To ask who is spending £13 on sanitary products per month?

[avocuddl]

Just watching This Morning on period poverty. I appreciate this may be a real issue but I just can't work out the costs stated on the website under 'The Facts' www.freeperiods.org/mission
£18k over a lifetime which equals £13 per month.

The MP said she'd spent £25 on one period?

I buy the always £1 pack and they're fine! A pack of paracetamol is like 20p?

Sorry if this has been done before but aibu?

But the campaign linked to in the OP is demanding free sanitary products in schools and colleges - which is great. BUT from what everyone is saying on here the cost of sanpro, for most people, is the smallest expense. What is costing the most is replacing clothes, bedding, washing, prescription meds and a taxi home (?)

This campaign will have no effect on those costs so why are the featuring? Surely they should work out the cost of sanpro, as that is what they are proposing should be free?

Pre DC I had horrendous periods, I had 2 different prescriptions a month, plus I would constantly get thrush from an allergy to the bleach they use in pads and tampons, they least irritation was from Kotex which not a lot of places stock. I easily spent £20 a month on my periods.
Since the dc they’ve got lighter and I don’t bleed as long so I’ve swapped to a mooncup, it was £20 10 years ago and I’ve maybe bought one pack of pads since then, so they don’t cost anything anymore.

I can spend well over that some months.
Most average months I get away with two packs of maternity pads (for night time), three boxes of super heavy use tampons and four packs of night time towels. I usually have to replace one or two pairs of knickers per period and at least one pair of trousers.
In the past I’ve had to replace bedding and all sorts too, but now I have my clean but stained bedding for my side of the bed and put puppy pads on top of the sheets. So I guess that’s another cost too.
There is nothing medically wrong, I just have a very heavy flow and and an upredictable start and end date.

Before I was on medication there was ONE brand of tampon in ONE absorbency that would give me the ability to be away from a loo for up to ONE hour.

Yes Jacques. At my worst one of the Ultra tampons plus a nighttime pad would do me 25 minutes tops. I could go through a box of 10 in a day easily. They're cheaper now than they used to be I think. I could only get them in Boots so I had to do a trip into town to stock up.

could I just point out here that a teen period experience is likely to way different to that of a 40+ Yr lady heading toward menopause where periods become sporadic and farther apart.

surely it is hard to gauge what the "norm" or average is for women?

thedisorganisedmum

Yes my mum suffered from endometriosis so it is something I worry about. I used to leak a lot as a teenager but as I got older less so. I have the implant and think this is a factor in me having light periods, it does concern me that I may suffer as I get older.

Has anyone factored in the cost of the prescription when needed iron tablets?

Or just the price of it over the counter?

All due to heavy periods.

mIne where heavy when I was a teen and still are today, they should be free in schools and colleges and perhaps extra added to child benefit or collage bursaries (if such things exist) to help cover additional costs.

I switched to reusable sanity pads. I haven't bought anything for around 3 months now. But I have had periods that have been stupidly heavy.

Yes I really like Tena to the person who asked. They are softer for a start and a lot wider at the sides. Always pads are too contoured - my vagina likes to trickle the blood all up the front and not at the back. I tried one by accident - at work and one was available and now do like them. They can be bulky but I feel more ‘secure’
They also do lock away liquid as that’s what they are designed to do!

We're all unique, so it is no wonder there is a huge variation in spending.

I'm fortunate that a combination of the cheapo 'own-brand' tampons in their various sizes, changed at varying intervals (hourly when it's heaviest and 8 hourly at lightest) work for me. I guess if I could handle a moon cup, I'd be even luckier, as they are probably the cheapest way to manage periods.

I'm also a stain ninja - I think there is literally no stain I cannot remove, so have managed to get blood out of pretty much everything. There is no way I'd either live with stains or that I'd be replacing clothing, bed linen, sofas etc - I just couldn't afford that. The critical thing to remember with a blood stain is that the water has to be cold. The colder the better. The other really handy tip someone gave me a million years ago, was always wear black pants during a period and when worried about leaking wear black trousers or skirt too, as then it is less likely to show and you don't have to worry about stains afterwards either. I've had leak issues in the past and black clothing has saved me.

I have to constantly take iron tablets, but they are often cheaper to buy yourself than by prescription (unless you get free prescriptions), so I do that and its not that expensive. I get 100 tabs of iron citrate (which is well tolerated and absorbed) for £4.85 and quite often I get a 3 for 2 deal, so they're even cheaper.

Thankfully, being in Scotland, all my prescriptions were free.....

Another thread that makes it clear how not middle class MN is. Aldi? Own brand? I'm pretty sure the vast majority of middle calss women buy Lilets or Always or some other main brand. Anyway, the article wasn't about how cheap you could make things, it was about average costs.

