Tag: Menstruation

  • Period Product Reviews – Thinx, Clue Premium & Me Luna #Periodically 24

    Period Product Reviews – Thinx, Clue Premium & Me Luna #Periodically 24

    Having a blog of this nature means that I am regularly being asked “have you tried…” and the answer is often “yes”. I’m lucky enough to sometimes be sent things to try out, like Natural Cycles and Thinx, and more oftentimes I buy things out of genuine intrigue. Today I want to write a few short reviews about three period/menstrual cycle products that I’ve been playing with lately.

    Thinx – period-proof pants 

    Technically speaking, Thinx call them “period-proof underwear” but I’m British and I can enjoy that alliteration!

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    My first impression was, “they look bloody massive!” And that’s coming from the queen of ginormous pants. Honestly I think it was just because I’m not in the habit of laying out a new pair of pants for a photograph, but what makes them feel bigger is the fact that they are quite substantial. The Thinx site boasts of its four-layer technology including a layer of “moisture-wicking cotton,” whatever that means.

    I’ve heard a lot of good things about period pants and even more about Thinx as a brand itself so I was excited to give ’em a try. Supposedly they can carry up to two tampons worth of blood, impressive. Thinx recommend you either use them solo on lighter days of your period or as back up for a tampon or cup on heavier days. I tried solo on a lighter day first and was immediately alarmed by a smell. Am I doing that TMI thing again? Who cares. There was an odour that I can’t say I am used to, and it wasn’t like that sanitary towel smell you get if you open a draw of pads, it was an unhygienic and unpleasant smell. Funnily enough, I didn’t ask anyone to sniff me to see how noticeable it was, but it was pungent enough to annoy me.

    Rinsing them is no ickier than rinsing out a menstrual cup and after that you just throw them in the wash and air dry them. I was disappointed that after the first wash there were a couple of threads pulling away from the waistband but it hasn’t affected how they feel which is undoubtedly more comfortable than a sanitary towel. The next time I tried them as a back up to a cup and they worked really well. There was still a smell but not nearly as potent.

    Conclusion: I love the idea of having a totally waste-free period but I’m not sure I’m sold on period pants after this experience. I’m open minded though and as always, I think it’s a step in the right direction! Also heads up, it’s a US company and I had to pay import tax before I could collect the package, but this might be because I didn’t pay shipping since the company sent them to me for free. 

    Clue *Premium* 

    Well this is what they called it when I purchased it but that word seems to have disappeared now. It seems it’s now a “Clue Membership”.

    We know I love Clue. As a menstrual cycle tracking app I have raved about it since my second menarche (I know that’s not actually a thing). I don’t think #Periodically would exist without it. I’m even a Clue Ambassador.  I do wonder if what I’m about to write might get me kicked out of that club. I hope it doesn’t because I think part of an ambassador’s job is to raise any red flags.

    Last summer it became pretty clear that Clue were looking for ways to make money, fair enough. The app is so clean and lovely that it would’ve been a shame to see it riddled with adverts or if they’d started selling users’ data to third party companies. So they announced they were going to introduce some paid features into the app – Clue Premium. I defended the decision at the time. Clue has served me well for a long time, I was, am, happy to support the company in all the good it’s doing. Until I saw how much they were charging. In the UK, if you want to pay month-by-month it will cost £9.99 each month. To pay for six months in one go it’s £31.99 and for a year it’s £42.99. That’s bonkers. One of the main reasons I’m trying menstrual cups and period pants is to save money on my period. Now I’ve got that money back, I’m hardly likely to invest £40 a year on my period all over again. However, Clue promised that everything that was available on the app before Premium would still be available on the free version of the app.

    So what extra features could Clue possibly introduce to justify £40 a year?  When Premium was rolled out to everyone, it made itself known by sending notifications every now and then saying “you have a new Forecast today,” and when you tried to view the forecast it would ask you to pay. Again, fair enough. So I paid for a month. I was very sceptical, but I wanted to see if it was worth £9.99. The notifications stopped. Every time I clicked the forecast button I was told “we can’t see your Forecast yet. Track your health everyday so Clue can provide a personal Forecast.” “The more you track, the smarter Clue gets,” it told me. Let’s be clear, I input an incredible amount of data into Clue every day. In fact, I’ve just checked and the last time I didn’t track was in March 2017. I have tracked upwards of 20 different categories daily for over a year, and more sporadically almost three years. If Clue can’t create a Forecast from my abundance of data, whose can they?

