So we all know that adverts for sanitary towels are kind of ridiculous. The day one of us gets a blue period will be a weird one, that’s for sure, but if these adverts are anything to go by then one would assume that was the norm…
Sometimes, of course, they are so bad they are funny. But every so often you get one that really grates. The new Always adverts do just that. Alas, I cannot find them on Youtubz (if you can, link me up!) but they all carry the tagline ‘Have a happy period’.
Um…did they think this one through?
Anyway, the reason for me sharing this with you, other than my general annoyance, was this incredible letter which my friend showed me recently in response to said adverts’ tagline.
Read it. It is awesome 
I always struggle with this one, though. My periods can be pretty debilitating, but this is often used as a reason for women being seen as less suited for jobs than men (often joined with the idea that these womenfolk have babymaking powers, which can get mighty troublesome *sigh*), so acknowledging how much it affects me seems to legitimise these prejudices. Ultimately, though, it simply legitimises the claim that one’s menstrual cycle isn’t a bundle of laughs. It does not legitimise the idea that women are therefore in some way inferior, or less able. Hell, you could argue we’re stronger for it – it’s not often you come across men who have a regular, crippling pain which they work on ignoring, and who try to continue living normally despite it.
Which brings me to another point. If men suffered a monthly pain and knew what it was caused by, do you think they’d have found some way of easing the pain by now? (They being scientists etc, rather than men as a whole, of course). Do you think there’d have been a focus on relieving men of period pains, constant attempts and tests, scientific research and the likes, in the way that there doesn’t seem to be for our pain? In the same way that illnesses like endometriosis are under-researched, cures for period pain are few and those that do exist aren’t consistent. The most highly recommended help for such pain that I’ve received is The Pill – but to stop one’s period altogether is surely just ignoring the problem? And it’s messing with one’s insides in a way which I’m sure could be avoided. That said, it helped my mother when she used to faint monthly (when she was my age, 18. She’s now in her 40s, and there’s been no progress.) and has helped several of my other friends. The main problem for me with The Pill is that it means that you can’t get pregnant, obviously – but why should a woman have to exchange the ability to reproduce with the suffering that is caused by menstruation? Surely there is a way of easing the pain without ending the menstrual cycle? Other than The Pill, my doctor gave me meds which didn’t work, and there’s feminax, which I find works sometimes. Nurofen Meltlets (I can’t take tablets) are also quite good, but they aren’t specifically for period pain and, again, are unpredictable. So there’s a plethora of painkillers for general pain which can be used, but there’s little in the way of medication specifically for ‘women troubles’, and even less which works.
This needs to be addressed!
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August 28, 2008 at 9:47 am
Jacob Ward
Yes, and we’ve also all been suffering from colds and flu and headaches and any number of other ailments since the dawn of time and yet there is no product on the market which will actually cure any of these, rather than masking the pain. You well know how debilitating my migraines have been, how much school I’ve missed etc., and I for one would jump at the chance to get rid of them, and regard a temporary inability to impregnate someone as an added bonus. Period pain tends to be worst felt in people of our age group, the majority of whom don’t particularly want to get pregnant, and if they decide they do they can always stop taking the pill, conceive, and not have any periods for another 9 months. Taking the pill is no more ‘messing with one’s insides’ than taking antibiotics.
There are a lot more self medicating products available for women than there are for men, as women buy more of them, and a magical medicine which cured period pain would make the pharmaceutical company very rich indeed, so the gender of the scientists is hardly the issue (by the way I was intrigued by the implication that all scientists are male, given a previous post of yours on the importance of female scientists).
Period pain has a cure, with the added contraceptive bonus. Take it if it bothers you so much, otherwise get used to it as I have been forced to do with my migraines for the past 18 1/2 years, because that’s the best you’re going to get.
