HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Coping With Period Pain
Making peace with my periods after years of agony
If you have ever experienced severe period pain, then you know first-hand how debilitating it can be.
For some lucky few, the monthly bleed comes and goes with relative ease, and cramps might come once in a blue moon, if at all. For others, every month brings a jackhammer-like thudding in the pubic region, heavy bleeding, back and leg pain, nausea, and diarrhea.
I spent around three decades struggling with these horrendous kinds of menstrual cramps, and it was miserable.
I came to dread each month, counting down the days until “the curse” would return to blight my entire existence for seven days (or more, sometimes).
I would plan my life around it, schedule work shifts and holidays to try to avoid the times when my period might turn up. This could, at times, be a bit of a guessing game, as my cycle wasn’t always regular. Wherever possible, I tried to avoid having to be anywhere during the first one to four days of my period, knowing that I would likely be spending them in a fetal position on my bed and cuddling a heat-pack, in between urgent dashes to the loo.
