AIBU to ask what is a normal level of period pain?

[Rhubarbpeony]

I’m trying to get a feel for whether my pain is out of the ordinary or not. Could people let me know how often you experience any of the following:

Diarrhoea

Cramps bad enough to make you vocalise the pain

Cramps bad enough to make you cry

Vomiting

Pain so severe you are unable to concentrate and struggle to keep up a conversation

Pain that makes your legs feel weak / your body wobbly

Cramps that you have to use breathing exercises to control

Pain severe enough for you to miss work or social engagements

Pain that isn’t resolved by over the counter medication

Pain that disrupts your sleep / cramps that awaken you in the night

Cramps that last 2 or more days

If you don’t mind doing so, could you also let me know your rough age (like a decade - I’m in my thirties)

I experience most or all of the above most months, and I have had investigations done (inc a transvaginal ultrasound) which haven’t revealed anything untoward, and I honestly just don’t know if I can carry on experiencing this level of pain every month. Am I just a wuss? Is everyone just dealing with this better than me? I am so miserable about it. I spend easily half the month dreading my period. It’s such a waste of emotion.

I had periods like that and a gp who didn't want to know toldt to take paracetamol.
Labour was a walk in the park by comparison and like someone above my periods after that were controllable.
If this was still happening nowadays or happens toy DD I would down the god and stay until something was done.

This sums up my periods.

I have endometriosis, and adenomyosis as well.

This might be common but it’s not normal.

I’m 37 now but it’s been like this since I was 12, diagnosed at 22.

Just to further add that a gynocoogist once told me that some women can have endometriosis very severely and feel nothing. Others can have it very mildly and experience extreme pain.

All of those things. I'm 38. Doctors have more or less told me I'm making a fuss (one told me to get over it, it's part of being a woman) and I never had a diagnosis. Since having my daughter I've had zero pain, it was a shock to realise how bad it actually was before.

Most of these are normal for me. I've had a hideous day of it today but finally got rid of the pain with:

2x prescription dihydrocodeine
2 X paracetamol
3 X aspirin
1 X buscopan

The above combination was recommended by the consultant I saw years ago, along with a cup of peppermint tea and a hot water bottle. I had various tests but there's nothing untoward going on.

Oh and I'm 30s

Also, endometriosis was missed on my first laparoscopy because they didn’t know what they were doing, which is pretty shocking when it’s the second most common gynae condition.

Periods should not ever cause severe pain. It is not normal.

You sound like me. I have endo and adenomyosis. Hope you can get a referral to a gynae.

I had all these symptoms mainly in my twenties and they discovered I had endometriosis and polysistic ovaries which I got treated and the pain is less but still get a dodgy tummy.

I have history of all of the things on your list. After a long time TTC I eventually had tests and was diagnosed with endometriosis. I had it lasered off and it's a lot better but still worse than a lot of my friends seem to get.

Pre having DD at 26 I had all of those every month. The doctor was going to refer me for tests for suspected endometriosis when I fell pregnant.

Since having DD all symptoms have mostly improved. What definitely makes my periods worse is hormonal contraception.

I've had a few transvaginal scans and various internal examinations. None of them have shown any reason for the pain and heavy bleeding. They say I don't have endometriosis.

What's helped me is totally ditching hormonal contraception and taking evening primrose oil capsules. I was sceptical about the capsules but I can honestly say it's really made a difference. No bloating and only minimal pain on the heaviest days of bleeding.

Definitely push the doctor for further investigation. The pain isn't normal and it's not right that it's minimised and women are left for suffer for the entirity of their childbearing years.

Before I had my DS aged 21 I had pain so bad it would only stop hurting if I took 2 dihydrocodeine and they are strong opioid painkillers. After I has DS I didn't have pain any more.

I have 25years of hell pretty much want you said
OP last year and nothing wrong. On the implant and have stopped periods thinking of getting it out to try and conceive and I'm so petrified of the pain

None of those, ever. Late 30s

Yes to all, but 3xibuprofen every 4 hours for 2 days solid will work. Bad times if I don’t get the first dose in on time.

50

I get

Pain that disrupts your sleep / cramps that awaken you in the night

the first night of every period. Paracetamol and hot water bottle help a bit.

None of the others. Uncontrollable appetite in the run-up, headache and cramping on the first day, meat cravings despite being mostly veggie, looser bowels, bloating. All unpleasant but manageable. I'm in my late 30s.

Poor you, sounds rubbish.

