To not accept that there is 'period poverty' in the UK.....?

[rosetree7]

Fully expecting to be told I am BU, but I genuinely do not get this 'period poverty' malarkey.

Some reports say periods cost £42-45 a month (£500 a year.) Never in my life have I - or anyone else I know - spent £42-45 a MONTH on their period. Not even a tenth of that actually.

Some of the things they (supposedly) spend money on are tampons and STs (obviously...) You can get a pack of sanitary towels for less than a pound. Less than 50p in some shops!

And also mooncups.

Although mooncups cost £16 to £22, most mooncups will last 10 years, so you'd only buy 3 or 4 in your lifetime!!! And they also spend on pain relief - but paracetamol and ibuprofen are 16 to 26p a packet from Wilkos. And plenty of other shops sell them for a similar price!

Oh and apparently, they have to keep spending money on new underwear every month. What a load of shit.. I have bought 18 pairs of underpants in 5 years, (at a cost of around £25 for the entire 5 years!) 5 pairs of them are dark coloured - and I wear them for my periods. Never in my life have I bought new underpants for every new period.

So what is this all about? And how on earth are they coming up with such a ludicrous figure as £42-45 a month?! I mean, some girls are apparently using toilet roll as they 'can't afford' sanitary towels? In most cases, toilet roll is more expensive than sanitary towels FGS!

YABU

redboxproject.org/

^^ Only read about 1/4 down so sorry if this has been posted.... worth spreading awareness of

Ok, I think I understand a little more now, thank you for the explanation. I only have one bedsheet, so it is stained with blood all over because I can't have it off the bed long enough to soak it- this for me is "normal", and an expected part of being a woman.

Bloodwise I think I'm quite lucky as it does come out with a soak in biological stain remover in a bucket. I soak pretty much every that goes on my bottom half because I do flood quite badly. It worked equally well when I couldn't afford a washing machine and was hand-washing all my clothes in the bath. I've been using the same pack since 2013, so that isn't really a noticeable expense for me. I think it cost about £2 from Home Bargains.

I suppose it's a different world.

People do have empathy, but like some posters are saying we need to make sure people are budgeting properly, are getting the right benefits and importantly getting out of their situation. Throwing yet more money at every problem isn't the answer.

Here's a little tale.... I was helping out at an event for asylum seekers recently. In case you are unaware they are allocated 5 pounds per week to cover everything apart from the roof over their head. One young woman had her first period and obviously we did all we could. This involved going to a garage (no shops there) and buying what was available. £3.00.

Who is this we? The government? Rich people? Accountants?

Who will fund the 'we' helping?

And also ATOS.

I'm not sure we should be encouraging the government to create more departments tasked with checking up on people. It rarely works out well.

I've had to use toilet roll recently, two week long periods due to having the copper coil meant I ran out of tampons and had no money to buy more.
It was grim

@Notsurewhatsbest

I have some tampons that I won’t be using as they’re wrong for me. Would you let me send you them for future use?

Posters making up the fact that anything to do with a period is embarrassing for a school girl like washing out mooncup

Neshoma, we live in a society where these things are embarrassing. Body fluids are embarrassing, especially when they come out of our genitals. A school child, and an adults, wouldn't want to sneeze or cough and have visible mucus. Like period blood, it's natural, but we want to keep it private.

Also, in case you didn't know, teenagers - even the most confident, loved, secure children with every advantage under the sun - get embarrassed by things. It's kind of their vibe, and doesn't really have anything to do with society.

If an adult woman wouldn't want to wash out her mooncup in a public bathroom like an office or shopping centre, then why should we expect teenage girls to do it in school?

The ignorance and belligerence and denial on this thread is shameful and shocking.

The government are spending £200K to look into whether the increase in food bank usage is linked to austerity. Just imagine if they put that money into actually helping people.

Some teenagers are embarrassed Some aren't.

Neshoma It's still period poverty even if it's caused by the choice of a girl's parents just as it would be if the reason a woman couldn't get menstrual products is her partner or family prevented her from doing so while they had the means. You may prefer a different term, but those going without because another prevents them access are still impoverished. Some people need access and resources separate from budgeting and benefits.

A minor doesn't exactly have other options and as great as it would be to do so, enforcing parental responsibility is a challenge that as a society we don't really do very well and the alternatives at the moment aren't great. It's quite hard to leave or get help dealing with
financially abusive parents as a minor, social services are cut to the bone and they're not really a priority. If as a kid your parents are well off but they choose not to get you menstruation products and don't give you the money, you're still gonna bleed through and have many of the issues that come with period poverty no matter what we call it. Those girls deserve better than to be told it isn't real period poverty because their parents could afford it or just need to budget better when it's out of those girls' hands what their parents actually do.

