not cost £25

[jinjkl]

I hear the story on the radio about MP Danielle Rowley standing up in parliament to speak out about period poverty.

Good on her - it shouldn't be a taboo subject and I feel for the homeless women or those in poverty who cannot afford basic luxuries. But I can't agree with her statement that each period costs £25, and that women spend £500 a year on sanitary products.

You can buy a 20 pack of supermarket own brand tampons for £1 and that lasts a whole period. Even if you buy Tampax you won't be spending more than £3. Sanitary towels are about the same.

You can pick up some painkillers for under £1. I know some women have extreme periods which require prescription medication, but this is uncommon and it still wouldn't cost anywhere near £25.

Some would probably argue it's the cost of replacing soiled knickers, but the whole period poverty campaign is centred around sanitary protection, not giving women women to buy new knickers after a period (I wish!)

I want sanitary protection to be free as much as the next person, but I just can't abide by these exaggerations. Any woman knows they don't spend £25 every month on their period, and if you are spending this much there is something seriously wrong.

When you actually get into the issue - making sanitary products vat free etc or available to those on low incomes is absolutely important but it’s actu just a band aid on the real problem - just examining ways women can carry on and clean up their own mess.
Listening to the many many women on this thread who suffer every month and struggle to be taken seriously (mirroring my own experience on the nhs) I would say the real issue is getting women’s health taken more seriously, campaigning for gynocology to have the same funding as more traditionally men’s issues.

Can you imagine if men were dealing with these issues? I honestly don’t mean to come across as men bashing lol but it would be interesting to see how much research goes into erectile dysfunction compared to heavy periods

Let’s see...
£8.80 high strength codeine
£8.80 high strength anti inflammatories
£4.40 tramadol (bimonthly)
Or could get Prepayment Prescription Card averaging £10 per month, so let’s use this figure:
£10 prescription medications
£5 paracetamol
£6 tens machine pads
£? electricity to use electric heat pad and recharge batteries for tens machine
£1200 loss of earnings (after tax) because I have lost my career over my ‘its just periods’ and am now doing a lower paid job. Thankfully, they’re tolerant to my missed days of work but I don’t know how much it’s costing them in terms of productivity.

I’m no maths hot-shot, but that’s more than £25.

Why can’t they give out san pro tkthise in needs at either drs surgery’s or health centres or food banks ( paid for by the goverment)

To those in need

If periods are so heavy it is necessary to change pads every hour for 10 days then women should be seeing their GP

As has been, repeatedly, stated: they do. They routinely are dismissive.

To those saying we should see our doctor and get treatment (refraining from the "wow thanks! What a great idea - why didn't I think of that!) , the treatment options are woefully short. So if like me they aren't suitable for medical reasons, there is nothing other than hysterectomy.

For some women heavy periods are normal and there is no obvious cause. For women with gynae issues - there isn’t always an efficacious treatment for them, or the treatment doesn’t work, or the problem just recoccurs after treatment.

So if like me they aren't suitable for medical reasons, there is nothing other than hysterectomy.

Treatment options are actually very narrow and they don’t necessarily work.

What always gets me is women are expected to provide San pro in hospital even if you are admitted in emergency (as happened to me few times) no provision at all for NHS to provide ANYTHiNG. So it’s midnight you’re period arrives you taken to a ward and just left to bleed through everything because there is nothing.

Yet provide emergency mini bar soap flannel towel toothpaste and toothbrush, and of course no one says bring your own toilet paper soap, tissues or bandages. If you had regular nose bleeds no one saying sorry you can’t use NHS tissues should brought your own but when women bleed from wombs (in worse possible public place with white bedding) it’s up to you Sick patient to find money and hospital shop or get visitors sort supples out. Why?

Plus treatment often come with huge risks and side effects like blood clots with tranexamicbacid etc

Hysterectomy for heavy periods is on the list recently published as ops the nhs will no longer fund.
I had an endometrial ablation a year ago - it has worked in that my periods are light now (still lasting 7+ days) and I’m no longer anemic. Downside is I now get excruciating pain and they’ve discovered I have adenomyosis.
So treatment for heavy periods is actually quite hit and miss with a lot that can still go wrong. Worryingly a lot of funding issues can also be tied up with missed cancer diagnosis and women suffering far worse results.

@LardLizard there is a fundamental misconception here that the government are able to pay for things out of an ever increasing pot of money they have access to. For it to be state funded it would be funded by us the tax payer. So an increase in tax.

I’m happy for an increase in tax

Raise tax and improve services

For those of you who have serious bleeding problems and think you might be peri, if you haven’t already looked, the Menopause Matters website is a great resource. Lots of women/experiences of peri/meno. Also, hystersisters is great for info on endo/pcos and help from ladies who’ve suffered.

Why aren't her benefits/pay covering the cost? What else can she not afford?

Might I suggest @WaggyMama that you learn about how much benefits people get, the cost of housing and work it out.

Again why are people disbelieving?

I love this idea that the women suffering should go to the doctor and “get it sorted” - what “sorting” do people expect to happen exactly? Even if you keep up the pressure for the years required to actually be referred to a gynaecologist, they may just scan and discharge you if you don’t have an obvious issue. Even if you get them to do a lap and they diagnose endo, how exactly does that sort anything? I’ve had six laparoscopies, every hormonal treatment under the sun and I’ve never once had a period that could be served by a couple of packs of supermarket sanpro. It’s never going to be sorted unless I agree to the hysterectomy they want me to have, and that will only sort out the periods, not the rest.

Believe I'm well aware of the benefits system - it's just my opinion you don't like.

Why can’t they give out san pro to those in needs at either drs surgery’s or health centres or food banks ( paid for by the goverment) you mean the tax payer

No government is going to win when their policy is about providing free san pro.