August 31, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Matt Gates
Whoa Jake! That’s a load of bull! From the off, Caitlin’s point was about the under-research into period pain. In contrast, there is a vast array of specific products that are available to alleviate headaches and migraines, such as pizotifen (which is, by the way, supposed to prevent migraines.) Even if you could compare a migraine with period pain the point still stands- one is thoroughly researched- the other is not. Even some products, which are supposed to help with period pain, are no more than simple mixes of paracetamol and codeine (i.e Feminax) which are ineffective in a lot of cases- and highlight the lack research into period pain specifically. Second major hole in your argument; the pill can be extremely dangerous for many women with side effects ranging from weight loss/gain to even strokes. So, in fact, the pill is not a handy ‘cure all’ for period pain at all. As for your claim that Caitlin implied that all scientists are males think her point was that a majority of scientists are male, not that female scientists are unimportant!
August 31, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Caitlin
Thanks Matt
Jake – Christ, if that’s how you talk to your friends I’d hate to be your enemy! I’d pick apart your comment like Matt has done but is that really necessary? Re-read it, think it through – is that how you meant to respond? Is that what you really mean?
I will say though, before you claim that “the pill is no more ‘messing with one’s insides’ than taking antibiotics”, please do your research. Seriously. The Pill has been connected to several illnesses, including cancer, and strangely enough halting the menstrual cycle is making a considerably larger change to what is natural than stopping a headache.
September 7, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Jacob Ward
Clearly there’s no point in me continuing my argument, but I feel compelled to make a couple of points.
I’ve been having migraines (which btw, I damn well can compare to period pain) for my whole life so don’t presume to patronise me with the results of your Google searching. I took Pizotifen for 2 years and it did bugger all save give me some rather unpleasant side effects which I won’t go into.
I fail to see what you expect pharmaceutical companies to discover – we know what causes period pain, there’s a way to stop it altogether, and the only way to deal with pain is with painkillers (incidentally Feminax contains the same stuff in the same quantities as what I take for migraines).
Yes, the pill has been inconclusively linked to a slight increase in diagnosis of breast cancer, but studies are so far contradictory. However, there has been noted a 40% reduction in instances of ovarian cancer and 50% reduction in instances of endometrial cancer, rising to 80% after 10 years of use, besides helping with acne etc.
Anyway, I’m confident my words will be ignored so I’ll leave it there.
September 7, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Caitlin
Oh no Jakey, they won’t be ignored, they will be felt. Strongly.
You can compare migranes to period pain, if you wish. But you will only offend me, and no doubt any other woman who you speak to about it. Unless you experience both, you cannot possibly even begin to compare them.
Matt didn’t Google search, he spoke to a pharmacist. Not that that matters – indeed, his being wrong has led you to make an interesting point. Pizotifen is claimed to cure all headaches, but didn’t stop your migranes. It had bad side affects instead, and it didn’t help you at all.
Right.
You follow that with a claim that the Pill is the cure for period pains, and that the side affects are probably not real anyway (following what, may I ask? A Google search perhaps? I’d love to know).
Do you see how much you are contradicting yourself?? Feminax, in the same way as Pizotifen I suppose, does not always work. It hasn’t worked for me. Nor does the Pill. Indeed, both have failed to help lots of women who continue to suffer period pain. The Pill is known to have side effects, in the same way that Pizotifen did for you. So how you can claim that there’s a way to stop period pain altogether leaves me totally flummoxed.
I will reiterate, though, that the issue is not whether period pain is less/more/equally as painful as migraines. The issue is that migraines have been researched, various potential cures have been put forward and it is accepted that this is something debilitating, which needs a cure. Period pain, however, is under-researched and little/no progress has been made in the last 30 years, as is the case for a great deal of (if not all, bar breast cancer) issues affecting only women.
I don’t know why this has offended you so much, or why you think it is acceptable to respond to my post in such an aggressive manner. It’s very saddening.