    An entire cycle went by without a single forecast. I was ten quid down, nothing up and pretty pissed off. And then, a couple of days before my subscription was ending I got a forecast, and then proceeded to get it for a few days. At the end of the second day of my period it told me that today and tomorrow I could expect to feel focussed. That figures, it’s something I’ve noticed thanks to Clue and that I try to exploit. It had some interesting information about hormones and asked me to confirm if I was focussed, both good things but it was pretty anti-climatic.

    I reached out Clue half way through my trial to check I was doing everything right, they were as friendly as ever and explained that, “we’re currently working on improving the algorithm which shows Forecasts, so that it can pick up more from the patterns the user has tracked. Keep an eye out for improved forecasts (and additional Premium features) that will be launching in the next month or so.” Typically, the day my subscription ended there was an app update which included notification of your cycle going out of range as a new Premium/Membership perk.

    Conclusion: Maybe I need to give it a longer trial but honestly I cannot justify spending more money on an app reading data for me when the app makes it so easy to read in the first place. This might be the problem with Clue Premium; the free app is so good that it’s difficult to imagine what premium features they could make worth the money. Forecasting is an interesting idea, but as it is now, it is not worth £42.99 a year. I think it was wrong for Clue to charge so much for so little so early on.

    *Update!*

    Me Luna Menstrual Cups

    Me Luna is the only cup brand I’ve tried but it hasn’t given me a reason to look elsewhere.

    meluna

    I’ve talked about my early experience with a menstrual cup in way too much graphic detail, but I haven’t really mentioned it since. I started with a soft Me Luna cup and while I think it was right for learning how to use it and going easy on my messed up reproductive system, I was still having some issues with leaking and wanted to master the art.

    So I upped the anti and ordered a classic cup, which was terrifyingly rigid in comparison to the soft cup. And yet, since I’ve found my fold (#FindYourFold) it wasn’t an issue, in fact, it was an improvement. I find it never moves out of place any more, it pops open easier and I only leak when I am extraordinarily heavy, which is a rarer occurrence now I’m on the pill. I do notice my internal pain issues a little more with the firmer cup, but only on insertion – once it’s in there are no issues.

    On a slightly ickier note, this time I got a dark blue one and I’ve found that staining is far less of a problem compared to the pale cup of my past.

    Conclusion: I can’t fault my Me Luna cup. I feel like I’d already fallen in love with the art of menstrual cupping but changing to a firmer cup has only made me love it more.

    Let me know what you think if you’ve tried any of these products or if there’s anything you think I should try, get in touch: @Hilarysaysblaah

  • A Period of Change #Periodically 21

    A Period of Change #Periodically 21

    Right first of all, some truths, disclaimers, apologies etc. Since I started the pill, and I don’t know if it’s because of the pill or whether it’s just a coincidence, but I have really struggled to start new writing projects. Ongoing projects have been fine, but creatively, coming up with new ideas and starting new sentences has been a challenge. So while it’s been a hot minute (5 weeks) since I started the pill, I’m only now writing about it for the first time.

    It has been a total ride, hell, it still is. From temper tantrums to bowel-crises, emergency gynaecology appointments to jaw aches – the last five weeks have had it all. For today though, I’m just going to focus on the first pill pack and how that was. As many will know, when you go on or off a hormonal contraceptive, or any hormonal treatment, things can get weird for your mind and body. I knew it was coming, but unfortunately that didn’t make it any easier. Knowing it was going to be a period of change for potentially unpleasant reasons, I decided to add some *nicer* changes too, so I bought a new menstrual cup from Me Luna (which I love and will talk about in more disgusting detail another time) and readied my period pants sent to me by Thinx.

