AIBU to be cross about school dismissing my daughter's severe periods?

[Meetmeinlove]

My DD 14 has horrendous periods- I suspect she might have PMDD which I also have. Her mood is terrible in the run up, can barely move for the first day, often throws up, is doubled over with cramps and it also often triggers migraines too. She often can’t get out of bed for a day- and this is with ibuprofen and paracetemol together.

It’s virtually impossible to get her to school- I have tried but she’s often too unwell. Last month she also leaked through her clothes and we had to pick her up as she was so distressed and embarrassed.

The school have said that they don’t view periods as a reason for a day off. I have tried to explain that DDs are severe but they said to me ‘periods can be treated with an ibuprofen’.

I would add that the medical team at school have also not been helpful at all and have at times refused to give her ibuprofen even with my permission. It all feels ridiculous. I think the way they have handled it has made her less keen to go in when she has her period as they handled the leak issue terribly and she was hysterical when we collected her. (They were very unsympathetic and wouldn’t let her ring home etc- tried to send her back to class and get her to wear someone else’s
clothes that didn’t fit properly- it just made things worse)

I think it’s probably PMDD- I have had it for years and it wasn’t diagnosed until much later for me - it’s been awful though and does need careful management particularly around mood. I have had suicidal ideation with it and don’t want my DD to go through that too.

Aibu to be cross at the schools stance though- I will have to get a proper doctors note I think but I think my annoyance comes from the general ‘take an ibuprofen and get on with it’ dismissive attitude when DD is genuinely unwell with it and I have explained this to them on multiple occasions.

I'd sew a wee pouch behind the waistband of her skirt for them and tell her not to tell anyone about it

Let's hope they don't fall out or another kid finds them in the PE changing room, decide to take them for funsies and have an anaphylactic reaction then...because no one would have a clue what was going on or how to treat them, making the likelihood of permanent damage higher. But so long as your kid to flout the rules all good?

These are teenagers FFS.

She needs Mefenamic Acid, it should be taken in the week leading up to her period as well as the first couple of days, it reduces the prostaglandins that the body releases to start your period (cramping), her body is producing far too many.

Mine also has antihistamines for the vomiting, there's a certain one that works best.

Then we've found Buscopan CRAMPS tablets (not to be confused with Buscopan IBS) helpful in reducing the pain, they relax the muscles that cramp, I've managed to get this on prescription too for the active ingredients.

You sound very supportive. I had the most horrendous periods that started in primary school. I was 40 before I was finally offered a surgical solution to the problems. Some people just don’t get how utterly awful periods can be. I was amazed when eldest dd started her periods and they were nothing like mine. Made me realise even more how terrible mine were. Despite leaking every day I was on and going through two packs of pads in a week my dm never seemed to grasp how much I needed help. Your dd is lucky to have you helping her.
Take her back to gp and perhaps get a letter to show school. They are being ridiculous though. At my school we have pupils who we know need extra toilet breaks etc and a note from a parent has been sufficient.

How about mirena? Pre childbirth it hurts going in so she’d want sedation but it makes periods so much lighter and sometimes they even stop. Once it’s in yiu can forget about it so much better than the pill.

Without some investigation school will just assume that she’s trying to scrounge a few days off each month. They probably have half of the female student population saying they need to go home for period pains ever day!

To look at it another way, you cannot expect a school to be wiser than the medical profession. Your dd’s doctor effectively told you your dd’s periods were normal for her age, so the school is assuming the same. All that the school being wiser than the doctor will do is harm your dd’s education through frequent absences and delay your return to the doctor.

As for the school needing metal detectors - that says something about a proportion of your child’s school population! Schools are, to a large extent, caught between a rock and a hard place - the DfE effectively forces them to be unsympathetic to insufficiently evidenced absences. If they are more sympathetic to the more eloquent parents and less sympathetic to those with poor communication skills, they are accused of unfair discrimination, so schools end up being fairly unsympathetic and inflexible towards everybody, a problem exacerbated by significant underfunding. Being sympathetic and flexible requires considerably more (non-existent) employees to take the time to assess individual students and their myriad issues. In your dd’s case, frankly, this is a medical professional’s job to do in the first place and it is not really reasonable to expect the school to draw a blind eye to a complete lack of medical evidence for your claim that she can’t come into school on a regular basis.

OP there’s nothing wrong with taking her back even if the advice has been wait and see. The more they have documented the better. Especially once it hits the 3rd ‘strike’, the GP could do an advice and guidance for specialist help if they aren’t sure what to do. If your DD is suffering then keep taking her back. Then you email the school and give th an update and tell them what she needs. Eg has to have pain relief. If they ignore you I would submit a complaint to them. Keep it factual and see where you get. Your daughter deserves the support and ability to access pain relief at the very least.

This is the problem. You have taken the word of one doctor, instead of putting your foot down and advocating for your daughter. A doctor telling you to wait it out, is no good. Her periods have now become a disability - They are debilitating. The same way you are not advocating for her via the school!

