What are common mistakes / wrong pieces of advice you've received?
- Smoke weed to ease period pain (from a man).
- Anything in menstrual TV marketing related to sports/horse riding. I'd love to see a woman just lolling about on the sofa with chocolate like we ought to be doing.
- Using sanitary pads – feels horrible and unsanitary.
- A particular contraception might help with the symptoms – it’s so different for each person. What helps one person doesn’t work for another.
- Honestly, I haven’t had a lot of advice!
- “It’ll get better when you’re older” or “it’s the beauty of life” is hard to hear when due to a hereditary condition I can’t have children so what’s the point.
- Well I suspected I had endometriosis before it was diagnosed because of the amount of bleeding, people don’t really discuss volume of blood much.
- That menstrual cups are disgusting and gross.
- There should be more openness on choices of sanitary product – what to use when and why
- Bleeding on birth control does not mean you are not pregnant.
- Mooncups are bad to use… They can be a bit gross but once you get used to them they’re so much better!
- Wish I knew more re. the pill side effects, and wish I knew more re. toxic chemicals in a lot of tampons, I choose an organic brand.
- That you have to hide that you have your period, that it's in some way shameful.
- You can flush tampons.
- You can't go swimming on your period – turns out you can!
- That using pads are gross.
- That all women experience the same symptoms.
- The pill is always the answer to everything.
- It wasn't wrong advice per se, but no woman around me talked about it openly. My mum of course helped me when it happened, but still she told me about it only hidden in the bathroom. My brother spent all his life making me feel guilty for having a box of unused tampons in the toilet because “it was disgusting”. Come on, they are like cotton pads, please, man up.
- That going on hormonal birth control is the only way to improve severe period pain.
- You need pills to improve your skin (form a gynaecologist at 15 years old); you have polycystic ovaries, so you need pills (and they are not polycystic anymore since I stopped pills); you shouldn't feel anything when on PMS; this is ruining your life, you should take pills; medicine and drugs are there to help you; you are emotionally unstable because of your hormones, take pills – it was not the narcissistic and abusive relationship with my mom and first boyfriend. Sad.
- It is based on mood and if you are depressed it's worse. I don't truly believe that, it's a combination of physiology, hormones and feeling ok.
- The clotting pill – that was confirmed as totally incorrect. Otherwise the big one is “exercise the pain away…” I can’t walk, think or move, my blood sugar is up and down so I get faint when standing too long, the pain cripples me to weeping, I need a toilet nearby for vomiting or diarrhoea so, no, joining you for “even just a brisk walk” is not going to cut it, but I do now feel like you think I’m fat and lazy.
- Lie down. Ignore it.
- Tampons are the answer. I need it all.
- Mooncups are not to be trusted.
- That if you use a tampon you can just crack on with horse riding in white trousers. That tampons and mooncups don’t leak!
- Use pads and tampons. Period pants and menstrual cups are far more comfortable and easier – life changing as you don't need to think about them.
- Exercise helps period cramps. For me, it makes them worse. Also, you’re more likely to injure yourself exercising when you’re on your period.
- Not me, but my sister tried to flush a pad when she first got hers. No one told her it wouldn't flush.
- We all have individual bodies, so the same with skincare and other remedies – it's not one size fits all. Trial and error baby!
- In school, I was told by other young girls that tampons were only for girls that have already had sex – which is of course completely incorrect.
- Just ignore it, then it will go away. Take the pill there aren't any health risks.
- It's all focused on how to be less of a bother to society. But that goes for a lot of things really.
- Tampax will make your toes fall off! We all just have to get on with it and behave as if everything is normal and fine.
- Take birth control, use pads, don't take two painkillers at once, it comes after three weeks again (it was irregular in the beginning – hello first bleed-through).
- That you need to wash your vulva with soap every day. Or you need to use a pad which covers the smell. These perfumed pads are the worst. When a woman menstruates she NEVER smells bad (who even started that rumour?). But I can actually smell it when another woman uses the perfumed pads.
- I don’t receive enough advice, that’s the problem.
- Periods are embarrassing.
- To not talk about how periods impact you and to be embarrassed by talking to men about them or even other women sometimes.
- Take a hot bath for the pain.
- Tampons are going to get lost and you'll die.