Let’s Talk About Period Pain

Starting in her teenage years, Kate Helen Downey’s menstrual cycle was extremely painful. In her adult life, she received an endometriosis diagnosis, which can cause severe menstrual pain. Kate, host and producer of the podcast CRAMPED, sits down with us to share about her experience and encourage everyone to talk about their period pain. 

Kate’s podcast, CRAMPED, seeks to explore more about why the medical system—and all of us—know next to nothing about period pain. Many people learn about menstruation through movies and TV, where a young girl getting her period for the first time is the primary representation of menstrual health. Rarely do we see reliable depiction of the pain that comes with menstruation. Talking openly with your friends and loved ones about the experience of menstruating can help us destigmatize periods, understand our own pain, understand other people’s pain, comfort one another, and heal.

For more information, check out Pantsuit Politics: https://www.pantsuitpoliticsshow.com/s/podcast

Transcript

Jennie: 0:44

Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. Hi, rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/ her. So y'all, it has been oddly nice here in DC still. There was one or two days where it got really hot, but it's been in the 70s and 80s and just gorgeous. I've had my windows open for, like, I don't know, like, two solid weeks now and it, like, rained for a little bit, like, last Saturday or Sunday and so I had to close the windows because it was like raining in. And the look of betrayal on Luna's face; she was so pissed that I had to close the windows on her. She was just so angry and I felt really bad because she just loves sitting in the window so much but she was like sitting there and, like, staring at the window and then looking at me and looking at the window. And she was just really upset. So, she was very happy when we were able to be opened again. And she's coping at the moment because I had to have them closed for the interview for the podcast. So, you couldn't hear all the outside noise. But it's so funny because that's just like her happy place. And so, since she had it back after having air conditioning and having to have the windows closed like for the summer, she has been so excited to have them open again for this little streak. Let's see what else has been going on... oh I have been trying to find my new like I'm watching TV and I need something else to do project and so I started a cross stitch project. I haven't cross stitched in, like, I don't know since I want to say since I was a kid but maybe I did like a small project I feel like maybe I did like a little like quote or something a couple years ago I think somebody got me like a Golden Girls cross stitch kit which I think I did like one thing out of it so I started a new cross stitch project and it has been relaxing to like yes I am sitting on the couch watching TV and doing nothing but now I'm not doing nothing because I am doing cross stitch and I can see progress I am jabbing a needle into something thousands of times and working on a project and working out stress and it has been lovely and I also ordered some yarn for some knitting projects so I will have lots of things to keep me entertained for having downtime which I'm looking forward to. It's nice to have some like crafty projects to work on. I think I'm going to stop there because we have a little bit of a longer interview today that I am so excited about we are going to talk about periods and period patterns pain. And honestly, there isn't a better person to come on and do that with than Kate Helen Downey, who is the host of the podcast CRAMPED, which you should also definitely check out. I will be on an episode of her podcast in the near future as well, but definitely make sure to check out CRAMPED. As you will hear today, Kate is wonderful and you definitely don't want to miss out on it. So with that, let's go to my interview with Kate. Hi, Kate. Thank you so much for being here.

Kate: 4:13

Hi, Jennie. It's so good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Jennie: 4:16

I'm so excited. We did an episode of CRAMPED where that'll be coming out in the near-ish future. Yes. But let's talk about CRAMPED here for a second. Can you, one, introduce yourself, but two, let's talk, tell us about CRAMPED.

Kate: 4:32

My name is Kate Helen Downey. I am the host and producer of the podcast CRAMPED, and that is a deep dive into my search for answers to my severe period pain. Sometimes I find answers, but more often we explore why it's so hard to find answers or why the answers aren't there at all, especially considering how common severe period pain is.

Jennie: 4:58

Oh man, that just makes me think of, I just read a book recently that feels like it got all into the data gap around women and stuff, which is Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. Oh, my God.

Kate: 5:15

Oh my God. Yes. I read that as as research last year for the first 10 episodes. And yep, it I never have I been so enraged reading.

Jennie: 5:26

There was so much there were like a lot of things I knew, but like there were so many examples in there that I was just like, Jesus Christ.

Kate: 5:34

Yeah. And she's not even completely focusing on medical stuff. Like the seatbelt thing was the the huge like metaphor from that of just like oh seatbelts; all crash test dummies are designed to, like, males averages, male specifications and so, like, as women when we put on our seatbelts we are less safe than men because the data that is used to develop the safety technology is male data.

