How do you plan for holidays, spa days etc when your peri and periods are becoming irregular?

[Fomfue]

Ive taken the period stop medication before (can't remember the name of it). I was always regular. Once I stopped the medication I then had my "overdue" period after my holiday, spa break etc. But taking this medication now would force a period once I stopped taking it, and I may not have necessarily been due one

What does everyone else do ?

@MrsCarmelaSoprano any risk they can tip inside and spill ? Can they take a clot?

Great! There's your answer OP: don't worry about it at all. Just sort it out and don't worry about it! FFS.

First two days of my period I use an ultra tampon and incontinence pants. The pants capture all the inevitable leaks and especially stop me bleeding all over the hotel sheets. Tampon lasts 90 mins.

It sucks really. I won't have a period for 3 months but the night before a 9hr flight, bam.

Not always, I use cups and double up with period pants on the heavier days.

Last month the clots and flow was unbelievable and flooded both cup and pants through to (luckily) the dark trousers i was wearing. I drove home sat on a plastic bag.

But I am lucky and only have a day or two at most that heavy the rest of the time a cup and a pair of pants if I am being very cautious will do.

I've been on the combined pill continuously since 2009. I don't bleed at all and have a nice stable daily dose of hormones, no perimenopause drama. I'm 46.

Periods have been optional since the 1960s.

Had a Mirena coil fitted. Stopped all that period nonsense

I use tampons so can still swim and spa

This thread is so frustrating, clearly all the “just use tampons” people have never had the sort of period @Fomfue is describing and lucky them!
I’m also progesterone intolerant (it gives me very dark thoughts/low mood) and had an anaphylactic reaction to a pessary during childbirth so Mirena is out for me.
Basically I’m now pushing for a referral for a hysterectomy so I can have my life back - I’m willing to pay to go privately but the reticence from the NHS is maddening! No one can adequately explain why they are so reluctant to entertain the idea

Not if you can't tolerate oral progesterone.

I tried the pill for the first time when I was 19 at university. I couldn't understand why I kept crying (well violently sobbing), until the lovely uni GP realised it was the pill. Took me off it and back to normal. Tried again in 30s and 40s with the same experience each time (I cycled through all the options).

I took progesterone tablets last year so I could enjoy a holiday in the sun. I think posters saying “just use a tampon” are missing the point of the thread.

Clearly you don’t understand the implications of a devastatingly heavy period. I’ve always had the same throughout my life and you can’t just “use a tampon”.

Nightime pads and the biggest tampons you can find used together probably buy me 2hrs, no way I could swim in a pool, then lie on a sunbed reading a book afterwards.

For years I’ve had awful holidays because it always seems to coincide with my period. Last year I went to the gp and was prescribed the progesterone and it was life changing. Totally stopped everything for 10 days.

Flooding etc when you are at home is manageable because you have a washing machine and no one else knows, but in a hotel on holiday it would be really embarrassing flooding the bed every night and needing to wash clothes.

If you don’t experience this, and can “just use a tampon” while roller skating in white shorts, please don’t undermine others who do suffer this way.

I think you would have got different answers if you had explained in OP that you experience very heavy periods and regularly pass clots.

There's absolutely nothing in OP to suggest that we were talking about anything other than a normal period.

This from the OP suggests she does have difficulty with her period.

I assumed from the specified 'when you are peri' - I don't love the word or its widespread/loose application, but this clearly indicates we are not talking about the kind of regular and manageable period many of us might have been used to for decades. People go on about brain fog and mood swings, but, IMO, the real struggle, and the one that there is less concerted effort to 'destigmatize' (read: wang on about on Woman's Hour every other day) is just blood!

Op was referring to the way periods become less predictable, there's nothing in OP to suggest that, other than that, they're more problematic.

I had my first period in months while I was away last week. Unexpected and a bit of a nuisance, but it was a perfectly ordinary period. Peri doesn't necessarily mean heavy bleeding. Obviously it's a problem for OP, but she didn't mention that until well down the thread.

Sure, but I'd assume that if someone asked, and has presumably coped with periods without needing to ask for about 20 years, responses like 'simply use a tampon, I never have a problem' is not wildly useful, as the concept of tampons will already be familiar to her.

Except that OP specifically asked about managing newly irregular periods, and made no mention of heavy bleeding.

And the best response to that is 'use a tampon'?

Mirena is a godsend if no contraindications.

I had one and then got it removed as was convinced it was making me sad and fat.

Nope a year later am still sad and fat, but now have heavy periods too. Having a new one inserted next month.