You should be on the GP's back, the hospital, the local education authority, Ofsted, your local MP, local women's groups etc...you need to be taring up that school! It's sexual discrimination, disability discrimination, discrimination of a protected characteristic, failure to protect her well-being, and neglect of a vulnerable young lady - It's a failure in duty of care by the school. I would even be going to the local newspaper. Shout from the rooftops so your daughter gets the correct support she needs! I wouldn't send my child into school if they were this badly debilitated. Take her to a different GP as well, or walk her into A&E on her next period and refuse to leave until she's had a full body work-up.

I seriously hate complacency.

Tbf, it was that poster that said teachers.

My experience is that the teachers are great on the whole, very understanding and helpful.

Its the pastoral staff/SLT that forget students and parents are people.

Anyway my kids are at college, university and work now and it’s much better.

God that was me. I got my period early (12?) and it was horrendous for years. Sadly going on the pill was not the done thing in Greece in the 90s - my mum was against it. I went on it when I moved away for Uni, it was an absolute life changer. Still on the pill (albeit a different one) 20 years later.

A doctor has failed to diagnose, but it's the school who have failed in their duty of care??? What is it they've failed to take care of? There's no diagnosis. All the school have done is confiscate medication that the kid shouldn't have had and given her some clean clothes.

I also hate complacency, and rambling guff that just looks to blame someone, anyone, without actually tackling the problem.

Here's what the OP needs to do:

1. write to GP and state that there's a problem and outline the problem
2. say her dd needs diagnosis and treatment because without either of these things both her physical and mental health is being severely impacted and this is having serious consequences for her education as well
3. if this doesn't work, find out what the complaints procedure is at her GP practice
4. follow the complaints procedure
5. in the meantime, update the school and keep communicating with them
6. do not send in contraband pharmaceutical products that put other children at risk, instead perhaps investigate the 8 hour pain relief mentioned earlier

here's what the OP doesn't need to do:

1. randomly complain to the school about stuff that's outside of their control
2. get the local authority (where social services are based) involved to tell them that she hasn't been taking her dd back to the doctor but someone else is neglecting her health and well being
3. start talking about disability discrimination when there's no diagnosis of any disability

That's outrageous!

Surely they can make an exception for essential medication?

Not allowed to give kids generic medication any more. It’s rubbish, but there we go.

Schools at the moment are under huge pressure about attendance and yes they are putting far too much pressure on children who are actually ill.

ideally school would understand that your daughter is ill but in the current environment I wouldn’t expect it unfortunately.

i have endo and had terrible periods as a teen including vomiting and diarrhoea, my school in the 80s and early 90s totally accepted that on those days I couldn’t be in school.

my dd had similar along with other issues (auto immune disease) and we eventually had to put into place that she carried her own meds because on a few occasions school didn’t give them accurately or at the right time but it took a lot of complaints and hassle.

it’s easy to think the system is there to support you but unfortunately in this case it really isn’t. You will probably have to be a grade A pain in the arse to get any sort of medication for your daughter and as for understanding from the school I wouldn’t expect it.

Maybe not a disability, but the periods are a characteristic of being female so the Equality Act definitely is relevant here.

I agree with you and I think you are being given an unnecessary hard time by some posters. People talk as if there a no downsides to the pill and other medications but its not unreasonable to want to try things conservatively first and to expect a bit of compassion and support from the school.

This could have been written about me at this age. Awful periods and the pain for the first day was brutal, I also frequently fainted due to a combination of intense pain and the heaviness of the bleeding. I was prescribed mefenamic acid which helped some, but the symptoms were still horrendous. My GP eventually prescribed the pill when I was 13 much to my parents initial horror, although as soon as they saw the monthly difference in me they soon got over it. Might be worth considering?

yeah also if I keep turning up with my daughter for the same thing and they’ve asked me to wait they don’t take too kindly to that, I did it with my daughter and I think they thought I had maunchausans or something, they got frustrated with me and said it’s cruel to put a child on meds and take bloods as things can settle.

How is her daughter being discriminated against on the grounds of sex? In what way is she being less favourably treated than a male?

I would say all schools/the government/LEAs most certainly have a duty to find solutions to make sure girls do not miss out on education as a result of a female only condition that in some girls means they may have to miss some school once a month . It's weird when women cant seem this.

It's not just about discrimination it's about the public sector equality duty. They should be taking active steps like facilitating online access to lessons.

I think this is absolutely ridiculous. It infantilises kids at an age where they are perfectly capable of managing their meds sensibly. I was often prescribed antibiotics from 11 until they took my tonsils out when I was nearly 15, and anti-histamines from 11 or 12. No-one at school gave it a second thought.

What is the thinking behind this practice?

You’ve said that you weren’t diagnosed until later, but you haven’t pushed for a diagnosis for your daughter? What has the GP said? Once you have a diagnosis that will help the communication with the school.

They won’t diagnose this young no matter how much pushing you do and in my experience only makes them dig their heels more

When you take her, you might want to have written down what you've told us here - not just how it's affecting her medically, but what's happening at school.

And try hard not to let them fob you off at the GP - insist you see a GP (not a nurse or AP) and insist that she needs help now, not "wait and see". Good luck with it. If you have time, do let us know how you get on?