Last month I was on the train on the way to work in London when I collapsed.
I was late, and as I walked up the station stairs two at a time, my legs were shaking and a stabbing sensation began deep in my stomach.
On the train, the pain increased in intensity, until my entire body was trapped by it. Sweaty and nauseous, I couldn’t stop shaking. My eyes went out of focus, my hands and feet went numb, and I went into a kind of shock.
The pain was so overwhelming that one barely perceived the indignity of being collapsed and moaning in front of a car full of travelers.
Then the train lurched and I fell to the ground, and the contents of my bag, including the painkillers I always carry, spilled around me. A kind stranger gave up his seat and picked up the pills for me and I huddled, clawing at my stomach, until the train glided, agonizingly slow, toward Victoria.
There I spent two hours in the medical room, waiting until I regained my strength to get on the train and limp home.
This may seem like a strange medical emergency, but it was actually menstrual cramps. This degree of suffering is becoming standard procedure for me, as it is for the estimated 14 million women in the UK who experience severe period pain.
Why is it so bad? I wish I knew. No doctor has been able to tell me why I haven’t been able to get an appointment. My local GP is usually quite efficient, but meltdown due to period pain doesn’t seem to be significant enough to get me an appointment that day.
Hannah Drayton collapsed on the train on the way to work last month after suffering painful menstrual cramps.
It has been suggested that it could be endometriosis, where the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, wreaking painful havoc on the body, but despite an estimated one in ten women experiencing it, the average wait time for a diagnosis is eight to ten years.
There is no non-surgical way to identify endometriosis and, while it is not surprising that doctors do not resort to invasive procedures lightly, around 47 per cent of women diagnosed with endometriosis said they had to visit a GP ten times or more before getting a response.
And so, at the age of 22, I am forced to lie in bed for days every month with a hot water bottle, painkillers, and this stabbing, nauseating, depressing pain. And yet our healthcare system doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with this.
While I waste my life this way, erectile dysfunction, which affects 18 percent of men, is researched five times more than period-related symptoms, which affect 90 percent of women.
Bad research encourages dismissal of women’s pain: If doctors are not taught the extent of women’s health experiences, they are more likely to dismiss patients as melodramatic.
All of this means that even when you do manage to see a doctor, no matter how personally understanding they are, the broader framework of available healthcare prevents them from doing much.
I managed to speak to a GP about this a year ago. The pain was not at the level it is now, but it had gotten progressively worse and I was in a greater than normal amount of agony.
After waiting months for an appointment, I was told that it was normal for periods to get worse as I entered my 20s and that I should try the pill, in the hopes of reducing the pain by reducing my periods, and not taking me any closer to a diagnosis. Then they told me I couldn’t take the pill because I have migraines and both things together would put me at risk for a stroke.
Some 14 million women in the UK experience severe period pain
I tried taking the mini-pill (an alternative that uses different hormones) for a few months, but it has much more pronounced side effects. The constant headaches, nausea and fatigue were as bad as the monthly symptoms and I was immediately advised to stop taking it.
Everything I tried seemed to cause more problems than it solved, and since the pain wasn’t as bad then, I gave up.
The train episode wasn’t the first time I collapsed; That was a few months before. Then I got on the waiting list for an IUD, which I’m hopeful for (it works like the pill, but delivers the hormones locally, so it has fewer side effects). But I’m still waiting for a test, and until the waiting list is over, I’m relying on increasingly insufficient over-the-counter painkillers.
All GPs seem to be able (or willing) to offer is birth control, but even if the IUD helps me control my pain, that’s still not a diagnosis. Many of the gynecological conditions that could be causing this carry a risk of infertility or pregnancy complications, which are easier to address the sooner they are known.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to know what’s happening to me and not be content with just finding a way to ignore it.
But because doctors ignore my pain, I find myself trivializing it. Sure, it’s not fun, but I’ve survived this far, right? Almost all women experience menstrual pain and seem to be able to endure it without complaint. Maybe I’m just being melodramatic? Or maybe we’ve all normalized women’s pain because women normally feel pain.
But it’s about more than just saving people pain: a report earlier this month put the annual economic cost of neglecting women’s health at £20bn. Taking an economic hit of billions year after year, because no one can be bothered to research women’s health, makes no sense.
But until someone can bother, I’ll be here, dreading what the next month will bring and trying to ignore the nagging voice in my head that, despite all the evidence and statistics and painkillers falling from my trembling hands, maybe I’m making it all up.