    The first pill pack

    When you start a combined contraceptive pill it’s recommended that you take the first pill on the first day of your period. This immediately means your cycle will be shorter that ‘month’ because your withdrawal bleed from the pill will come in three weeks from your last period, not four. I did as followed, of course, and was immediately confused. Despite all the signals my body had been giving me that I was about to have a particularly bad period, nothing really happened. My period had started but not really. At this point I thought two things: 1) woah does it really work so fast – this is kind of great! and 2) but what if the lining of my womb that had built up to shed now never sheds – where’s it going to go?! So as you can see, I was thinking really clearly.

    Going into it I was determined to have an open mind and not to be paranoid about every tiny little symptom I experienced – yeah, surprise to no one, that lasted about 23 hours when I got a migrainesque headache, the first I’ve had since, well, what do you know, the last time I was on the combined pill! “Keep an open mind, keep an open mind,” I said through gritted teeth as I took the second pill. In the morning, on day three, I was actually relieved to discover that my period had properly started. I was in pain, felt a little nauseous, but I always feel slightly relieved when that happens (for like five minutes, don’t get me wrong) – it’s the fifth vital sign and all that.

    And then Tuesday came. I remember that it was a Tuesday very vividly because every week that’s passed since I’ve noted, “it’s been X weeks since that Tuesday. I survived – I can survive anything.” Fuck me – this is why I haven’t written this blog yet because I am trying really hard to block that day from my mind, but in the name of documentation I will relive the experience. In fact this is the furthest I’ve got writing this story so far (deep breaths). It was, to be frank, the most pain I have ever been in in my life. I was expecting things to get worse before they got better, but I also didn’t know that there was so much more pain yet to be achieved by my period. I was woken up by a regular period pain that just continued to get worse and worse and worse throughout the morning. Painkillers did nothing, moving did nothing, lying still did nothing, hot water bottles did a little but I’m fairly sure I burnt the skin on my belly from using them too much. It eased off at lunch and then returned in the afternoon. Honestly, I feel pretty traumatised by it, even now. I was at a point where I was googling “is it totally ridiculous to go to A&E for period cramps?” and I might’ve even convinced someone to drive me there if I hadn’t been home alone. There was vomit and tears, Bridget Jones and chocolate (usually pre-menstrual treats, not menstrual coping distractions). At the end of that fateful Tuesday I remember feeling as though my body had gone into shock. In hindsight now I’m like, “alright drama queen *eyeroll*” but I am also aware that it was really fucking scary and that I never ever ever want it to happen again to me nor anyone else.

     

    Needless to say, this wasn’t an excellent introduction to life back on the pill. I tried, am trying, really hard not to blame the pill but there’s only so much I can do to stop my brain making the connection between horrible, horrible pain and a drug designed to mess with the affected organs. Like I said, now I’d survived that, I could survive anything. Or so I thought until I realised that THIS PERIOD WAS NEVER GOING TO END. Twenty-two days. I bled, for twenty-two days straight. I know they say to expect “unusual bleeding” when you start the pill but come the fuck on. I decided it probably wasn’t too healthy to wear a menstrual cup for three weeks straight and while I tried my Thinx pants (jury’s still out) I only had one pair, and so I had the delight of wearing sanitary pads for three fucking weeks. Sorry for the profanity but TWENTY-FUCKING-TWO DAYS.

    I was also consistently plagued by a few charming new symptoms during this time. One change that I was not particularly excited about was a change in my breasts, which happened quickly and painfully – I’m talking stretch marks on my tits after just five days. Thankfully they seem to have resettled and calmed down now (hopefully!) The other symptoms have namely been: headaches, migraines, an unexpected jaw ache presumably caused by my habit of stress jaw-grinding, growing pains in my legs (please don’t say I’m still getting taller), the mood swings of a 14 year-old, a generally gloomy demeanour and unexpected creative block. The last three have irritated me the most. Not being able to write, whether caused by the pill or not, has just been incredibly frustrating. The way I would describe it is that it feels like someone is sitting on my head and that I can’t look up to see what’s going on. I’m hoping – by the fact that I’ve finally written this blog, that the person on my head has buggered off, but I will be honest and say that I am not feel overwhelmingly positive about the pill so far.

    Back to the twenty-two day period, if you’re good at period maths, it means that I didn’t actually come off my period until I had finished the first pack of the pill. So again, it was hard not to let my brain process the obvious fact that pill = extension of the world’s worst and longest period. True to form I came on my next bleed two days later but that, and the story of the emergency gynae trip, is a story for another blog.