Jennie: 6:01

And, like, even when they do women it's just scaled down men.

Kate: 6:04

Yeah, they're like, oh it doesn't matter that your weight distribution is totally different, we're just gonna, like: what if you were shorter men?

Jennie: 6:13

Yeah, great, thanks. Awesome. Okay, and I loved like the size range. I was like okay, but I'm five foot I fall outside of all of that. Awesome, thanks guys.

Kate: 6:22

Yep, yep. I'm 5'2'', so nothing's safe for me. Countertops? Not designed for us.

Jennie: 6:31

No. Like shelves, like, I obviously have all the stools because I can't reach anything on like... the second shelf is about it. And then it's like, okay.

Kate: 6:41

Yep. Rude. It's rude.

Jennie: 6:44

Short girl life, right? Okay. So, why do we need to talk about periods?

Kate: 6:51

I'm so glad you asked. I've spent the last year and a half, like, exclusively talking about periods pretty much. And that is very different than the rest of my life. So first of all, I spent 22 years in severe period pain almost every month, like throwing up, passing out, going to the emergency room. And I never, until last year, I had no diagnosis, no effective treatment. I would talk to every gynecologist I went to, every PCP I went to. I would say, hey, I'm having this problem. It's like my biggest medical problem. Please help. Please help me figure out what's going on. Like, this has been true since I started my period when I was 14, what's happening? Help me. And they would do an ultrasound. It would come back normal. And they'd go, ah, weird. Everything's normal. You're fine. Like, no further questions. And I was still in pain, still having all these problems with it. And when I was a teenager, I, you know, didn't talk to other people about it. Or I would try. And I would say to my friends, like, hey, do you guys get really bad cramps? And they would be like, yeah, of course. Like, cramps suck. They're the worst. But we didn't know that we were- I didn't have words for what I was experiencing.

Jennie: 8:07

You were, like, talking about separate things, right?

Kate: 8:12

 Yeah, and I was like, oh, I guess...

Jennie: 8:12

Like, these cramps kinda suck. 

Kate: 8:12

Yeah, but what was I supposed to think as a 15, 16 year old except, like, oh, I guess I'm really bad at handling this and everybody else just takes it in stride, and there's something wrong with me that doctors can't tell me what's going on, like nobody takes me seriously. Nobody asks me questions about this. This situation that, like, if it was anything else, I would be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. But as soon as someone hears I'm on my period, they're like, oh, well, what are you talking to me for?

Jennie: 8:42

Icky girl stuff.

Kate: 8:43

Yeah. Go lie down. Don't bother me about it. So, after 22 years, I finally went to an endometriosis specialist and I got diagnosed with endometriosis, which one in 10 people with a uterus has. And it causes severe menstrual pain as well as like GI issues, tons of other like inflammatory issues, immune issues, chronic pelvic pain. It causes all this stuff because it takes an average of seven to 10 years in the US for someone to get diagnosed with it, despite one in 10 people with a uterus having it. That's a WHO estimation. That's crazy. If you went to a spinal surgeon or a spinal doctor and they were like, oh, we don't know what's wrong with you. And then you found out you had a thing that one in 10 people with spinal You'd be like, how is that doctor not know about that? Like, why is this not taught in medical school if one in 10 of their patients is going to have it? Totally insane. And that's just one condition that causes severe menstrual pain. There's not one thing that causes severe menstrual pain. It can be a myriad of things. And yet it is incredibly hard to get treatment for it. And it screws up your life. It really, really impacts your life. Yeah, absolutely. Now they're actually finding that like they may be physically connected, like the inflammation from the severe period pain may also be contributing to depression or anxiety. So anyway, that's a long way of saying we need to talk about these things. We need to talk about severe period pain because it is often a symptom of something else that is wrong that is not getting attention. And we need to talk about period pain because so many of us are in period pain so much of the time. And so, we should be talking about it.

Jennie: 11:03

Well, it just like takes me back to like sex ed and, like, the information you clearly don't get. Like, at least I know I clearly did not get like it was very much like, oh, yeah, no, this is this is what happens. And like PMS and like no explanation of like, hey, if this happens, like this might be something to worry about or like this whole other range of things that can happen around your period.