September 7, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Matt Gates
Caitlin has pretty much said it all there. Indeed, I did speak to a pharmacist and note I said ’supposed to’ prevent migraines not ‘will definitely cure all’ – still this is beside the point. Whether you can compare migraines to period pain in regards to pain- I don’t know (although, if I were a betting man, I’d doubt it somehow) is not the point- it is not comparable in regards to research conducted into it. The idea of research and drugs to help prevent migraines is trying to cure the problem. The idea of having the pill cure period pain is like trying to cure a pain in the arm by using local anaesthetic permanently!
Again, the emphasis/ point Caitlin’s making is that there is little thought or research given to period pain- we don’t specifically know what causes it or why it affects women to varying degrees. This is just an illustrative case which highlights the lack of medical research into issues that solely affect women- the tip of a large iceberg- that IS the point.
September 14, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Jacob Ward
The original basis of my comparison between my migraines and your period pain was not the level of pain; no I don’t know how painful it is for you, but you don’t know how painful it is for me either and I maintain that
September 14, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Jacob Ward
Wtf, I didn’t tell it to post.
I’ll start again.
September 14, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Jacob Ward
The original basis of my comparison between my migraines and your period pain was not the level of pain; no I don’t know how painful it is for you, but you don’t know how painful it is for me either and I maintain that my pain probably is comparable. Rather, it was the fact that, regardless of the relative pain of our experiences, they are both inescapably regular and cripplingly painful.
I looked into the pill some time ago, as I wanted to know about the risks of what someone I love is taking on my account (and no I didn’t force her into it at gunpoint). This is what the FPA has to say on the subject of side effects (note bullet point 4 of ‘are there any risks’ and the fact that ‘Research has NOT shown that women put on weight when they use the combined pill’) http://www.fpa.org.uk/information/leaflets/documents_and_pdfs/detail.cfm?contentid=130#8. I can’t be arsed to spend half an hour digging out any more links for your entertainment.
If Pizotifen were indeed a migraine cure, then I’d take it despite the side effects I experienced. It’s not really comparable with a painkiller, as it’s preventative rather than a painkiller.
There has been no progress in the past thirty years not because pharmaceutical companies sit around laughing maniacally at the thought of preventing women who suffer from severe period pain from reclaiming that fourth week of the month, but because there are two ways of dealing with a pain; preventing the cause of such pain or numbing it. The only way to prevent period pain is by preventing periods. There are a plethora of painkillers on the market (I should know, I’ve taken all of them) and they may not always work for period pain (they don’t for my migraines), but there is no alternative, besides starting to sell morphine over the counter. Just a tip by the way, Feminax seems to be a swindle to me (much like a product called Migralive), if it’s purely 500mg paracetamol and 8mg codeine, as this is available from all chemists as generic co-codamol and is probably a lot cheaper. Anyway, what, besides the lack of progress, is your evidence that period pain is under researched? I’ve tried to look into it, but a google search of the words ‘”under researched” period pain’ comes up with your blog as the first item and nothing informative.
I’ll leave it there since, rather appropriately, I’m in agony as, having had two wisdom teeth extracted so far, the bottom socket has become infected. Woo.
October 6, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Eleanor Humphrey
I’m a little late to the party here, but I’ll put my two cents in anyway because siding with Jake in a Jake/Caitlin discussion is a new experience for me. I can’t speak with any authority on migraines or period pain, because I’ve never suffered from either of them, but I’d say they were comparable.
First off, there is a proven way to stop all period pain, and it works for everyone. It’s a hysterectomy. However, this is evidently not suitable for 99% of women, any more than a brain-ectomy would be suitable for migraines. Less drastic is a form of scarring the uterus that has been shown to work for most women. (This http://www.sheknows.com/articles/803520.htm is all I can find on the subject, but I know i saw it on a beeb documentary a couple of years ago. The link also shows research into the causes of period pain)
Neither of these are valid options for women who who have yet to have children though. That’s where the pill comes in. It doesn’t work for everyone, but not taking it on the basis that is stops the menstrual cycle is stupid. The pill doesn’t stop the menstrual cycle and is in no way ‘exchanging the ability to reproduce’. It overrides the natural menstrual cylce, is a temporary measure for stopping pregnancy, prevents some cancers, and has little or no effect on future fertility. It doesn’t work for everyone, just like Pizotifen, but itis liekly to make periods lighter. It has side effects, as does every medicine, but given the number of women who have taken it over the past forty years if there were any major issues they would have shown up by now. Pregnancy is also very reliable at stopping period pain.
