Do you not think that periods could have been better designed

[Abigail47]

I'm 40.

I have my period.

The older I get, the more periods I've had, and as I look back, it seems like a long, long history of periods.

I remember all the issues they caused me:

Worrying about bleeding through clothes. Actually bleeding through clothes sometimes.

I remember being curled up in pain in a toilet at age 22 in my workplace. Having to get up and go into a serious work meeting with the whole department.

Pain so many times.

Not being able to go to the swimming pool when I feel like it, as I dont trust a tampon in a swimsuit, I can bleed through a tampon.

So much pain and cramps over the years.

I am 40, I was sitting in work today, having cramps, and in pain. I got up to go to the bathroom to change a tampon, and i was walking to the bathroom (a bit of a walk in front of a hundred people in a large department), again I was worried that I had bled through my dress as I walked.

I went back down and sat at my desk, and I felt angry at my male team mates who have never had to go through any of this once.

Its just so badly designed. Why do we get periods so frequently.

Why not just build up the womb lining and keep it there for a couple of months? What's the point of it.

Shedding the womb lining every single month causes so many problems for so many women.

That makes me so cross.
It's like when they say that having sex, or an orgasm is good for relieving a headache!
Come near me when I've got a headache and I'll be wearing your balls as earrings buster!

I do look back on my life and think about the huge block of it which was determined by fucking periods! I don't swear much but I do sometimes!

The ballache of 2 weeks feeling OK then a week pmt and then period.This was my life, like ongoing today.

The pill was great, mild bleeds, have as much sex as you wanted (condom still to prevent STDs but was with one partner, still got STD from passed on years before. I was always sensible.

Best thing ever has been mirena coil, uncomfortable at first but then no pmt, no worry about getting pregnant
It's fab! X

Same, @Orders76. luckily the same happened to my mum during peri (not that she knew what peri was back in the ‘90s), so I know that from 40ish I could expect shorter cycles and (more) random flooding. Can’t wait till am finally properly menopausal - I think!

I remember when I was in the Girl Guides. One of the adult volunteers was a very religious lady, came across as harmless and sweet but God knows what her mind was really like. We were having a discussion one day and someone said that if God was real, he must hate women to inflict periods on us and not men. She told us that periods were the creation of the devil, that's why they were painful, made us bleed and could cause us to be temporarily insane and sometimes have murderous thoughts about unsympathetic and lazy husbands 😳 🤣 think she may have been having a bad time with her periods and a lazy husband 🤣

Does sugar affect your periods? I have never heard this before, it might explain why my daughter is often prone to very heavy periods

It is an endocrine disrupter. I’ve read about it before but not much (because I like sugar and it was just depressing!) There’s lots of articles, things the first one that came up when I searched:
observer.com/2018/02/sugar-is-wreaking-havoc-on-your-hormonal-health/#:~:text=Refined%20sugar%20is%20also%20known,cognitive%20function%20and%20body%20temperature.)

It's a minimum viable product.

Yes it's often painful, inconvenient, embarrassing, horrifying and unfair, but it's the absolute minimum product that worked at getting the human race to continue, so that's the design they went with.

Sadists.

I think I can blow the poor diet theory out the window as mine is terrible and I eat loads of sugar but I don't get bad periods (I'm lucky I know) and apart from the first two days being a bit of a PITA I don't really mind them. Hope I'm not coming across as smug or something but just saying they can obviously vary a lot between women. I have a lot of sympathy for the women who get it badly, it must be something you dread every month.

I shouldn’t be laughing at that as it’s actually quite disturbing. But funny.

Yes I haven’t found them too bad and I’m reasonably healthy but no saint. Sugar definitely passes my lips.But this thread is an eye opener as to the pain some women experience. I guess it’s one of those things that don’t get talked about a lot, as everyone kind of assumes their experience is the same as everyone else’s. I do get a bit uncomfortable with bloat, often a bit of “mittelschmerz” but it’s for hours ( maybe sometimes about 40 minutes) not days. For me it’s more I notice I feel “ fat” for the best part of a week. It’s good I think to hear other’s experiences for perspective. I have seen a lot about women increasingly getting leave for flooding during peri. I think maybe the lockdowns have made people realise how much easier these things are to handle in the “ comfort “ of their own home .

I agree. Men would revolted over all this!
Laying an egg once a month is genius .. we are badly designed.

Oh yes! They would be paid for these days off and receive lots of praise from other men too no doubt.

The peri flooding part before they ( finally ) stop is a pita , but not having them now is bliss.
I don't miss them at all. Hated all of it.

Also in my 40s. Also largely sugar free. (I'm the person that turns down cake and biscuits at work for a bit of 90/100% dark chocolate)

Periods always horrific. I have the mirena now for HRT and I still have debilitating cramps and a monthly bleed DESPITE having the whole lining of my uterus scraped out for a biopsy earlier this year.

Before the mirena when I stood up on my period, the blood literally gushed out. I once stood up on a plane and realised I'd bled all over the fabric seat. I could feel clots slithering out of me.

OP. Yanbu. Periods are shit.

I read that ibuprofen lessens the flow and the times I have tried that it's proven to be true. I also carb load for a few days when I am due - helps provide energy for hormone synthesis I think? I retain water and feel fat but that drops off when I come on.

Saying that my next period will probably be terrible!

Isn't that what a moon cup does in effect!?

Mooncups basically do that. Only empty it twice a day now and reduced my pain by about 75% (my dr hat has literally no idea how that's possible but it seems to). Had to go on the pill as bled through super tampons and pads and slept on layers of towels as a teen

I started my periods aged 13 , but just before I noticed some discharge ( white) and my mum told me it was ' the white from the egg ' ( then went on to explain periods and I was horrified it going to be every month for years)
It's official name is Leukorrhea )
I remember feeling devastated.

And would boast about having “ a big period.”

I'm 54. I'm on day ELEVEN of my period that's so heavy, I can only leave the house for 10 minutes, to walk the dogs. Luckily, I work from home.

When I saw that a Trans woman was advertising tampons recently, it gave me the absolute RAGE.

With regards to mini pills and similar, they all made me put on huge amounts of weight, and I really don't need that!

Oh yes, the men's ' big period'
Bigger than anyone else's and needing more days off work

And the biggest absorbency tampon .

That sounds awful. 😟Has it always been like that or is it a peri thing?

And does HRT help?

I was brought up a Christian ie God is the creator and made man etc etc so always thought that periods were a clear indication that God is indeed a man! Who else would make someone suffer periods every month for 40-50 years when they only need them for 6 -10 years of active baby making!
And I definitely agree with the previous poster who pointed out how useless breasts are unless feeding a baby!
Why can't we have a switch that turns periods/ovulation off when we are done having babies?!