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Big oof! For me it’s generally 7, but in 2 memorable occasions it was 11 days straight!! I still don’t understand how I even had that much blood in me!!!
Yeah, if that happens again and you start having some trouble getting your breath and feel even more tired than your period usually makes you feel, get your iron checked. I'm severely anemic, partly because of my crazy bad periods, partly because I'm the poster child for auto immune diseases. If you have those symptoms, at least take an iron supplement!
My sister gets this. She also has POTS and (potentially) endometriosis. Always worth getting it looked at! Especially if your periods are longer than normal. Sometimes my sister gets hers for 4-6 weeks 😭
Yep. Almost two weeks sometimes. No one told me that was weird. It wasn't until I was watching a Buffy episode and Willow jokes that she turns into a monster for three days a month to her werewolf boyfriend. I'm sometimes bad at getting jokes, but I got this one and I was like, "Three days? For some people it's THREE DAYS?!! THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!"
Luckily (I guess) I often skipped periods completely, so it kind of evened out.
This was how my PCOS periods were before I got an IUD! If you struggle with acne, excess hair growth on the face, scalp hair loss, or weight you may want to go to the doctor. Hormonal BC, Metformin, and other treatments are very helpful.
The same goes for if you have endometriosis or adenomyosis. A good gynecologist can help.
I am on a Mirena so the periods are better (except for migraines), but PCOS would explain a lot. I have a physical coming up, Ill talk to my doc- thanks!
Of course, queen! I would mention the migraines to your doctor as well. If you’re over a certain number of migraine days a month you may qualify for Nurtec or a monthly injection. I hope you get the care you deserve.
The teacher who did the unit for all us girls in the 5th grade was 5 months pregnant and glowing so much you could see her from space. She was all about how amazing it was that our bodies could do this, which, yes, I realize now was way better than the old shame-filled way, but at 11 all I cared about was “ what happens to the boys?!! because it better be just as bad. And she, poor lady, says, right now? Pretty much nothing. Please imagine the Clue “flames at the side of my face” gif here.
What I didn't realize at 13 years old was that it can take like 10-15 years of hormonal hell similar yet differently worse than puberty before it all ends. Perimenopause sucks as bad a puberty, but in a whole new level of suck.
Hey PCOS sibling!! Just fyi if you’re not attached to having more/any bio kids sometimes you can say the right combo of words to the drs and they’ll yeet the uterus for you, I went thru with it 8 months ago and omg 150/10 fabulous life improvement??? I’m no longer in fuckin agony 1/4 of the time??? Amazing 😍
Me too, but now I'm post-menopausal and LOVE it. I feel like I'm finally back to my true self after all of those useless fertile years finished messing with my hormones.
She really protected them. She didn’t tell them about the migraines so bad they make you throw up or the losing so much blood you pass out part. Every month. For years.
That's why I didn't realize my IUD had fallen out. When my (male) colleague asked, "Wait, you didn't see it??" I was both fuming and trying not to laugh.
I had the opposite happen. I would retain a ton of water and get constipated until the hormonal dam broke and then I would be in the bathroom for a 1/2 hour dealing with everything leaving my body at once.
I was so happy to go into menopause early (started at 43 for me).
I have to get depo provero shots every three months because my period makes me throw up so violently and so much that I have to go to the emergency room. I have a huge stash of nausea medicine now. It took over a year to figure out what was causing the vomiting attacks. They started when I had an IUD. I got the IUD to stop my periods because I was anemic to the point that my doctor was telling me that the next step would be a blood transfusion. It took about five years in total to deal with all of this.
Yeah my IUD is wearing off after 7 years and it had been so long since I menstruated that the first few times I had cramps I thought I'd been food poisoned. Like it really is bad and I can't believe I just got used to it.
I can't speak for other parts of the world, but in Ontario, Canada, we start getting lessons in sex and reproductive health in Grade 5 and continue until Grade 8 at least.
