Tag: period pain

  • Clue Plus Review #Periodically 33

    Clue Plus Review #Periodically 33

    One of WordPress’ slightly creepier features allows me to see that a whole bunch of people have been coming to my blog looking for reviews of Clue Plus – the paid-for version of a popular menstrual tracking app. I reviewed it when it was called ‘premium’ and still super expensive, but now that the new and improved version has been rolled out I thought I would update you all on how I found two months using it.

    As mentioned, Clue has made its paid-for version much cheaper. In the UK it now only costs £0.83 a month if you buy a year at a time (£9.96), or £0.99 month-by-month, just a casual £33.03 cheaper than the original version – SO much more affordable. So what about the features, are they more interesting?

    Yes and no. I’ll get to the main feature, forecasts, in a minute but first I want to talk about what else is new. IMG_2986

    Sorry I couldn’t resist that picture placement… Other than the cheaper price and forecasts the only added feature on the paid-for version is that it now notifies you when your period or other menstrual symptoms are ‘out of normal range.’ This is pretty neat and it might help people take their problematic menstrual symptoms seriously, but it doesn’t (yet) consider other data you’ve inputted. For example, I got the alert below, but it didn’t take the fact I’d recently changed hormonal contraception into account and so a 22 day period threw my average off. But, I should add, this might be my fault for not taking advantage of the ‘exclude this cycle’ feature – which exists in the free version and is such a great idea.

    The main feature of Clue Plus is ‘forecasts.’ When Plus was first released it said ‘know the future’ on its call-to-action button, which completely undermined the meaning of the word ‘forecast’ (estimate) but that was soon gone. Unlike when I first trialled forecasts under Clue Premium I actually got forecasts this time – progress! Unfortunately,  notifications appeared sporadically and often in the evening, so I wasn’t sure if it was talking about today or tomorrow. They all come with one of several generic messages, meaning that if you get multiple forecasts one day things are likely to be repetitive, which ruins the great personalised feel Clue used to have. The cool thing about the forecasts feature is that it asks ‘did this happen today?’ and if you answer yes or no it will log it so you don’t have to.

    As for the accuracy of the forecasts… I’m not convinced but I think other forces are at play (in my body, not at Clue), and it makes me wonder: is there any point in tracking your cycle when you’re on hormonal contraception? When I was off the pill it was really interesting and almost fun to track my cycle because I could see how my mood, motivation, exercise habits, libido and acne all varied across it and how certain things, like staying up all night or having a cold, impacted my cycle. It was also vital in helping me spot trends that led me to seek medical help. But on the pill, there’s far less variation or ‘excitement’ and I find myself using and needing Clue less and less. I do use its pill reminder feature but annoyingly it’s been glitchy lately.

    There is one thing I’d love to see from Clue, that I *might* be willing to pay for, and that’s the ability to analyse two categories at the same time. I think this could really help people identify what’s causing pain or other symptoms. 

    So while Clue Plus is definitely an improvement on its last iteration, I’m not sure there’s much in it for someone on hormonal contraception like myself. I didn’t renew my membership but for now, at least, I still use the free version.

    Let me know if there are any other period or Femtech products you’d like to see me try and I’ll see what I can do! Check out my review of Natural Cycles here. 

  • Admitting Defeat? #Periodically 26

    Admitting Defeat? #Periodically 26

    Technically speaking, it’s been almost two months since I last shared a personal update on my tricky situation. Why the hiatus? I’m not sure. I guess my oversharing side took a backseat and I decided, for the first time in a year, to just dwell on things in private. When I write these blogs I poke fun at my situation and force myself end on a positive note. By not writing about it, I’ve had a lapse in perspective and lost my sense of humour about it all.

    Also, the longer I left it the more there was to cover and now I’m not entirely sure where to start. With the good news, perhaps?

    The Third Pill Pack

    So I had a painless period. I don’t mean that to sound so nonchalant – it was a huge deal. I was scared to mention it in case I jinxed it. In fact, the painlessness continued for a couple of weeks after that. I was nervous to admit it. Had three months on the pill really fixed things so quickly and completely? No, was the answer.

