Bethany BlackAfter all these years I’m rarely surprised by medical misogyny, but finding out that the research from the first ever tests on period products using blood instead of water were published LAST WEEK is one of those surprises.
Jen@BethanyBlack I thought the squeamishness about period blood was just in adverts. I didn't know it extended to the research, too. That's far more gross than the actual blood.
@BethanyBlack it does explain why a lot of period products are really terrible.
@JetlagJen yep, and why doctors have such a difficult time with what is and isn’t heavy bleeding
@BethanyBlack I had a male doctor dismiss my iron levels as "fine", only to discover a year later that they were "a little anaemic" thanks to a female doctor taking a second look at the figures. No wonder, what with bleeding 8 days out 24, and several of them overflowing a cup in an hour.
Dagnabbit, Pascaline! 💥@JetlagJen
I had almost the same! periods lasted 12 days (sometimes more) and were every 3.5 weeks. They were very heavy; it often felt I kept dropping organs on the floor. Plus a lot of pain. It took way too long and all doctors were male and said "This is just part of how you function." and "It's normal".
There's a lot of variation, but that's definitely extreme. A patient saying "this is a problem" should be enough for a GP to take it seriously.
Elizabeth M, stationer@JetlagJen @BethanyBlack at one point I went back to pads/tampons to get a baseline that my GPs could understand "Oh yeah I bleed through a super tampon in about 15 minutes" meant something to them