Is this not something to see a doctor about? There is medication for very heavy periods surely? The contraceptive pill maybe.

Really? Even if you got a doctor to listen to you about your heavy periods, the investigations in to the cause would take months, the medication would add to your monthly costs, potentially you’d need surgery adding to sick leave woes, the pill doesn’t agree with a lot of people, can even be dangerous in some cases, what if you are TTC and don’t want to take it, the list goes on and on.

Or we could just accept that periods are on a spectrum and some people have heavy periods even without a problem being apparent. Sometimes I have very easy ones. Other times I’ll bleed for about 10 days, soaking through double protection and staining everything I sit on. How can a teenager, whose parents may not be able to afford to look after or prioritise her needs cope with that? They’ll just say - We can’t get any more pads till pay day. Here’s a flannel/rag/old towel, love.

DN I would class it as neglect.

How absolutely stupid to expect anyone to stand in a public toilet and clean out an effing moon cup.

I was just going to say the same, petrolpump! My goodness.

@Neshoma and? How does that help the girls? Regardless of how you class it,the problem still exists.

Or is that just for your own peace of mind and denial? After all neglect is the fault of the parents and that's preferable to "period poverty" which puts some/most/all of that blame at least on governments ,society,ignorant bystanders etc.

Bombardier that's disgusting but hardly surprising of this shower. I know how much tribunals are costing and how many ATOS decisions they're overturning, and also what ATOS is costing. Makes a mockery of the disability reforms being there to save money because they don't. Fucking clueless, this government.

It is the stupidity on this thread that I find shocking.

I have fibroids and I get very heavy periods, with flooding. I have had to run home when out walking the dog before because I had suddenly flooded through all of my sanitary protection, all of my clothes and I had blood running down my legs.

I assure any doubters that even though £42 sounds like an inflated figure, it can get fucking expensive at times. Very cheap sanitary protection does not work for me. I might just as well attempt to stop Niagara Falls with a sponge.

I am not wealthy. I have been on the bones of my arse before. I have struggled to afford sanpro and indeed other essential items. Not so bad now, but contrary to the apparent convictions of some on here, that type of poverty does exist.

I am currently considering whether or not to opt for a hysterectomy to resolve my bleeding issues. My GP has said that it is a potential and valid option, and I am not keen on the mirena coil - I had been glad to finish with hormonal contraception after DD3 was born and DH also got snipped. I don't particularly want to return to it at 52, but nor can I face potentially another two or three years of this distress every three weeks.

Stop doubting other women. These are real problems that impact greatly on our lives.

Left You are easily distraught then. Everyone has the right to have a different opinion, or to question the issue. The trouble is there's always a but. But this, But that. Posters come on and offer suggestions but are battered down by those who will not look at any other viewpoint than their own:

their GP won't listen to them, they can't get an appointment, they can't get there, theres no school nurse , they don't get on with any contraception/medication, they live too far from a shop, the shops too expensive, theres no public transport, they bleed so heavily they have to throw away their knickers and bedding every month. They're embarrassed, they don't like moon cups. Mooncups are too expensive. They don't like re-usables. Re-usables are too expensive.......

There are many options to try which may the answer for a lot of people.

Yet another thread where something that is exclusively a female health issue is minimised and rubbished by the OP.

My periods were so heavy and painful that sometimes I struggled to work. I get sick pay but not everyone does. I do get on well with a mooncup and have used one for years but I could afford to take the risk that I was wasting £20 if I didn't settle to using it. Without a mooncup I would need several packets of ST a month.

In addition to the ST I would also need paracetamol, buscopan, prescription painkillers, heat pads, extra loo rolls, wet wipes and stain remover.

Not all periods are created equal. Just because you have a straightforward experience doesn't mean that it is the same for all women.

their GP won't listen to them

That isn’t opinion. That’s without the removal recently of two further treatments for heavy periods.

Incidentally if someone can’t afford disposable sanpro, where are the finding the initial outlay for mooncup/reusables?

But why can't they afford it?

And round and round we go.

How absolutely stupid to expect anyone to stand in a public toilet and clean out an effing moon cup.

The same way people change their tampons and pads - or is that too embarrassing/inconvient too?