Do all women experience discomfort

[Bacchus23]

before their period or with hormones?
just that really, I’m in a relatively new relationship and my partner asked me. I can’t speak for everyone else and just thought my own experience varies each cycle.
Do any of you get away without any discomfort of some sort?

Before I had little one nothing, but since then I get severe bloating and pains. Extreme discomfort

Really bad mood swings now since having children a week before and few days before period I am a banshee 😬🥺 my moods are awful.
I sometimes get aches in my boobs but that's it I can't wait for my periods to stop wish I had asked for it all to be taken out after having c section with my second.

A bit achey, and hopeless to the point of feeling suicidal. DH has to talk me down every month.

Sore boobs for up to a week before.
Cramps
Period poos
Sad/angry a few days before and ravenous
Headache for 2 or 3 days before
Really hot and can't sleep for 2 or 3 nights before
Oh, and sometimes acne too.

I thought I was getting off lightly because I have friends who've thrown up and passed out from the pain, so am surprised by women on this thread saying they barely get any symptoms

The hopelessness is awful.

I've now got a set 'plan' for these days - a proper itinerary that I follow, that seems to help keep me alive until the day after, usually then I'm like 'my life is great, why do I feel like that every month!'

I always did. Sore boobs. Cramp. Hungry. Now I'm on injection so I don't have periods

Nope, for anout a week before period I get hip pain, sore boobs and am an emotional moody bitch with insomnia. It eases during. When I was using hormonal contraception, mood swings, migraines and massive weight gain.

Is there a link between how you experience periods and how you conceive?

@Wondeyr that’s a good plan. I can never imagine feeling the way I do either before or after, but on that one hopeless day it’s totally real and I can’t reason my way out of it.

Hypermobility pain worse week before period because of bloody progesterone. Then fatigue worse from heavy periods. Bruise more when I'm ovulating too (weird immunoglobulin thing).

On the plus side I don't feel like I'm being stabbed when I'm on my period like I did when I was in my late teens/early 20s.

No, slightly sore (and inflated) boobs 3 days before. Slight on and off dragging sensation a day or so before period starts. No mood swings, pain or other issues, just find the bleeding inconvenient and annoying. Have never had PMT. Periods were more painful before I had children but manageable with Paracetamol.

Some women seem to suffer terribly but I think in general there are more of us who are just able to carry on as normal. From discussion with friends I would say around 25% feel their lives are affected by periods. I dont feel mine is.

I think men do find that surprising because they hear about PMT, pain, suffering etc all the time and assume we're all on the same roller coaster.

I'd never questioned the period pain and thought all women had it. Then the other day I was speaking to a friend,who is pregnant with her first baby, about labour. I described labour pain as 'just like period pain' and she looked completely blank and said she has never had any pain with her periods. I was completely amazed! The thought that there are women having their periods every month, completely pain free had honestly never occurred to me!

I seem to be quite sensitive to hormonal changes in general because I also have intense mood swings around the start of my period, I get thrush every month right before my period unless I take probiotics and I have always had hormonal acne. My mum had similar issues and has been a million times happier since the menopause, so at least I've got that to look forward to😁.

I've never had period pain and have also probably looked blank when people describe pain as such. I've always felt lucky in that regard.

In my 20s I would get one spot per period, every month, like clockwork. But with young skin, they only lasted a day or two and faded without leaving a mark, so not a problem. No other period symptoms.

In my 40s, I sometimes, but not always, get sore boots beforehand. And a new, very un-fun thing that I've only twigged recently is period-related, anxiety. I'm normally quite sanguine, but I noticed that I was getting these sudden pangs of worry about work or the kids or the future in general. Like, I'd be dropping off to sleep and suddenly jerk awake with a random worry. But I've linked that now with period being due and so that helps, I can just tell myself it's not real, it's hormones fucking with my brain 🙄

In my teens, my periods were painful on day 1 ( and sweating and nausea); similar pain to labour; but that disappeared after a course of treatment by sympathetic female GP. No probs after that.

I never had significant discomfort, just the odd mild ache. And I was doubly fortunate as my menopause was completely problem-free.

I wish that, for women who do have difficuties with menopause, it was treated by society and by medics just like any health problem, as an illness that needs addressing, not as women's destiny.

The current heightened awareness of the difficulties that a lot of women face around the time of the menopause often seems to present it as if these difficulties were intrinsic to being a woman. That seems regressive, in that it identifies womanhood and 'being of a certain age' with dysfunction, so that all older women become defined by their age and sex -- which also has the consequence of allowing medics tp regard these health problems as less worthy of treatment because they are regarded as 'what you are' and not as an illness that you happen to have.

No. I’ve PCOS, no pain really other than a mild ache the day before, no mood swings, no binge eating, no blaming random things on the ‘time of the month’.

Pain every month for 30+ years!

I start getting cramps a 5-7 days before period. Very bad from 2 days before. Boobs VERY tender. Able to murder anyone with my bare hands.

When I was in my teens I would throw up from pain on Day 1. Always super intense for about 6 hours, then done!

Day before I just want to sleep. Can pass out anywhere from tiredness.

Spent about 15 hears on the pill to manage it.

In my late 30's I came off hormones and started missing days of work with the pain and flooding, then the menstrual migraines started 🙄

Since being on HRT (am 45 and peri) it's a little less, but that Day 1 crampfest of agony has never changed. It's like being twisted from the inside and I will double over with the pain - makes me feel so dramatic (and my pain threshold is pretty high!)! And I still plan my life around that day and track like I have OCD. No travelling anywhere far from a loo (I also flood Day 1) and no big work stuff. I have to take soooo much pain meds I'm pretty out of it.

Excited for full menopause!

I get sore boobs just before my period and an achey feeling in my back and bum but nothing that isn't sorted with a couple of paracetamol.

Yes @Bacchus23

ovulation cramping at time of ovulation

and cramps for days to period and throughout first two or three days. And the fever and the flu like symptoms as I got older and cramping was limited to two days. I had a female boss who lets me work from home once a month if needed. The pain was very bad for decades.