Young people's experiences of periods and period pain

Reham

The first time I ever had my period I was like Year 6, around maybe 10, maybe even nine, ’cause I was a bit early, and that exact day that I got it was actually a day that we were... like the classroom was split: the girls were in one room and we were all taught about it, so it just came on the perfect day, I guess. But I didn’t feel it at all the first few months, but then it started getting really painful the more like time I had it. I remember the teacher would ask... would tell us: “Oh, if you’d like you can ask questions about it:” I put so many questions in the ans... in the question box; I was so confused.

Rosie

We were never taught about cramps or like a physical experience of a period. It was literally just the biology behind it and why, or like at what point in the cycle which hormone correlated with menstruation or the like ovulation, and things like that, there was never any... Again, no‑one ever taught us about what cramps were. No‑one taught us about pads or tampons and which one to use. There was never any kind of even like pain relief advice. There wasn’t any of that, which was strange. And we all had to kind of find out ourselves.

Eidra

It was kind of like a little bonding experience actually, you know, ’cause you all go in the bathrooms and you all chat about it and you all give... I do think like growing up, like young girls, we do... they are very open and we do actually talk about women’s health quite a lot. So, I think, I don’t know, that I think that’s really sweet. I never felt like alone or like it was just me that was going through it.

Yvette

I should have been comfortable talking about it with anyone. I think everyone has a has different experiences. They would share. Then you know what you are going into and what you have to know. I think they will teach you so many stuff if you ask, because lots of education is not based for knowledge, is not from one person. It's basically from everyone. Someone can know something that the other doesn't know, so if you ask and you’re comfortable asking, I think you would get lots of knowledge from it, yeah.

Elsa

Like, girls that I hadn’t spoken to in ages would ask if I had pads. Girls that I didn’t speak to at all would ask if I had, like, painkillers for cramps and stuff, and it was sort of like: “Oh no, sorry, I don’t, but I know that this person probably does.” So, like it is nice that we all sort of try to look after each other.

Poppy

I just think that, you know, getting help is really important if you’re in a lot of pain, and I don’t want anyone to feel like, you know, that it’s... that they should just deal with it and that it’s just normal, because if you’re in a lot of pain, then it’s not normal. And obviously every period looks different for everyone, and it can fluctuate, and it can be heavier some months and lighter the next, but yeah, I just definitely, you know, would encourage people to... to go and get help if they’re in a lot of pain.

Lily

She didn’t ask me a bunch of questions, you know: “How... how high is your pain tolerance?” or, “on a scale of one to 10, how do you rate your pain?” Didn’t ask me any of that. She just... she knew that I was in pain and that she didn’t feel like she needed to ask me those questions of my pain threshold. And she just thought, ‘I’ll try you on these, see how you feel, let me know if you have any problems. We’ll take you off whenever you need to. Let me know if they work.’ And I think because she was so helpful with that, it made me more confident and more relaxed that... that I was getting the help that I needed.