"I've always had heavy periods but I've never spent that much. It would have been a couple of quid for either pads or tampons. I find that most painkillers won't work so I don't usually bother with them. I understand that some women may spend that much a month but I'd be surprised if it was the average."
Genuine question - please define/explain what you mean by "heavy"?
There's been a few posters on this thread claiming they suffer heavy periods yet it seems apparent to me (and I suspect others) that these posters may honestly think they're having heavy periods when, I'm sorry but I would consider they're really not.
Eg "either pads or tampons" myself and others on this thread with clearly heavy periods have stated frequently needing to use BOTH simultaneously, sometimes more than one pad at a time, needing to use incontinence pants...
"I find that most painkillers won't work so I don't usually bother with them" well then you're lucky that you don't experience pain bad enough to make you vomit or collapse. I'm also guessing you mean otc meds which certainly don't work for me or many others. At one point I was on pain meds so strong they could only be prescribed by a specialist. Not to make things fantastically easy but simply so I was able to stay conscious!
I think there's a real disconnect between women who have medical conditions (and these aren't limited to gynae conditions either) that make their periods far heavier, longer and more painful than women without a pathology who mistakenly think that needing to use more than "regular" absorbent Sanpro means they're having "heavy" periods.
This is partly why I didn't know at first that the periods I was suffering were worse than others. My mum assumed I was having the same regular, 5-7 days, medium flow periods she did. She'd occasionally noted more Sanpro being used but as there were 3 menstruating women in the household plus mine and my sisters friends staying overnight occasionally etc she put it down to that.
When she got a call from school because I'd collapsed in assembly, and I finally said I thought my cramps were worse than other people's she took me to the dr. The dr asked insightful questions about how long they were lasting (10 days min usually 2 weeks), how much sanitary wear I was needing to use (Max absorbency tampon AND pad and NEEDING to change hourly or risk leaking and even then I didn't always avoid it, nights I was sleeping on a dark towel and sneakily washing it myself out of embarrassment), this dr had seen me when I'd had appendicitis and a particularly nasty bowel infection and asked how the cramps compared to those - way worse!
My mum was shocked, she also felt very guilty (still does) that she hadn't noticed (wasn't the best environment at home).
The dr put me on the pill but DIDN'T refer me to a gynae. The pill helped a lot but every few months whichever pill I was on would stop working and I'd be switched to another brand, I was prescribed meds for reducing flow, painkillers, migraine meds...and STILL not referred to a gynae.
At the time I was grateful to the dr for putting me on the pill as it did help.
When I was having my 2nd mc I was FAR from grateful, I was angry!
And over 30 years later gp's are STILL not referring girls/women to gynae services with such symptoms, we're STILL suffering monthly unnecessarily, we're STILL being left infertile, losing babies, having major pregnancy complications, LOSING OUR LIVES because gp's aren't taking girls/women seriously, are STILL prioritising their MONEY (it costs Gp's to refer to specialists, plus there's "incentives" for minimising referrals) over women's health and LIVES.
So while this campaign (rightly) is focusing on the poverty and difficulties for girls/women accessing Sanpro, there is SO much more to this problem.