I buy brands like always because they're the only ones that don't irritate my bits and pieces, and can also cope with how heavy my periods are.
I can't use things like lillets because it hurts too much to wear a tampon with ny endometriosis.

That doesn't make me middle class.

I have really heavy periods so need the extra absorbent ones (designed for night) all day and even then, they need changing a lot as its not enough. I've alps found the cheaper pads just aren't good enough for me and my body. They just soak through so quickly so I easily spend a large amount each month.

What about those of us with endometriosis whom the NHS refuses to treat? I was fobbed off so many times I went private. I won't include the surgery costs but my private prescription for GnRH meds to stop my periods is £70 a month. By the time I come off it I will have been taking it for 10 years. It's worth it to me because it meant I could keep working, otherwise the cost would be even greater.

I guess before treatment I would still have been over the average, with extra sanitary products and a pack of nurofen plus (about £7) every month, as well as a box of paracetamol and codeine (only slightly less). FFS a pack of cheap paracetamol does not cut if for many women!

I'm sure if all the 'exceptional' cases are taken into consideration they will push up the average cost.

So yes YABVVVVU. And you are incredibly lucky.

could I just point out here that a teen period experience is likely to way different to that of a 40+ Yr lady heading toward menopause where periods become sporadic and farther apart.

true ,but different doesn't mean easier or lighter.

I have horrendous periods as a teen -painful and ridiculously heavy flow.
Then it got slowly better, until I notice after years that I hadn't bought a pack of pads in months, as was using the smallest size tampons.
Then it got heavy again.

My teen periods were probably worst, because at least today i would have no issue walking away from anywhere if I felt I had to. It doesn't solve everything, but I am not dependant on a teacher allowing us to go the loos or having to change in communal changing rooms!

Fairly standard period

I spend about £6 on pads and liners

Pennies on pain killers luckily, i take iron tablets which i get on prescription but otherwise would cost about £3

Maybe an extra pound or two depending on whats been included...so showering/bathing more often, and more food

But basically £9

Pookie obviously there are some situations where you’re going to replace things, but all the women I know have a set of ‘period pants’ black, comfy etc. I don’t think many people throw out a sheet/underwear etc every time it gets stained. Sometimes they will, sometimes it can be used again etc.

I am broadly sympathetic to the cause - that’s why I’m against over egging it - it will loose legitimacy! It would be better for campaigns to highlight that for some women the cost could be as high as x rather than over inflated averages.

Being graphic here -cardboard tampons always went wrong for me, never really easily managing to push it out of the applicator. Non applicator I don’t like. Plastic applicators I once nipped my vag wall when depressing it. But for some unknown reason they make me itch

Bodyform are too rigid
Own brands tend to be the same
Always and Tena are softer and more flexible

I used to be able to buy high strength iron tablets over the counter but they don't seem to be available anymore just the 25mg ones which don't make any difference to me. I need 2 x Ferrous Fumarate 2x daily to get my levels up.

I buy the always £1 pack and they're fine!

Yay for you and your average periods.

For my last period I had to get the big thick maternity pads and I went through 2 packs, in a week and a half. I also needed super plus tampons so I could take the kids swimming. I also needed regular tampons that I could use when it started to tail off (it doesn’t do that every month, sometimes it just stops. Maternity and super big night towels don’t come with wings, so I often find that I leak over my knickers at night and have to get new ones. I also need paracetamol, ibuprofen and up to a couple months ago I needed cocodamol or feminax (naproxen). I also need iron tablets. Obviously some months it doesn’t cost too much at all because some of the stuff I have let over, others I need to get it all again because it’s all run out.

So in short, yes, it can wrack up a decent amount for some (more than you would think!) women.

And no, there’s nothing medically wrong with me, it’s just how it is after having my last child. And yes, I’ve tried a lot of different ways of dealing with it and this is the best routine so far.

40+ Yr lady heading toward menopause where periods become sporadic and farther apart

I fucking wish

Now as regular as clockwork at every three weeks

So actually my £9 per month ( 117 a year) is now £153

Forgot that

Oh! Don’t forget laxatives, sometimes I need laxatives because of the iron and the fact menstruation can cause constipation.

I'm definitely not middle class (single parent on benefits here!) and I buy bodyform as those are the ones that don't irritate me. I've tried many others. Used to use always before they added a stink to them.

I have used reusable before and it's something I'm looking into again, along with period pants. It's just that the initial payout is so much.

Plastic applicators I once nipped my vag wall when depressing it.

Now we are speaking some serious truths. This really hurts