Period pain is under-researched, becasue there isn’t a large amount of money to be made, but this is the case for many illnesses and conditions, the vast majority of which are not gender related. The percentage of women who have period pain that cannot be helped by any of the above measures is tiny, and this is why it is not a higher prority for medical researchers.
October 6, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Caitlin
How can you begin by saying you’ve never experienced either, and then compare them? Come on Elly, how can you possibly know?
The fact of the matter is, there isn’t much research into health issues affecting women. Full stop. Breast cancer is the one obvious exception (I wonder why), and the one example everyone seems to think will combat the suggestion that women’s issues aren’t looked at in enough details. If you just step back and look at the various illnesses that are investigated and for which there are mainstream medications, that you can get in your average chemist, there is a clear lack of research into and accessibility of information about women-specific illnesses. Like endometriosis, which most women have never heard of, which affects millions of women worldwide, for which the ‘best’ cure that has been found is pregnancy…
I never suggested one should not use the pill if it works for them. I believe if a woman finds a way to ease her period pains she should grab it with both hands, and lucky her. But it is altering the natural menstrual cycle, and IS exchanging the ability to reproduce, not permanently but temporarily. If you want to reproduce, you take the pain. That can’t be right.
It also can’t be from there not being much money to be made – it does affect a vast amount of women, and we do make up over half of the population…so if there were a way of preventing the pain without preventing the possibility of conception, they’d make a shitload of money.
October 6, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Eleanor Humphrey
I figure period pain and head pain both come in degress. You can get the sort of vague backache that I get on my period, or you can get crippling curled up in agony for two days unable to move type of period pain. Likewise, you can get dehydration headaches that can be cured sitting down and drinking water, or you can get cripping migraines that remove all possibility of normal life. I think that’s comparable. After all, have you ever had a really bad migraine, or Jake a really bad period pain?
If women want to concieve, then they can come off the pill. It takes an average of six months to concieve, so six months of v. painful periods, nine months without, and then the pill again. (ignoring that awful bit at the end of the nine months!) Not the best solution in the world, but not the worst.
We do make up half the population, but assuming that any new treatment comes with side effects, as all medicines do, what proportion would have pain severe and untreatable enough to take it? I’d guess a relatively small proportion.
Things like period pain aren’t fashionable, so they do get ignored, but I don’t think it’s entirely on gender grounds. With the exception of erectile dysfunction( again, obvious reasons), most male genital conditions are also under-researched. Migraines affect a small part of the poputation, and we have very little idea of what causes them. Drugs companies want to make money, so afflictions that are high profile and affect lots of people get money thrown at them, and if they don’t then tough luck. it would be easy to test whether a period pain drug worked, less so an SSRI, so the drugs comanies come out with SSRIs instead.
I don’t think it’s right or fair, but I also don’t think it’s an issue that affects only women, and it’s wrong to paint it as such. Endometriosis is underresearched, but then so are chronic pain and phantom limb pain. There’s no money in any of them.
October 6, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Jacob Ward
So you can’t compare things if you haven’t experienced them? Pain is a personal thing so no one can know how painful something is for something else; some women find childbirth more painful than others for example. When I asked several of my female friends/relatives, all of whom have suffered from severe period pain, far from being offended at the suggestion that migraines are comparable with period pain all went as far as to say that migraines were for them far more unpleasant.
