Period pain proof required for school sick days

[Amallamard]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly4zd8xp74o

Aside from the utter madness about period pains (which im sure MNers will have plenty to say about), is it just me that thinks a cold can be bad enough to need time off? One of mine was off with a cold last week. They ended up on antibiotics and steroids. In no way fit for school. It's no wonder schools are such germ factories when they insist children should come in when they're ill!

The pill does NOT prevent PCOS. It can mask some symptoms but it’s still there and in some cases the pill can even be the cause.

The pill gave me high blood pressure, killed my libido and made me slightly depressed.

Not sure it was worth it to help the PCOS

The fault here lies with the pressure put on schools for attendance. It is honestly an immense and ridiculous amount of nitpicky pressure and it forces headteachers to enforce these kinds of rules. If they don't do everything possible to keep children in school then the DofE comes down on the school so hard.
It's time for a rethink about school attendance but it has to come from the top and it has to be a parent/carer partnership where students actually use independent learning and catch up the work they miss.

Very true. I actually do have very light short periods and very rarely get period pain and even I know this school is being ridiculous. If someone says they're in pain, that should be sufficient evidence.

I have, and I'm in my late 50s & self employed so I don't get paid!

As a teenager I would regularly pass out from period pain. Sadly my daughter also suffers badly. The doctor was very unhelpful, so I don't know what medical information they think they'd get. I'm a teacher btw and I think this is shit

This.

Good for you?

No one should have to use a tampon just to suit you. It is 2024, a woman's body should be her own. It's not for you to tell any girl how to deal with their period.

And as if a GP will do anything about period pain! It takes years to get proper investigations.

My PP were horrendous as a teenager, they got better with age. But literally felt like I was dying at some points.

I also have never ever been able to tolerate tampons, we aren’t all the same inside!

I’m a teacher and I had to go home a couple of months ago because I was vomiting from my period pain.
I will not hold girls to an ideal I can’t reach myself.
This would be the hill I die on with SLT.

I have endometriosis.

For women with endometriosis "period pain" can include:

Severe bowel cramps
Diarrhoea
Vomiting
Loss of blood at a rate that leads to anemia

and that's without mentioning the pain,

I have less than fond memories of spending nights on the bathroom floor only moving to alternatively vomit or diarrhoea in the toilet.

Fun.

And then it took seven years for a diagnosis and that was only because my grandparents paid for me to go private.

"Period pain" can be very very severe.

I don’t want to get off topic but I think the downsides/risks of the pill are massively undersold and the benefits (which are mostly benefits to men of not needing to use contraception themselves!) are oversold. I actually think it’s scandalous that modifying your hormones is essentially the default for young women. The impact on the water system will become increasingly clear in the future too. Of course if girls/women want it it should be available but no way should it be a first line treatment for something like period pain.

Absolutely. I have never suffered like you and others on here, but SLT are being completely unreasonable.

Until I took myself off to the GP at 15 and asked to be put on the pill I spent 2-3 days of every month blacking out and vomiting due to period pain. I'd try to go into school and end up fainting in class and flooding through a pad in an hour in the first day of my period and would then be sent home. I remember one of the PE teachers telling me that exercise was good for period pain when all I wanted to be was at home on the sofa with a hot water bottle and some mefenamic acid tablets which I couldn't keep down. I understand that in some circumstances powering through is the right option but not when you are in severe pain or very unwell with a nasty cold.

This policy is absurd but more importantly it’s massive overreach by the school/state. The health and education of children is the parent’s responsibility. If I think my dd or ds is too sick for school no bozo at school is going to tell me otherwise.

I don't think girls should have to take medication just to join in with PE. And as someone who found using tampons really difficult until well into my twenties I'm not keen on the idea that girls should be forced to use them either. I don't think it's unreasonable to provide PE options that can be done while wearing a pad.

The poster probably meant "toughen up".
Or "power through".
Of course this stuff is different from woman to woman, also different as we age.
Not unbearable though.

These threads always attract the 'I haven't had a sick day since 1999, and that was when I'd been run over by three buses and both my arms and both my legs were hanging off' posters. I've been into work while miscarrying, worked (FH) with pneumonia, and worked from the recovery room after a GA, but I wouldn't dream of assuming others should do likewise.

UK schools' attitudes to attendance are up there with their attitudes to uniform. Completely bonkers.

Please stop blaming ‘headteachers’ or SLT for this current clamp down on attendance. Do you honestly think they have all nationally decided to enforce these rules? It’s the DfE pouring on pressure, which will be enforced by local authorities and Ofsted. Don’t follow their directives? Then you’ll be put in special measures, be forced down a route you don’t want to go.

That said, since COVID, attendance HAS become a massive issue and it does need a solution. Parents aren’t supporting schools (SOME not all parents) and it’s massively affecting student’s learning, they are failing in education and it’s reaching crisis point when aligned with the huge behavioural and social issues that are occurring.

Is this crackdown on attendance the solution? Absolutely no, but can anyone come up with any other solution?

Actually, even if I hadn't found using tampons hard - it's not right to tell girls they have to do it. They should have the right not to do it for whatever reason.

Bet you never made a noise through childbirth either?

Slow clap....

This.

I'm off NOW with a cold. I didn't even get dressed yesterday, only got out of bed at 2.30, and even that was only because I absolutely had to get something to eat and drink so I could take my daily meds. I am not the kind of person to give in easily, or to drop out of doing things - but this cold has floored me, and several other people I know who've had it too.

Children should be taught to know their bodies and their health, and to be kind to themselves. Better to have a couple of days off than keep dragging themselves in and making recovery take even longer.

Yes their bodies are their own. If they don't want to take meds/use tampons then that is their right, but the poster was stating that their parents are stopping them from using them in 'their area', which is very different to girls making a choice.

As an 11 year old my periods were horrendous. I used to take paracetamol, ibuprofen, use one of those magnetic pain relief things, and take those instant hand warmer things to have on my tummy all day. And I would still be in absolute agony. I remember once passing out from the pain. But there was no medical problem, I just had painful periods. They eased as I got older and now I have very little pain. It doesn't surprise me in the least that the head teacher is a man.