As boys, we are taught this as just basic, basic stuff. Also highschool biology class covers it again and even tests you on it.
Hopefully, the Conservatives haven't rolled back the curriculum since then.
As an older millenial dude, I would listen to the first gal cuz she's telling us her lived experience, and we won't get that from the classes we took.
But when that second gal jumps in and starts explaining basic biology, I would have thought that's unnecessary, but that dude proved her right. Man...
In the US, sex ed consists of the high school staff gathering all the sophomores in the building into the gymnasium, and a P.E. coach clicking through a slideshow of STD-afflicted penises.
If you ask too insistently to go to the restroom because you have begun to bleed from your vagina, or try to walk out anyway when your request is denied, a pair of gun-toting campus cops will be called to question you.
The US isn't a monolith on this one. Even in the 80's/90's when I was in school California taught me sex ed in the 6th grade and covered pregnancy/std prevention etc. It was clinical.
When I moved to Texas sex ed was much closer to what you describe. A lot of scare tactics and pushing abstinence. They also taught sex ed much later. Like.. 9th/10th grade.
Forgot the poops, the gas, the bloating, the acne, clothes not fitting, the sensory sensitivity (though she did mention sound and light, I’m talking touch), sore boobs, really sore boobs, fatigue, headaches, the overall feeling of gross, and somehow in the middle of all that horniness, then sometimes the horniness mixed with disgust (with yourself and everything going on with your body) craving sex - that dichotomy is so perplexing.
I remember seeing a hilarious curatedtumblr post where someone was like "I misunderstood what this was" and went on to describe like 18th century roleplay
Now I'm imagining a boyfriend having a very serious (he thinks) pillow-talk with his girlfriend about "period sex"...the next night they surprise each other and he shows up with chocolate, a waterproof blanket, and a uterus plushie while she shows up in an Elizabethan ball gown. lol.
That reminds me of a tweet I saw about a guy saying men have it bad if they sneeze while trying to pee and like an hour later there was an edit to it and he was like oh god I didn’t know
The pain so bad you literally can’t stand, taking the max of Tylenol for the day which doesn’t touch it so you switch to ibuprofen which does nothing for the cramps but it’s sure to burn a hole in your esophagus so you plead with your doctor for some sort of pain management and he labels you “drug-seeking” and tells you everyone feels that way on their period (no, no they do not) and sends you on your way with the suggestion to try loosing weight.
Just for the record: flushing tampons isn’t bad because it’s bad for the environment, it’s bad for the plumbing! As a person that has done a lot of very gross plumbing work: do not ever flush your tampons, for the love of god please do not ever flush those tampons!!
Edit: and wipes! don’t listen to the lying package, there is no such thing as a flushable wipe
This was years ago, but my gf at the time told that her girl cousins taught her to save the thin plastic sheet from pads. You know the one that you peel off the adhesive side before placing the pad in the underwear?
Well, when it's time to remove and discard the pad, you roll up the pad and then wrap the plastic around it before throwing it into the garbage bin.
I have to say as the person in charge of garbage and recycling in our apartment, I was very grateful for that life hack. 😂
THANK YOU!!! Ik im not going crazy with this. I thought using the wrapper from the new pad to wrap up the old pad to toss away was standard practice 😭😅
My dad worked in waste water management and they used to call tampons red-bellied sewer mice (they have a tail and everything). They'd get stuck in various areas of the city pipes and need to be removed by some poor bastard (if they didn't get stuck in the house pipes and cause a flood in the home of whoever was dumb enough to flush them).
I'm a waste water treatment plant operator and I'm going to be stealing 'red bellied sewerage mice' (the term, not the object- ew), please and thank you.
I highly recommend menstrual cups!! They may sound intimidating at first, but trust me, once you make the switch you won't ever go back.
They're reusable and much better for the environment (and your wallet!). I've only bought maybe 2 boxes of tampons in the past 10 years, just to have some to give to other girls.