    A few days before my next cycle I started to get some of my old pain, mostly the stuff that’s localised to my right side and gets dramatically worse every time I use my right leg. My PMS has been considerably worse since I’ve been on the pill but I’ve also noticed a dramatic drop in my mood the moment I am in pain. This didn’t used to happen. While I wait to sort out psychosexual counselling I’ve just got a standard counsellor for now, and since she can’t help as much with the vaginismus stuff, she’s doing her best to help me counter pain-induced mood swings.

    Around this time, my skin decided that a little acne on the pill would no longer do and broke out into the longest, most relentless bout of acne that I’ve had since puberty. Fab.

    The Fourth Pill Pack

    Old habits die hard, and the painful/grumpy premenstrual days foreshadowed a painful period. My periods are definitely less painful, lighter and generally better than they were before the pill and for the last few bleeds I’ve got away without painkillers, which is another huge victory. What was frustrating however, was that after my period ended, the pain didn’t. I wasn’t all that upset at first because I had a follow up scan a few days after and, as always, I applied the logic that if I was in pain then the scan might pick something up. I had built up to this particular scan more than normal because it was a big deal — if the internal ultrasound showed up clear then the chances were that my gynaecologist would declare that the pill had cured me and discharge me from his care. No pressure then, ovaries.

    When I got to the hospital though, there was no one there. It was a bank holiday and the hospital was closed. I had raised my eyebrows when I got the appointment months ago, but I didn’t question it since it had been outsourced to a private healthcare provider. That was a mistake. I wanted the scan to be that week because if the pill has “fixed” me in the sense that I now grow a cyst in my pill-free week and then it gradually goes away over the three weeks on the pill, then it’s not a particularly thorough fix. Having the scan a few days after my period and being in pain was the best possible time to catch *something* in the act. There’s also the added complication that having vaginismus, even though mine is manageable, means that I have to psych myself up for a transvaginal scan.

    The let down from not having the scan was pretty bad. I was upset. What didn’t help was that the bulging pain in my side continued to get worse and worse and was accompanied by some delightful bloating, only convincing me further that if I’d had the scan that day, they might’ve found something. Even though my scan was rescheduled for a week later, I knew my luck would mean it was a no-go. (I was right).

    I’d been looking forward to this particular week (I had a free house, wahoo!) and was planning to cook and eat and write and exercise (more on that another time) but I was in so much pain, riddled with some of the worst acne I’ve ever had, miserable from the non-event scan and generally very lacklustre, so I ended up regressing seven years and lolling about on Sims 2. I didn’t even read. This was all coupled with a vague work crisis, so basically it was a nightmarish shit-storm of a week.

    When I eventually had the scan it didn’t end up being an entirely negative experience. The sonographer and the chaperone were the two women who scanned me both times they found the cysts and were supportive in the fact that they knew that in cases like this, no news is not necessarily good news. Bizarrely, the sonographer, before inserting (is that any better than ‘penetrating?’ *cringe*) the device, gestured towards my vagina and asked, “are you alright with all that now?” and I WISH I had asked what she meant. Had she realised I had vaginismus way back when? I’ll never know.

    I tried to write off *that week* as a bad week and to carry on after I’d had the scan but the pain was stubborn to shift. I just felt a bit like a sick person again, lying down after dog walks and needing to catch my breath after the simplest of tasks. Pain is knackering. I think chronic pain flare-ups are always harder to handle after getting an ‘all-clear.’

    Pain Management 

    Bracing for the inevitable discharge letter from my gynae, I went to my new, new, new GP to discuss what my options were now. Five weeks or so ago I would’ve been happy with how things had improved on the pill but now I know my pain can still flare up just as much as it used to even though I’m on the pill. While the flare-ups are definitely rarer occurrences, I’m not really happy with this as an end point. There’s also the fact that the scan really hurt, penetration still hurts. It’s still intrusive and upsetting and I’d really just like to be done with it all now.

    Because of this, my GP has finally convinced me to focus on pain management. I feel like I’m admitting defeat because I really want to know what is causing my pain, plus I’m scared that if I never find the cause then the underlying problem may never shift. But honestly, I’m exhausted. Even if it’s only for a little while, pain management seems like the right thing to do, especially with the way my mood is correlating with my pain. So for now, I’m on amitriptyline, a low dose antidepressant that *may,* over time stop me feeling pain. It sounds scary and the list of side effects is TERRIFYING (spontaneous lactation?!) but I’m on such a low dose of the stuff that I’m not too worried for the time being.

