[A_perfect_lady]

When I was a teen, I vomited and passed out the first day of each cycle. Now that I’m older, that has gone away, but it still really is a miserable time. It’s like a hangover combined with mild flu, those first 2 days. I power through, but ... it’s miserable. I can’t wait for menopause.

[Little Bill]

Is it not a wonder that the menstrual hut has not made a come back. It was a gathering place for all of the ladies, Menstrual Cycles have a tendency to coordinate in small populations.

There they can share womanly wisdom, plot against mankind, and share the wisdom of their elders in a cult like way,

[MD Expat in PA]

For some women, their menses is so severe and is quite debilitating and is a very real medical condition. It could be Hypermenorrhea or Dysmenorrhea and sometimes it is because of endometriosis. Sometimes these very real medical conditions can be treated with drugs (actually sometimes birth control pills are proscribed because they regulate hormones and normalize the menses) and sometimes it requires a DNC or in the most severe cases, a hysterectomy is in order if it is because of severe pre-cancerous fibroids. I had a relative who suffered from that and it only got worse after she gave birth twice. After many years of suffering from it and having blood flows every two weeks, sometimes continuously for weeks at a time and so severe that she developed severe anemia, her GYN finally agreed to a hysterectomy that she had been begging him to do for years and she doesn’t regret it at all even though she was only in her mid 30’s.

In the case of a documented medical condition, these women are, if they work for a large employer, already covered by FMLA and while they probably have to cover their absences with PTO or paid sick leave or allowed to take time off without pay, they are already allowed intermittent absences without fear of losing their jobs under FMLA if it is for an allowable and documented medical condition. So there is IMO no reason for an employer to create any special paid off time policy for them. They would and should not be treated any differently than any other employee, male or female with a legitimate medical condition. But OTHO, for most women, a normal menses, while it makes us feel quite miserable, bloated and irritable for a day or two out of the month is typically not something that requires any time off from work.

I was pretty much in the “normal” scale but OTOH, perhaps once or twice a year, especially when I was younger, I’d have a period so heavy, with so much passing of big blood clots, that nothing, not even the super sized tampons along with “heavy day” pads were enough to stem Aunt Flo (and not to go all TMI here or over share or make you guys sick and pass out, but there is nothing quite as embarrassing as bleeding out through a tampon and heavy pad and into your underwear and through your pants or skirt – but I bet a lot of you gals on FR know what I’m talking about).

And I am no wimp when it comes to pain – I went to work having a severely sprained ankle, lower back pain that made it difficult to drive or even stand up straight, a broken finger and one time a bout of rotator cuff shoulder tendonitis that made me nearly scream with pain and I didn’t miss a single day from work.

But then there were those times with my period that I had nearly flu like symptoms; a severe headache much like a migraine and so bad that I could hardly see or keep my eyes open, had to stay in a darkened room and then there were the body aches, a fever and chills and the severe cramping that made me double over with pain and no amount of aspirin Tylenol, Midol, helped at all. Most times, I’d just tough it out but there were some times that I was feeling so ill, that I’d call in sick from work and lay in bed all day with a heating pad. I never told my mostly male bosses that I was calling out sick because of my period; rather I’d tell them I had a stomach bug or a migraine. If I had a female boss however, I would tell her I was having a very bad period and she would completely understand.

I recall one of those very few times that I stayed home from work because of a very heavy and extremely painful period, my husband came home and complained that I was still in bed, that I hadn’t done anything like mowing the lawn since I was at home all day for “no good reason” in his opinion, and that hadn’t cooked any dinner. He seemed to think that having a period was no big deal and that I was just being “lazy”.

Then I asked him how he might feel if he felt like if parts of his lower intestines were being sloughed out and he was basically hemorrhaging blood internally and passing it out through his penis. And I reminded him that he was the man who nearly passed out when he cut his finger on a kitchen knife and then nearly passed out again in the ER when he had to get a mere couple of stitches, that I had to drive him to and from the ER and listen to him complain about it for days and how he couldn’t even take out the trash because he was “injured”.

I can’t wait for menopause.

Aside from about a year of hot flashes and night sweats and a temporary weight gain, that have now gone away completely, at age 52, I don’t miss having a period at all : ),

FWIW:

Alice Cooper - Only Women Bleed - Lyrics