Kate: 11:30

Oh, my God.

Jennie: 11:40

Not just, you're gonna be moody and want chocolate and maybe have some little baby cramps; no, like, okay, but here are some other things that your body could be going through. And it took me until I got a period tracking app to be like huh, this thing seems to always happen around this time of the month. They must be related.

Kate: 12:00

Yeah, well, so much period education such as it exists, if you get any, it is often really focused on hygiene on which is important like that's that's also important but so much of it is focused on, like, how to make sure no one else ever knows that you're on your period. What products to use to like cover it up how to not smell bad how I mean I the first thing I remember from sex ed we did like an early sex ed where they basically just gave us all deodorant in like fourth or fifth grade and they like little deodorant samples and they were like for the love of god please start wearing deodorant. And so so much of period education isn't actually about like here's the changes your body is going through and here's like information to help you navigate that or help you be healthy as you go through that and when to know that something's wrong so much of it is like it and it's very clearly communicated to us is like don't make this anybody else's problem don't make anyone else uncomfortable.

Jennie: 13:00

Shame.

Kate: 13:01

Feel shame. Yes. Here's how to cover this up. And like, oh, we're teaching you about this. We're being really open about this. But it's like what you're being open about is how to cover it up. And explaining to us that we should feel shame, that we should be embarrassed about this, that we should never reveal that it's happening to us. And that's really messed up. And it starts really early.

Jennie: 13:28

Yeah, like, I feel like I remember like there was a period of time where they were like and here are tampon wrappers or pad wrappers that crinkle less so, like, nobody knows.

Kate: 13:42

I feel like there were tampon wrappers that, like, were disguised to look like markers or something and they were marketed to teenagers so that you could like keep them in your backpack and no one would, like, know it was a tampon if they happen to see it and it's like-

Jennie: 13:55

Oh man, I missed that one, but that would not surprise me at all.

Kate: 13:58

I might have made it up, that might have been a fever dream. But like, yeah, it's, yeah, I, and I, it's also so, it's so, it's such bad timing, because we get our periods at the time when we most desperately don't want to be different from anybody else. Yeah, for sure. And the biological fact is that we're all gonna get our periods at slightly different times within a range, you know, over the course of a few years. We’re all gonna have different symptoms and experiences. And the only thing that's important to us is that like we just don't want to be different from anybody else and so we shut that we like don't talk about anything that even if it's like a problem or concerning we're like never mind, nothing, no.

Jennie: 14:43

That just makes me think so for my like I don't know 13th or 14th birthday I don't remember I really wanted white pants— obviously, as you would right, yeah? Yes. The early aughts if we're similar ages. No, that's probably not the right choice. And obviously, I was like, my godmother was like, let's go shopping for your birthday. And I was like, I want white pants. They were like off-white.

Kate: 15:18

It's also so specific at that age. You need to have something so specific, like the social, like everyone in your class. For me, it was the three-stripe Adidas. Oh, yes. desperately wanted that, and my mom bought me like the four stripe Walmart knockoffs and I was like no that I will be outcast.

Jennie: 15:39

I got my first period wearing them and like I mean obviously that was the whole point of that story was, like, my mom was like and remember, this is why I said no.

Kate: 15:51

But, you know, that was- that's an irresistible thing for the universe. You get white pants, you're gonna get your period.

Jennie: 15:58

I mean, I obviously wanted say it was like the first time I wore them, but that might not be true. That might just be like the myth building in my head.

Kate: 16:07

The narrative, the force of narrative exerting itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jennie: 16:11

Okay. So that leads me to think about how periods and period pain are or aren't represented in the media. Cause like, this is how like you can deal with stigma and things can get socialized or you can learn about some of these things.

Kate: 16:25

Yeah.

Jennie: 16:26

What do you see?

Kate: 16:27

Very little. You see very little. In terms of period representation in general, I would say 95% or let's say 90% of period representation in movies and TV is young girls getting their period for the first time. My girl, what's that one with Rosie O'Donnell in it about the girls that all grew up together? I can't remember the name, the name has like nothing to do with the movie it's just it's about it's like a coming of age story of a group of girls who are friends and they are talking about getting their period and and it's always this like big... Oh! Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. That's mostly a book up until a couple years ago but now it's a movie.