Bless you, it’s awful isn’t it. I had most of those in my 30s (before and after having DS when I was 34) getting progressively worse but luckily helped somewhat by taking mefanamic and tranexamic acid. I didn’t vomit. My cramps lasted around 4 days and my heavy periods 7-8. At 43 I gave up with the idea of having DC2 after a period lasting 6 weeks! I went on the mini pill and it’s fantastic. My periods stopped. Completely.

At least while you are pregnant and breastfeeding you get a reprieve. Good luck ttc. If you haven’t already tried meds, do ask your GP.

I suffer similar and I have endometriosis. I have had these pains since being a teenager, now in my thirties. Had some lesions removed via laparoscopy and pain improved a bit (fell pregnant a month after surgery). Routinely take dihydrocodeine and diclofenac every month for the pain and do sometimes vomit and have almost passed out in the past with the pain. Get back to the GP and demand some further investigations and prescription medication for the pain.

Apparently anything which requires more than your bog standard paracetamol & ibuprofen isn’t normal. Gynaecologist who did my diagnostic laparoscopy for endometriosis told me this

Endo sufferer here aged 44- been like this for 30 years. 100mg tramadol allows me to have a good night's sleep but not ideal .
What I want is a full hysterectomy but they refuse me on the grounds that I'm not bleeding in large enough volumes to be admitted to hospital
Some months I can barely stand and I'm a single mum to a 6 year old, its very hard.
Alternative treatments offered is inducing the menopause or an oestrogen blocker, those treatments sound almost as bad as the disease !

I had this all through my teens and most of my 20's. Once I had a child my periods were much less painful and a little shorter although a little heavier.

Thank you so, so much everyone - you have helped me enormously. Something obviously isn’t right and I should push for more. I think i should ask for the laparoscopy. I recently moved house and have a new gp, so I can see how I get on with them

Oh and when I had ds I had him within 2 hours if getting to the hospital , I must have been in labour all day but I was expecting it to hurt more than period pain . I just thought I needed a poo - for me labour just felt like a twinge compared to my periods!

Sorry I have only skim read the thread, but prior to having my first child at 30 I had excruciating period cramps, each one lasting up to 20 minutes and painkillers had no effect. When I gave birth I realised my cramps were basically identical to labour contractions, with the only real difference being that labour contractions peak and die off in under 2 minutes where as a period cramp took much longer. Oh, and that you are expected to bear period cramps quietly whereas in labour you are allowed to moan, rock, chug back gas and air etc.

Can you tell I was pissed off?

Anyway, they’ve been better, although sometime still very painful, since having children.

I have had internal and external scans and nothing found to be wrong. The only thing I have found to help is to start taking ibuprofen 3 days before the period. Apparently it stops the build up of prostaglandins (sp?) that are released when the uterine lining breaks down and cause the cramps. It’s the same or at least very similar to the stuff they use to induce labour.

I discovered this in my late 20s and it made a huge difference. I have no idea why no GP had ever mentioned it to me. It was my Dad who discovered it from a women at work!

Most of my periods pre hormonal birth control have been much as you describe. I distinctly remember the moment when I realised that it was very much not normal - I was being induced with ds so being monitored. Midwife asked if I wanted pain relief as contractions looked to be getting pretty strong and were pretty relentless.

I said I'm fine for now I've had periods worse than this and look of pure horror on her face will never leave me.

Codeine and naproxen (both prescription strength) would take the edge off the pain but not make it go completely, if the naproxen didn't make me puke even more than the pain.

I vividly remember being escorted out of one of my gcse exams because I had puked and promptly passed out and fell out of my chair.

Post dc they eased off to what I have now come to believe to be 'normal' levels, ie, lasted no more than a week, pain only for three days and well controlled by otc pain relief, didn't wake me up in the night or make it difficult to concentrate /stand, didn't make me puke or give me diarrhoea.

That lasted less than a year though so I am now on depo so I don't have to deal with them anymore. Luckily I have had very little adverse reaction to it unlike the pill other than a tiny bit of weight gain (about half a stone) but if I didn't have it under control like I currently do I would absolutely be pushing for investigations.

It may well be common to suffer like this but it definitely isn't normal.

But much like other women's health issues we're told we're making a fuss over nothing and to crack on with it.

Incedently, I once had a friend who had crohns disease which caused him a significant amount of pain, we were discussing pain levels one day and came to the conclusion that we probably experienced similar levels of pain for a similar level of time, except he was on oramorph for his, and his Drs bent over backwards to try to fix it. He was horrified how fobbed off I and many other women had been regarding period pain. (he was very very sympathetic when I rolled into work with horrible cramps looking white as a sheet though)