    Enjoy #Periodically? Read the last update here, or check out my review of Natural Cycles here.

  • What I learnt at Clue last week #Periodically 14

    What I learnt at Clue last week #Periodically 14

    Nearly everyday I learn something new from the cycle tracking app Clue. Usually it’s about my own body, a new trend the app has noticed, a connection I thought was a coincidence that actually might be cycle related, or a fact that the app provides in its educational features. Last week however, I was lucky enough to make it to two of Clue’s events, as the blossoming company organised a week of talks in London.

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    Tuesday at Facebook London

    On Tuesday evening I went to Facebook’s London HQ for a talk entitled ‘Hormones and the Cycle’ and on Wednesday I went to a ‘Lunch and Learn’ session on ‘Sex and the Cycle’. The events were brilliant and provided an opportunity to meet people from all walks of life, with one common interest – a desire to learn more about the menstrual cycle. The events were hosted by Clue’s Ambassador Program Manager, Maddie Sheesley, and its Researcher and Science & Education Manager, Anna Druet. This pair of brilliant FemTech advocates both fought the corner for how powerful education about reproductive health can be – teach a girl about her body and you can change the world.

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    Runway East for Lunch on Wednesday

    So without further ado, here are a few things I learnt at Clue this week, that I didn’t know before.

    • PMS as a concept that was coined before we even knew about hormonal fluctuations in the menstrual cycle, and yet we still use the same information to talk about and categorise it. Clue have written about the rarely discussed positive effects of PMS. 
    • I knew that the cervix moved throughout the cycle (as I terrifyingly discovered when I was learning how to use the menstrual cup). What I didn’t know was that it moves up and down throughout your cycle, an occurrence that can improve, or at least change, how sex can feel. What’s more, the combined pill (that’s the standard birth control pill) stops the cervix from moving up and down, it potentially lowers slightly during a placebo week. There are also reports of cervical orgasms – who knew?!
    • Perhaps most interesting for me and my own health was learning that research strongly suggests that chronic pain is worse towards the end of the luteinising phase of one’s cycle – the run up to a period. I clarified at the event, was this reproductive chronic pains or all chronic pain? It is all chronic pain. So when I wrote a few weeks ago that ‘whatever the problem is, it is either worsening or being worsened by my menstrual cycle’ I was right on the money. Even if it’s my kidneys, my bladder, my bowels or elsewhere, it was always going to get worse around my period because pain tolerance goes down. Imagine how useful that knowledge would have over the last year if I’d had it. Knowledge of self is POWERFUL. 
    • Some research has suggested that a low risk of pregnancy can cause people to enjoy sex more – explaining potential peaks of sex drive near menstruation. I certainly know a lot of people that can attest that low risk of pregnancy is sexy.
    • Very early research suggests that the clitoris grows 1/5 of its size during ovulation. That is bonkers!
    • The level of Oestrogen in combined pills has been dropping over the years. Now they start low and build up if necessary.
    • Each time you’re late taking the combined pill the follicle grows slightly. So if you consistently, occasionally forget to take the pill on time, it can eventually lead to ovulation. That is terrifying (but also kind of cool). 
    • The Progesterone Only Pill (POP/Mini-Pill) stops pregnancy by changing the consistency of your cervical fluid to block sperm. I was on the mini-pill for two years and only now do I know how it works.
    • Emergency contraceptives aren’t all equally effective at every point in your cycle – also terrifying and not common knowledge.
    • Most methods (or all, I’m unsure) of tracking ovulation are retrospective –  we can’t yet predict when that moment is going to happen.

    Interestingly, many of the questions from the audience started with ‘I recently came off the pill…’ or similar. So it’s not just something I’m imagining, there is the demand for a contraceptive shake-up. The events did remind me how valuable and life-changing hormonal contraception can be, but if you ask me, there has to be a better way. One of my favourite things about Clue is that the data you input is used in research into the menstrual cycle, so while there’s so much more to learn, at least my data is helping the cause (I hope!)

    To keep up with what I’m doing, follow me on Twitter or Instagram for beautiful photos of my lunch with a side of condoms. Thanks, Clue!