Jennie: 17:15

Yep.

Kate: 17:15

And so, most of that representation is, like, oh my god. I want to get my period or I'm scared of getting my period and then I get my period, my friend gets her period, like, and it's all about this like transformation from girl into woman. It's all about this, like, and of course it's there's a lot of period stuff in horror movies as like a a like you know metaphor for transformation, like werewolf movies, sometimes, the girls like getting her period. But after, like, past the getting your period trope there's almost nothing. If there's something, it is like oh, someone's on her period and she's like really a bitch. She's like really cranky and...

Jennie: 18:02

"I just want chocolate and ice cream."

Kate: 18:04

Yeah, there's like the honestly one of the only examples of this that I found recently was No Strings Attached, the Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman movie, which was like not that recently. But there's a scene where she and her roommates are all like synced up and getting their periods together. And she's like, don't come over. And then he does come over and he brings cupcakes and a mix CD of like songs that you could interpret as being about periods. And they're, like, ew, why are you here, I told you it's not safe here. And, like, it's like supposed to be about how like they're like he's coming over even he's like being a good boyfriend slash hookup partner because he's doing this. And it's, like, shut up. Also, like, bring them wine like what are you doing? And, like, put it on the doorstep and, like, leave. But it's just about like how unreasonable and horrible and, like, ridiculous women are when they're on their periods and and then so, if you go beyond getting your period if you go beyond PMS or like being on your period and being unreasonable, there's basically nothing unless you get into like trying to get pregnant that's really the only narrative like situation where mainstream TV seems to be okay with like talking about periods. On Friends, even though Friends is a show that ran for, what, 12 seasons? About friends living together. They're literally living together. The main set piece is the girl's apartment, the women's apartment, and that's two women living together and then a third woman who is there all the time. They're in the bath together. They're in and out of each other's bathrooms. Not once are periods mentioned until Courtney Cox's character is trying to and even then it's like ovulating. They don't really talk about periods, which is hilarious because Courtney Cox was actually the first person to say period on TV in 1989 in a Tampax commercial because up until 1989, it was actually like illegal. It was they would not air anything that said the word period. And so, they changed that. And Tampax had this commercial where Courtney Cox was the first person to say period on TV. Courtney Cox said the word period in a tampon commercial. And that was this like big moment. And then she went on to Friends and didn't get to say didn't get to talk about periods or have any period representation until she was trying to get pregnant. So, yeah, absolutely wild.

Jennie: 20:45

And like, clearly no period pain or very little, if any, right?

Kate: 20:50

And that's really the, like, yes, it would be amazing to see more like, like shows that shows or movies that just like treat periods as, like, right they happen, sometimes you're on it and you're just like yeah it could be a minor thing that comes into the equation but period pain is really that there is one show i want to shout out that is the one show in my research that I found that like specifically shows uh someone getting period cramps so bad they have to go to the hospital. And it is a show called Brace face it's from 2001 and the main character gets her period while she's like roller skating with the guy she has a crush on and has cramps she has really bad cramps and doesn't know what's going on and this guy she has a crush on calls an ambulance because she can't like get up and she ends up going to the ER where a nurse is like oh, if you haven't had the cramps before they can take you by surprise and then they just send her home. And she's like I'm so embarrassed and it's like okay on one hand yeah that happens like I've been to the ER for my cramps multiple times and so that's really exciting to see that representation. What's less exciting to see is a nurse like is literally like medical gaslighting happening on screen in a cartoon where they're like they're like yeah you idiot you came to the ER for cramps, how dumb are you? And then she goes home and her mom's just like oh, it's okay like and it and brings her chocolate and it's like: is nobody gonna talk about the fact that her cramps were so bad she couldn't stand up and went to the ER? Like, we're not going to talk about that or like what we're going to do about that? Anyway.

Jennie: 22:35

Yeah, it's just wild. Like, I just don't remember ever, like, a conversation or, like, this is how bad, like, no perception of how bad or not bad cramps should be or [what] is normal or whatever, like...

