A Pain in the Junk
Feb. 11th, 2018 11:44 pmI always counted myself lucky among uterus-owners, because my menstrual pain "wasn't bad".
I arrived at that conclusion via a fairly simple rubric.
1: How bad is your untreated menstrual pain? (Mine: immobilized, whimpering.)
2: How long does your menstrual pain last? (Mine: about 48 hours.)
3: How bad is your treated menstrual pain? (Mine: entirely gone.)
4: How much of a pain in the ass is it to get treatment for your menstrual pain? (Mine: barely noticeable, I just have to keep taking ibuprofen to cover me for 48 hours, and ibuprofen is easy for me to get and take.)
5: So for an average period, how badly are you typically actually affected? (Mine: maybe a half an hour of pain before I realized what was going on, then another 20-30 minutes before the ibuprofen kicked in. So only about 12 hours of light agony a year.)
Given that there are many uterus-owners who need heavier substances to knock theirs down to only distractingly painful, and can't always get those things, I felt lucky, and rightfully so.
I arrived at that conclusion via a fairly simple rubric.
1: How bad is your untreated menstrual pain? (Mine: immobilized, whimpering.)
2: How long does your menstrual pain last? (Mine: about 48 hours.)
3: How bad is your treated menstrual pain? (Mine: entirely gone.)
4: How much of a pain in the ass is it to get treatment for your menstrual pain? (Mine: barely noticeable, I just have to keep taking ibuprofen to cover me for 48 hours, and ibuprofen is easy for me to get and take.)
5: So for an average period, how badly are you typically actually affected? (Mine: maybe a half an hour of pain before I realized what was going on, then another 20-30 minutes before the ibuprofen kicked in. So only about 12 hours of light agony a year.)
Given that there are many uterus-owners who need heavier substances to knock theirs down to only distractingly painful, and can't always get those things, I felt lucky, and rightfully so.