Your argument that there is a lack of ‘mainstream medications’ available for women-specific conditions in an ‘average chemist’ and therefore there must be a lack of research into said conditions is clearly a false syllogism. Medical science is not as simple as that, no matter how much you want it to be.
What possible motivation do you suggest pharmaceutical companies have for not researching women-specific conditions? As the brother of an employee of one, I’m well aware that the majority of them make only a very small profit or even a loss each year as production of generic drugs is unprofitable and the real money is in innovation. As you rightly pointed out (and I did earlier on in this discussion), there would be a massive market for such a miracle cure and it would make the pharmaceutical company very rich indeed. These organisations are not stupid and as such are highly unlikely to pass up such an opportunity; I will ask you again, having been ignored the first time. Where is your evidence that such conditions are under researched?
Unless faced by biological problems, women shouldn’t experience too many periods between starting to attempt to conceive and conceiving, so they won’t have to put up with pain for all that long before getting a 9 month holiday before the joy that is labour.
As Eleanor pointed out (the rest of this was written without reading her comment), male specific illnesses receive just as little (I would argue far less) coverage in ‘your average chemist’. I recently suffered from an affliction which can affect both genders, though mainly women, and literally all products which are in fact suitable for both genders are marketed solely towards women and the stupid bitch in Boots (working at the pharmacy no less) refused to sell me the cure on the grounds that I was a man.
October 7, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Caitlin
Look, I don’t have time for this. Jake, your earlier comments were offensive and upset me – I decided to leave this, and I’m sad that it’s been brought up again.
Let’s have this discussion another time.
March 24, 2009 at 1:11 am
brunettekoala
hi. Sorry to butt in here.
1. I suffered from migraines, and my Mum still does – she is severely debilitated by them. I’m lucky enough to have been able to avoid what sets off my migraines by avoiding certain hormone treatments and foods, so it’s now rare for me to get one. Unfortunately this has been at the sacrifice of…
2. I suffer from extremely debilitating period pains which some doctors think may connected to endometriosis. These are not just ‘bad period pains’ (which I used to get when I was younger). This is pain that has caused me to collapse, concuss myself, rendered me unable to walk, sit or stand, vomit, scream, make even going to the bathroom cause me to scream and cry in pain.
Where my Mum’s medications have changed throughout the last 20+ years as research has been put into things, and there have been new drug treatments on the market, my treatments have not changed.
Pain medication that is on offer has no effect on the crippling pain that causes me to faint, throw up, scream. You know there are some women who have endometriosis who need no pain relief in childbirth because it’s actually less painful for them?
Pain medication did however treat my migraines. It might not ‘cure’ them. But it did have some effects. I’ve also been able to discover what triggers them off, and discovered that they are caused by the ‘contraceptive drugs’ we can go on.
The other point is that those drugs were designed as contraception. Not treatments for this disease – they treat a symptom not a cause. If you’re on them for extended periods, then you are likely to develop other problems…lack of oestrogen if you are on progestergone only treatments can lead to osteoporosis, fibromyalgia. Combined contraceptives can increase risks of DVT, breast cancer, severe depression and a whole host of other issues.
While I don’t think that migraines are any worse/better than period pain, please understand that they are different. And for many women, they are connected. Lots of us are dealing with both.
A hysterectomy will mean your body has a severe hormone imbalance. After a hysterectomy you will go on hormone treatments that again will put you at higher risk of cancer, osteoporosis, ME, depression, facial hair, obesity.
There simply isn’t enough awareness of many ‘embarrassing illnesses’. When I’ve tried to explain my symptoms to some doctors, they’ve got embarrassed and as a result not asked the right questions, making me feel even more humiliated and like a pariah.
I actually used to work as a health scientist, and can assure you that many things like ‘period pain’ are underresearched. Many because it’s so seemingly mundane I think. It’s the illnesses that will get the media attention that get researched purely because charities will be able to raise funds to do the research.