Kate: 22:50

No, well and that's what that's the damage of, like, having this total void of representation of like, if we don’t see…we base arguably too much of our reality, judging what is normal and what is not normal on what we see on TV and what we see in our friend groups, socially, right in front of us. And if we don’t see representation of this is what is a normal amount of period pain and this is serious and this is medical, you need to go get help for this and figure this out. What are we supposed to think other than like, oh, there's something weird and wrong with me specifically and no one else experiences this. And there's the other side of the coin, which is that a lot of the conditions that cause severe period pain have a genetic component, which means what tends to happen is that you as a teenager will, like, unexpectedly have really bad period pain. You'll talk to the one person in your life that you feel safe going to and talking openly about this your mom if you have a mom if your mom is in your life and is supportive and you go like this is really bad like what's the deal with this should I go to the doctor and the mom might be like no, that's like normal, that's just what a period is because that's what she has always experienced. That's what her mom told her. And there's no conflicting information, it's like it's such a void of information that that's the one source of what is normal that you have and so, you just internalize that of, like, oh I guess I'm a wimp if I'm having trouble handling this and this is just normal and I just have to deal with it. So, it's a double-edged, it's a double-edged sword, really.

Jennie: 24:37

Yeah, like, and it just- if you this is the only way you've ever experienced your period, you would assume that this is just how it is. Like, there are just so many things, like, where it's like this is how it is. Like, I just assume and, like, you hear other people talking about it but this is your experience and so you're like oh, they're just explaining it differently I mean the closest to that I can come is like reading some, like, I was like scrolling on the phone in bed and pulled up like a I don't remember where the article was... talking about this person and he couldn't visualize, like, close your eyes, picture a red ball. Like, can you actually see a red ball? Is it red? Is it- do you see like in gray? Do you see nothing?

Kate: 25:29

Right.

Jennie: 25:30

And so, I was like reading the story about this guy and this wild thing and I'm like wait a minute what do you mean wild thing? Isn't that what everybody experiences, like, I thought people were just like when they say they like can see a movie, like, when they're reading a book or whatever and like can really visualize this I just assumed you were being like talking in metaphors. No, you actually can visualize things? Like, I didn't realize that, like, this was different than other people's experience because this is all my experience ever had been.

Kate: 26:05

Right, there's so much in life that is subjective, like, even the experience of pain like you know we have like the one to ten pain scale but like no one can really know what you're feeling and, like, even the one to ten pain scale it's totally dependent on like how much experience with pain you've had before, like, so many factors about your nervous system that come into play. And so it's just, like, we can't ever know what someone else is feeling actually and it's- I think it's so cool because as human beings it makes us try though we keep wanting. It's so cool that we want to try to understand someone else's experience so much that we, like, create language that we create art that we create all these things to just try to be like this is what it's like in my head this is what I see this is what I want you to know and I and they want to know. And so, like, that's that's so cool. But also it's like tragic that we'll never really get to the point where we know exactly what someone else is experiencing. But, like, shifting gears a tiny bit, I did so much research for this podcast to try to answer some of my own questions. And I did a bunch of research into the history of women's health care because I was kind of like, like, how has it always been this bad? Has it always been this hard to get information? Is this the best it's ever been? Probably. Well, sadly, no. I think in terms of technologically, yeah, it's so much better. For endometriosis, I'm so glad I'm alive right now and not 200 years ago because we can do laparoscopic surgery and actually kind of cure my endometriosis as much as is possible. There is no real cure, but we can treat it. And that has never been true before in the history of humankind. But 200 years ago, there was a totally different setup for women's health, where we had like-

Jennie: 28:12

Midwives.

Kate: 28:13

It was community care, first of all, and it would be, there would be a village wise woman, a midwife, somebody who had extensive knowledge of plant medicine, and who had a lot of experience birthing baby dealing with like all kinds of reproductive health care. And so, you would be reliant not just on that one person with all this knowledge but on your whole community of other people and people would know when you needed support, you would be, like, joining together to do a lot of things to birth babies together so all the women in your community would have some experience with this. And it was a project of, like, all the women in the community to take care of each other and to pass information along with each other. And Western medicine came along and it was very much based on Greek, like Greek writings in the 1800s. And the Greek writings were incorrect about a lot of things because they did not really understand how a human body works. They got a lot of stuff right, but they got a lot of stuff wrong. And so, all of this, like, women's health care done by community and by other women was basically outlawed and banned because they realized the entirely male professionals. of physicians or doctors realized that there was this whole half of a population that that they were missing out on as customers. And so it became instead of community care, it became a fee for service and it didn't work. And the the maternal death rates were so much higher with like with these Western physicians than with like community care, among other women. Yeah, it was it's a whole long story that like we cannot get into. But it is fascinating.