    Since I’m going to be staying on the pill as part of this pain management programme, and it’s been long enough that my skin should’ve have calmed down or improved, I’m now on a new night-time gel for my acne. These two treatments combined have a load of risk factors that mean I should avoid sunlight and alcohol — fun summer 2018 for me then — but they’re not hard and fast rules. I’ve also been taking Evening Primrose Oil at my mum’s request since it used to help her PMS and acne. My PMS was particularly bad last week so I doubled my dose of EPO to no avail… worth a shot, eh?

    Let’s hope these guys can work together!

    I’ve definitely let things, pain and otherwise, get the better of me over the last few weeks, which is so frustrating because I have some really exciting things going on and coming up. I want to be able to enjoy it all, so pain management seems like the right way to go.

    Check out my latest review for A Younger Theatre here: Consent, Harold Pinter Theatre.

  • Review: It’s Only Blood – Anna Dahlqvist #Periodically 25

    Review: It’s Only Blood – Anna Dahlqvist #Periodically 25

    Last week I attended the launch of gender, sexuality and human rights journalist Anna Dahlqvist’s book It’s Only Blood: Shattering the Taboo of Menstruation. The conversations on the night, between Dahlqvist, the founder of Bloody Good Period Gabby Edlin and the audience were interesting enough, but the book itself stands out as an enlightened piece of writing about the profound impact that period taboos, period poverty and poor menstrual hygiene have on menstruators’ lives.

    The book was originally published in Swedish and has been translated into English by literary translator Alice E. Olsson. Olsson was at the launch and discussed the fun (and struggle) of translating some of the menstrual colloquialisms.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BjJ2uqLFo_-/?taken-by=baraliteblod

    It’s Only Blood is not a list of historical period myths, instead it’s a contemporary assessment of how reinforced menstrual shame continues to cause harm on a monumental scale. “Even though shame and silence are experiences shared by menstruators all over the world, the consequences become far more serious when an additional dimension is introduced: poverty,” Dahlqvist writes.

    The testimonies, many from school girls and activists from Uganda, Kenya, Bangladesh, India, America and Sweden, are combined with Dahlqvist’s research of UN legislation to highlight the fact that inaction when it comes to menstrual hygiene, education and resources means that many human rights are being violated, and yet, there’s a distinct lack of retaliation by politicians. The book is also coloured with Dahlqvist’s personal anecdotes and descriptions, which makes this serious book palatable – it’s rare to get a non-fiction book that you can’t put down.

    “Power over the period is a necessity, a precondition for participation in public life,” Dahlqvist writes, in reference to the serious social and educational issues poor menstrual hygiene can bring about. When school girls don’t have access to running water or locking doors, their options are rather bleak. If they bleed in public they’ll experience immense shame (the weight of which is only heavier when menstrual myths maintain that seeing or touching menstrual blood is bad luck), returning home to secretly clean and change a cloth at lunchtime, avoiding school entirely or hoping, at risk of infection, that one cloth or pad can survive a whole school day. Unsurprisingly, this has a profound and direct impact on their education. The book also explores how, contrary to popular opinion, these problems don’t go away as menstruators leave school.

    One particularly interesting part of It’s Only Blood is the connection Dahlqvist draws attention to between infections, like UTIs and Bacterial Vaginosis, which can be caused by poor menstrual hygiene, with HIV and HPV (leading to Cervical Cancer). Society, including period product providers, encourages menstruators to aspire to be clean and fresh while simultaneously not letting anyone around them know that they are bleeding. With all this shame and secrecy, it’s no surprise then that students in Malawi dry their menstrual protection under their mattresses or that in Bangladesh, one women hides her cloths in the roof, rather than drying them in sterilising sunlight. It’s a public health issue, why aren’t we treating it as such?

    Not only is Dahlqvist’s book intersectional in the stories that it tells, it also covers the intersections of menstrual hygiene with poverty, politics, commercial business and cultural and social stigmas. If you’re already active in combatting period poverty It’s Only Blood will spur you on and if you’re new to the discussion, the book will motivate you to join the ranks. Activists’ stories of feats large and small show how desperately change is needed, but also how in some cases, how little it takes to dramatically improve things.

    It’s Only Blood perfectly showcases how menstrual shame causes problems for everyone and why shattering the taboos will undoubtedly improve individuals’ lives and society in broader terms.

    Buy It’s Only Blood from Wordery by clicking here.