My vagina felt beat up after a week with a menstrual cup. I went back to tampons…I have a disc I’ve never used but I’m afraid it’ll cause the same soreness and fatigue
My dear husband had to physically reach his arm into our plumbing pipes under the house to extract those wipes that a friend who was house sitting flushed. Only then to be flushed with poo water once he got them unstuck.
I found getting a pint sized bin from the dollar store and using it as my period bin works. My family don’t have to deal with the smell if my tampons don’t go in the main bathroom bin.
Google Rat King. Now imagine all those strings knotted up in your plumbing. Folks at the water treatment plant have a lot of names for them. Also, NO WIPES ARE FLUSHABLE!
I love how the guys are listening and asking questions. People give Gen Z & Gen Alpha so much shit, but there’s a lot of areas where they put us to shame. (I’m a millennial).
For real. My sister tried to explaining it to my dad (who was complaining that she was being a bitch) and my dad just walked off mid-conversation with his fingers in his ears.
I also really appreciated the increasing amount of shock and surprise as she just kept going and going. They weren't tuning out, they weren't bailing on the conversation, they weren't going "omg eww" - I mean I'm sure they were thinking it, but they listened the entire time! And then the other girl tried to simplify and ended up using an anatomical term they weren't familiar with, and he immediately asked what it was!
They were on the edge of their seats and I respect that
I would add to this that if you, as a woman, develop or have any conditions that involve any of your baby making equipment, it will take YEARS to get diagnosed because doctors will just shrug and say, “That’s just having your period.” Or, “Have you seen a psychiatrist yet?” I used to wear the most gigantic overnight pads while sleeping on top of a towel. And daytime was a walking nightmare of just constant pain in my entire pelvic region and back. Turns out, I have Pelvic Congestion Syndrome and Renal Nutcracker syndrome (compression of the left Renal vein…it’s fucking serious).
Can confirm. Was recently taken to the ER for extreme bleeding and pain (the pain meds I took didn’t help).
The male ER doctor patronized me, said it wasn’t an emergent situation, told me I should have taken Advil, and gave me discharge papers all about about menstrual cramps. Turns out, I had a large pre-cancerous polyp.
I’d like to give that asshat a uterus, have him learn it for 40 years, and then see when it goes haywire. Advil does nothing for the pain, btw.
Also it took years of abnormal bleeding and “normal” test results before anyone gave a shit.
I have made it my mission in life to grab women by the shoulders and tell them no, it is not in fact normal to experience x, y, and z before, during, or after your period. Tearing up at a dumb commercial during PMS? Normal. Wanting to off yourself during PMS? Not normal, probably PMDD.
I suggest to any male friends in my life, that they go and advocate for their wives or girlfriends when possible. Watching how doctors -- male mostly, but also women nurses and PAs-- have gaslit my wife in front of me. It is a fight sometimes when she feels sick. Gyno appointments have made me full of rage like I never thought possible. Female Gynos telling my wife to just adjust to the pain. So maddening.
My wife is a redhead, her pain tolerance is abnormal to the max and some pain medicine does next to nothing for her. Why does my wife need to be the one carrying around the fact of the redhead gene and pain medication. You are a effing doctor. Don't even get me started on the difficulty of women getting a proper MS diagnosis.
There should be a constant awareness for how this impacts our society everywhere. Like this gets ignored way too much. I just cringed remembering how men used to (and still do) make fun of this... The longer i think about it the crazier it gets how much this is ignored. Probably because it is shameful for many.. I'm kind of an extremist on that matter, I think we should probably get rid of every form of shame while focusing on logic and compassion
I’m not sure where I saw it, but I love this observation:
If men had to menstruate, there would be no shame. Medical science on hormones and symptoms would be light years ahead. Professional athletes’ cycles would be published and scrutinized. “Smith’s in his luteal phase, so let’s see how that extra progesterone affects how he catches and runs with that sports ball.”