Jennie: 29:57

Yeah. And like abortion bans go back into that time frame, too, right? Like these are interrelated, interconnected stories.

Kate: 30:03

Well, and abortions weren't even seen as like separate from other health care. It was just like, yeah, you get to do whatever you want with your mind. Like, it took a long time for like churches and, like, male doctors to even like know that that was something women were doing. Yeah. So... this is all to say the best outcomes for women in health happen when we share information. That is the only way because like the system, the medical care system in this country, in any Western country, it's not built for us. It is literally like, like it is built for male bodies, the same as seatbelts in cars are built for male bodies. It is exactly the same when we go to the doctor, that doctor has studied 80 to 90% male bodies in their medical school education, in the studies that they're reading. Whether that doctor is a woman or a man, they are in a system that is built for male bodies and doesn't really study or ask a lot of questions about female bodies. So, the way that we get the best healthcare is if we share information with each other; share providers that work for each other; share diagnoses that we've gotten that might apply to somebody else; share ways that we take care of ourselves; things that are normal and not normal; things that like questions that we've gotten answered after a ton of effort. And we want to share those answers with other people so that they're in a better situation than we were. That's how and then a lot of times we get that information from our community. And then we go to the doctor with an agenda and we say, this is what I want this test done. I want to try this medication. I want to get checked for this. And we have to lead that. And the doctor just has to be like a tool that we use to get that done, which is not how we're raised to think of medical providers. We are raised to think of them as like authorities and like we bring our body there and they tell us what's happening with our body and that we have to get out of that mindset because that is literally killing us.

Jennie: 32:11

Yeah. I mean, that just makes me think of like so many things that we definitely don't have time to go into. So, like, put a pin in, like, all the things. Yeah. And I think you already mostly answer this question but like: what would you like to see like going forward?

Kate: 32:25

oh my god I mean I would love to see TV shows like... the amount of shame and like potential for misunderstanding around periods and talking about periods, like, the amount of embarrassment involved like how have we not like fully explored this trope in sitcoms? It's so dumb that we haven't. Of like misunderstandings, like, oh crazy runarounds of, like, all this stuff plays into comedy and would be so, and it's like half the audiences of TV shows have experience with menstruation. Like why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you explore that? But the taboo is strong enough to like, to make people leave it alone.

Jennie: 33:11

Well, and like representation, like in the writer's room and like having the representation at all levels, because if you have people who don't have uteruses who are represented, then stories about people with uteruses experiencing periods and period pain are not going to come up because they aren't being brought in.

Kate: 33:29

Exactly. Yep. That's a big part of the puzzle. So I want to see a lot more of that, a lot more representation, but not in like a like after school special kind of way. Not in like a this is a period episode or like, oh, we're going to like.

Jennie: 33:46

I'm thinking, like, drinks after work and like, oh, it was such a shitty day, like, I had such bad cramps, but I had this really big meeting and like, I had to like focus, like-

Kate: 33:55

Exactly.

Jennie: 33:56

Just, like, your life.

Kate: 33:57

Exactly. Yeah. So like just that brought into more shows as just a, a part of life, like Broad City did it so well. I mean, I love that show, but there's one scene where they're going on a flight and Ilana has pants on that have a period stain and she's like smuggling weed up her vagina through security. And Abby is like oh no Ilana, you have a period stain and she's like I know it's a red herring when the drug-sniffing dog sniffs my crotch I can just be like oh this dog and so a drug sniffing dog like does get up in her crotch and she's like this dog is sexually assaulting me I have my period and everybody like leaves her alone. I'm, like, that's amazing because the point is not that she has her period, the point is that like we all have a pair of like blood stained jeans and, like, what a hilarious use for them. What a good way to like use that as comedy where like the point is not the period. It's just like, yeah, this is part of life. So, that is like, I want more of that kind of stuff. And I want more resources for people who have severe period pain and are googling like bad cramps, like cramps that make me throw up. Like I'm hoping, my hope with Cramped, my podcast, is that I went through this 22 year of total void of information where like I gave up for a long time and I just hoped it wouldn't happen and then every time it happened I just dealt with it and moved on with my life and I don't want anyone else to ever be in that situation and, like, maybe you know depending on what the condition is like maybe there's no cure and maybe you can't like fix it but you can at least know that you can at least know that you're not alone. You're not the only one dealing with this, and you deserve to be taken seriously by your doctors to find out what's going on, to have some answers and some explanations and some options. So that's what I would like. I would like for information about this, accurate information about this and community around this to be so available. No one ever feels alone or like neglected or isolated in this ever again.

