Health and Wellness for the Rest of Us
Bloody hell.
After 40, the menstrual floodgates open.
Okay, people over 40 who menstruate: am I the only one who didn’t know how heavy your period can get at this age??
What in the fresh hell?
I’m 45 and this is wild. It’s like The Shining wild.
Like anemic wild. Like I-almost-had-to-have-a-transfusion wild.
I didn’t get my period until I was around 16. I got on the pill right away since I was sexually active, often with people who had penises. As many menstruators know, being on the pill often makes your period lighter or, like in my case, stops your period altogether.
So from my late teens until my mid-thirties, I didn’t worry about periods, cramps, menstrual products, or accidents. I was on the pill — yes, even when I got pregnant, but that’s a story for another time — so didn’t have much of a period to deal with. After I had my son, I was celibate for many years, but went back on the pill because of the benefits to my menstrual cycle.
At a certain point, the migraines I’d been having began to increase and I started experiencing aural migraines, which manifest as arcs of flashing lights in…