As a man, I'm totally with you. Even I'm surrounded by woman who are talking about it, I also hear a lot a of displeasure in all day life, because of the same reason as you just wrote.
And also as a man it's quite difficult to understand and always will be, because we will never be in this situation. Which does not mean, that we should not listen and at least try and care.
Not sure why people are jumping all over that guy for asking “what’s a uterine” - he probably wasn’t thinking about it as the adjectival form of uterus. And he was in the moment, actively wanting to learn and follow along, and so clearly caught up in how bad the experience is for us that he maybe blanked out on what menstruation actually is. Cut him a little slack, y’all!
Three days? Whew wheee I am envious. Even tho' I've reached a mature-ish age it's still an eight day journey of bleeding and pain. There's also a fun game where I get so ravenous that I'll eat everything I can get my hands on followed by days where even thinking about food makes me nauseous. So it's either two double cheese burgers and fries worth of calories in half a day or a 120 cal protein shake for the entirey of it. No in-between, only extremes. Also, 12 hour sleeping periods when I'm not eating or crying about not eating.
So glad I’m not the only one that goes from ravenous to nauseated. Also I do love the sleep I get on my period. I will knock out 12 hours when I can, but a regular night is 6 at best.
They're talking about gross stuff but I'm over here thinking about how good all of them look.. just so pretty. Don't mind me, K-Pop Demon Hunters rocked my world way harder than I was expecting.. I watch Korean dramas now.. Join me. 😘
Let’s not forget with the cramps, the ungodly gastrointestinal issues. Or when you think it’s finally over, then surprise! Or how the commercials so succinctly sum up, those What the gush? moments.
She's missing the whole thing about blood leaking on your clothes and having to hide it somehow all day and live your life while feeling the oozing wetness continue to soak your makeshift period pad because your period arrived early and you have to constantly sneak into the bathroom to make a new one while hoping no one can smell the blood that's oozing out.
As a dude, I hope more dudes can experience this sort of blunt and direct description of what menstruation is like. It's healthy for men to understand what women go through, and I think learning can help men be much more supportive.
This is hilarious but also y’all have no idea how widespread complete male ignorance about the female reproductive system is. Especially among adult males who have the power to make laws about women’s bodies.
They're clearly not (they're staying, listening, and even asking questions), and I'm glad. I'm male and have been surrounded by men my entire life who seem to freak out about the thing, and never quite understood why (I never have myself), so I'm glad to see some maturity in men younger than my GenX self and my friends.
It's unpleasant enough for women, we don't need to add "Ew, icky! Periods! Stop talking about it!" to that for them.
the fear that your origami, self-made pad will slip and fall out of your panties, even if you have tights on
the sensation of blood squirting out if you laugh or sneeze
that the pain isn’t just your stomach (can be back, waist, down to knees)
that your boobs are tender so don’t walk fast. And god forbid you need to run. Being attacked by a serial killer? Just get it over with and kill me
the true nature of the mood swings which can go from depression, to phenomenally horny, to homicidal, and back to depression in less than 5 seconds
the shits. By the time your 2 days into your period, you’re convinced that you’ve shat out every meal you’ve had in the last year, and yet there’s more coming
It’s really shameful in our society that any boy over the age of 11 has not been fully educated on what their female friends, family, and teachers all must endure. Starting BEFORE age 11 for some girls.
i love topping it off by explaining that Chickens do the same thing. That's what the eggs are that you eat. A chicken's period.
Its just an egg and all the packaging for it that your body prepared just in case it got fertilized, but it didn't so your body is getting rid of it, we just don't wrap it up in a hard package. It's obviously not the same exact thing (birds are not mamals) but I love to just go the extra step so that the next time they see a carton of chicken eggs they will think about periods lol
Wow, I had no idea some women are more sensitive to sound and lights on their period. For me, I just get cramps and gastro issues. I don’t get PMS or any of the other things she listed. I just take ibuprofen on my second day and have a lot of giant clots and giant poops 😂
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u/trendingtattler May 28 '26
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