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.

Not really given you have to physically insert and remove it yourself.

Imagine having to do that every time you wanted a wee. A proper bladder system like the urinary one is what we need.

I still maintain that being able to turn our fertility on and off at will is the way to go though.

Well, i effect, you can! That's what contraception is.
Turning off periods would be bliss tho!

I've frequently thought that you should be able to press your belly button while in the privacy of your own lavatory and the whole thing shoots out at once so it's over and done with rather than part shooting-dribbling- trickling out at inopportune moments over the space of 4 to 7 days.

What the fuck is the belly button for if it's not that?

It should be designed so you have a window of about 7 days to belly button press. That will allow for holidays, being lost at sea and week long shagging expeditions.

Belly button evacuation of your period blood !
Love this idea

contraception isn't the same at all as it isn't a natural bodily function. My system would be. Also, it would negate unwanted infertility in my fantasy design.

Definitely menopause related. My periods only used to be 3-4 days and one day of that would be heavy. This is now day 11 of proper heavy. Just feels quite ridiculous tbh, I have no idea what I would do, if I didn't work from home.

Get a Menstrual disc ! Nixit ! This is basically how it works, I think about this every time I use it and how I wished exactly for this when I was younger!

On the egg front, I'm sure I read an article once where someone had gone to live with an "Amazonian tribe" (I cant remember where it was) and the women just sort of expelled their womb lining in one go in a caul like a neat little balloon. That would be cool if true, I'd go for that.

To be honest NO it won’t explain why your daughter has heavy periods. Endometriosis is far more plausible - about 1 in 7 women have it and it typically takes years to be diagnosed.

To be fair to evolution, its goal was to make us into reproductive machines.

They’re actually only inconvenient now we’ve chosen to fly in the face of nature and do things like work and not have babies all the time.

(Oh and I’m a child free atheist, so not preaching my views - but I can objectively see that my attitude is the problem rather than the periods which serve a purpose 😂)

But it doesn’t stop periods for everyone with it, just some!

Uterine ablation saved my sanity and my iron levels. More women should be offered it as a choice.
OP - YANBU.

Is this very different to mooncup?

I also find they help with cramping, but I still have to empty 6+ times a day and often they are overflowing, which makes it messy.

I have come to terms with the periods but since kids the javelin arse at ovulation is awful. It wakes me up one Saturday night a month, always around 4am. It's genuinely akin to a constant labour pain (for me) but only lasts half an hour. I spoke to my husband about it and he was absolutely horrified. I don't want to rock the boat with hormones etc and will take it on the chin as my periods are only 3 days long, regular (every 4th Sunday) and I could swim / wear white clothes once the first 12 hours are over.

I don't want to lay an egg but, in the absence of a bladder system which seems unlikely to be developed within th3 next 20 years - though a catheter type set up could work.... I would love to be able to get some sort of mini shower head up there and just give it a really good rinse out, would take 15 mins and then be over for the month.

I'm on the mini pill after 25 years on combined and it's not the life saver people make out.Get periods every month or sometimes every two if I'm lucky.I was really hoping they'd stop altogether

I've always said that pregnancy might be natural but birthing a human vaginally definitely is not!
Absolutely traumatising imo.

7 - jeezo! I thought I was young at 11! Also have not had any children, despite trying/wanting them, so it feels like even more of a slap in the face!

45 and peri menopausal. The coil has been a god send for me. I refused it for so long and eventually gave in. So glad I did. Very light period twice since April.

I am another one who would have preferred to just lay an egg once a month.

I remember reading an interesting article about why we have periods, when they seem such a design flaw. Whether it's true or not, I don't know - but interesting.

www.quora.com/Why-do-women-have-periods-What-is-the-evolutionary-benefit-or-purpose-of-having-periods-Why-can%E2%80%99t-women-just-get-pregnant-without-the-menstrual-cycle

I started the menopause at 45. Was over the moon when the dr told me. A dodgy year with awfully heavy periods then nothing. Felt a bit hot but was living in the Med so to be expected.

You believe in a Designer? OK - Bible says He designed the woman perfectly , the man also and life was eternal. After they both sinned, the woman was cursed with difficulties around child bearing.

I fully agree with you 100% I'm 59 and the menopause ... or f*ingpesterpause as I call it ... ! hit me when I was just about 42 but all the tons of periods over the years before then since I was 15 was horrendous. At various times over the years I was working 3 jobs a week, 12-16 hours a day, always on my feet and running around while my bits banged and clanged.

I hate tampons and refuse to use them, I can't deal with a tiny bit of cotton wool which wouldn't cover the bleeding so I used pads, the sort with the sticky tape strip but during really heavy times I actually used adult disposable nappies.

I'd go to work, work, come home in absolute agony with various pains and cramps, then there's all the tears, mood swings, thumping headaches etc. etc. to deal with!

Strangely, I've found most men are absolutely brilliant about it, I've had male bosses who have told me to sit down for 20 minutes and they've made me a cuppa and got me some pain killers but I've had female bosses who have been absolute evil bitches who put me down and ridiculed me!

Thankfully I've got an amazing hubby who would go to Boots and buy me packs of pads and he'd make me mugs of tea and do hot water bottles and as I'm laying there in tears with various pain etc. he'd jokingly say ''do you want me to kick you really hard in the guts and fanny? Would that help?! And I'd crease up laughing! He's great he is!

I absolutely love your hilarious humour! MORE! MORE!

Apparently menopause is worse for women who have never had kids ... in my case by choice ... so we're being punished AGAIN! HA!