Anyhow, how do you decide who is worthy or not, what quality will the sanpro be, what quantity will be offered? Will painkillers be added, and free knickers or a bar of chocolate. What if the chocolate is plain and some people prefer dark?

I don't know if this has been posted already up-thread, but Channel 4 did a fact check on this claim, and it turns out the calculation included sanitary protection, pain relief, new underwear, chocolate, sweets, crisps, dvds, magazines and toiletries.

While period poverty can be real, C4 rightly point out that anyone who cannot afford the basics (sanpro + pain relief) does not need, nor is likely to be looking for, the rest.

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/period-poverty-is-real-but-the-average-woman-isnt-spending-500-a-year-on-menstruation

To all those struggling to see how periods can cost £25+ a month when they only spend a pound or two, try this...

Think of periods as breasts and san pro as bras. If you have a light period then that’s like wearing a 32A bra - you can get away with a flimsy thing from the supermarket’s basic range and it doesn’t affect your life; buying a more expensive bra from M&S or Fantasie etc won’t make any difference to your day to day comfort.

You think of people you know and they too can all get away with wearing similar bras - even the people you know that wear a 36C - which must be pretty big as that’s the top of the sizing on the bra of your choice. And maybe those women might be a bit better off in a bit more expensive bra (ie to account for their heavier flow) but if times are hard they can make it work.

However, if you stop to look around you’ll see that actually there are plenty more women out there who will have bigger band sizes and bigger cup sizes. As these increase the flimsy 32A bra might fit around the chest of a 32F wearer but it will be incredibly uncomfortable and act as a bad nipple cover - it certainly won’t provide the required support and protection. As for the 42F wearer - it won’t do anything, it’s not going to magically expand to fit - to buy it would be a waste of money - you need to start off by buying something the right size. And at the bigger sizes you have to start paying more - not only because the cheaper suppliers don’t bother to make them but they required more skilled cutting and construction, better fabrics and so on.

Amongst those of larger norkage, some will be able to get away with just an M&S bra, others will need to head to Bravissimo for more specialised advice while a few will need to head to Janet Reger for really specialised expensive bras that are needed to enable that women to go about their everyday life without suffering as a result of big boobs and badly fitting bras.

It goes further - even those with small breasts might have specialised requirements making a supermarket cheap bra unsuitable - they might need a sports bra or mastectomy bra or 100% cotton bra or any one of a wide variety of other options. Suggesting that they try stick on nipple covers or a tshirt with built in support or bra tape or other options might work for a very few people but won’t for the majority, and also shows that you’re not really listening to let alone understanding what their needs actually are.

And there’s more... women often find their breasts get bigger with age - particularly after childbirth, as they put weight on as they get older and so on, this leading to a higher proportion of this group needing more expensive, bigger, better bras. If you are in an environment where there are lots of younger women there is a good chance that proportionally there will be a lot more women at the smaller end of the scale which can give a skewed appearance that there aren’t that many people that need special bras so you’re not so aware of the scope of the size of the problem.

And of course - when it comes to periods nobody can look at other women and know how bad their periods are.

It’s not a perfect analogy but it certainly works towards helping to explain things to people who don’t want to understand that A couple of pounds a month on san pro isn’t always enough - it’s like telling women that they should all be able to wear a cheap size 32A bra even if they are a size 42FF.

Fact Check has an embarrassingly naive idea of heavy periods:

You can buy a pack of 20 Tampax for £1.90, a box of 14 super plus extra Lil-Lets for £1.50, and a pack of 20 Tesco own-brand tampons for £0.95.

Even if you got through two or three boxes a month, that would cost less than £5 a period.

Hahaha,

I have 3 different sizes of towels, 3 different sizes of tampons (Tampax are no use as they leak), black cotton period pants which need regular replacement, ibuprofen, lavender oil for rubbing into cramps, liquid iron capsules because all the NHS ones gave me constipation, Naty baby wipes, organic soap for tending my ladygarden, Vanish oxy action powder pink and white (@ £5.75 each) and Vanish Oxy action spray for leakage.

I forgot - I take a comb of Vitamin E and Evening primrose oil and flaxseed for breast pain.

(And menstrual pain and cramps).

bunbunny

Read the post above yours.

Heartfelt gratitude to Graphista for her wonderful post and I'm bloody proud to be posting alongside many of you on this thread.

Clionba and SharpLily have reminded me of just how tough it was to be a young woman with a mother who hadn't a clue as her periods were light. I remember having no sanpro, using toilet paper wadded up and eventually having to hide my blood-soaked knickers to put them in the wash as a 9 year old girl, as I was told that there would be trouble if she 'ever saw knickers like that again'. So, to the women posting on this thread who are in a state of dainty and feminine disbelief, wise up. Your daughters may not follow your light and trouble-free periods and, if they don't, then believe them and support them. I love my Mum but I'll never forget the sad and completely avoidable distress and it has coloured our relationship, no doubt about that.

I'm incredibly sad to read how so many women struggle with periods as they just don't have the medical support they deserve and are entitled to.

I applaud MP for raising this as an issue; it must have taken some deliberate courage to do that knowing that her peers are male and that however amenable and sympathetic they may be, they are unlikely to understand and hold a view that would be behind her.

I'm angry at the wittering on here about chocolate and dvds, ffs, from some women lacking in any cognisance or ability to see beyond their own experiences, those peddling mooncups as the ultimate solution if the rest of us 'had any sense'. I'm going to quote the understated wit of Dennis Thatcher here, "Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt".

Lastly, MNHQ, as PP have requested, could we make a campaign of this? We're undoubtedly concerned and there is a significant number of us. We may be a relatively small sample on MN (posting on this thread) but there are legions of women out there whom this seriously affects. A life sentence, in fact...