Jennie: 36:17

That sounds wonderful. And like such a basic fucking dignity ask.

Kate: 36:24

Well, and it's 90% of people who menstruate experience some kind of pain with menstruation and up to 30% because we don't even have good data about this but up to 30% of people who menstruate experience severe menstrual pain, meaning they can't go about their day to day their normal day to day routine when they have their period. And that 30% of people who are menstruating is such an enormous amount of people that it's crazy that so many of us feel so alone. We are the opposite of alone. And yet this stigma against it, this lack of representation makes us feel alone and cuts us off from information that could help us.

Jennie: 37:06

Okay. So I always like to end the podcast talking about actions and what can the audience do? So what can our audience do?

Kate: 37:14

I mean, the solution for this is obviously like many fold. There are many, many aspects of this, only some of which we have control over individually. But the biggest thing that you can do is talk about your periods and your period pain, if you have it, to other people. And I mean, I'm talking one-on-one, I'm talking on podcasts, I'm talking in work meetings, like whatever it is. And obviously, every person is going to have a different context for this, a different experience, a different level of comfort. But I really encourage people- I actually have an episode about how to talk about your period pain coming out this week.

Jennie: 37:50

Yay!

Kate: 37:50

So, people can go to the feed and check that out. But the thing that really broke it down for me was asking myself the question: who does it benefit when I don’t talk about my period? Because if I really look at that, it’s not me. At best, not talking about my period could help me avoid awkward situations or people thinking I’m gross or something. But, like, ultimately on a macro scale in my life, not talking about periods keeps me isolated, keeps me from connecting with other people who have similar experiences and have information that could help me. And so, it really only hurts me and it only helps basically like immature men to not be in a slightly uncomfortable situation. So, it's between, like, my health and my life and some, like, shitty guy feeling slightly uncomfortable and he gets his way all the time so that really helped me just be like oh, I won't I'm not doing this guy any favors. But the biggest difference has been I have started hosting what I call clam bakes at my house where I invite like between 6 and 12 just women that I know from all different like contacts they don't all know each other I just send out a mass invite like once a month and I say like come over for a clam bake they come over. I do not serve clams, I don't even, I don't serve anything. I say, like, you could bring something if you want I'll have like whatever snacks are in my house out, whatever booze is in my house will be out but just like come and we'll talk about hormones, we'll talk about periods, we'll talk about mental health, we'll talk about like whatever it is we're going through and we all just like sit down wearing comfy clothes and we go around and it's like what are you dealing with what's happened recently. Like, some people are dealing with trying to get pregnant. Some people are dealing with like a birth control that is giving them wild symptoms. Some people are dealing with, like, horrible periods. So like, it's all different. I had one, one friend was over and had brain surgery a few months ago, and her period has been totally different since she got brain surgery. And she's like, I don't know what that's about. So, we just talk about it. And a lot of times someone will have a problem that someone else will would be like oh, just go here or like oh, I saw this person for this, like, here I'll give you their number and so it's and we had somebody who was interested in pelvic floor physical therapy for their period pain but had never been didn't really know what it was about. So, those of us who had been to pelvic floor physical therapy just like told what our experiences was, what it was, like, how- was it weird? Like, so just that kind of information sharing you could feel as the evening goes on you feel people getting like so excited and relieved and like people hung out way after we like closed the official discussion and it- "official," it was it's pretty low key, but I was just like okay I want to like just hang out now and people hung out for like two hours longer just talking about their period and like going and finding someone who had said something in the group discussion that they really loved and like and the really cool thing. I also I just interviewed a doctor named, so Dr. Laura Payne P.A. is a clinical psychologist and a researcher at Harvard. And she just published a book called Psychosocial Interventions for Chronic Pain in Women and Girls, which is like such a catchy title. But her research is about like the psychological experience of pain. And she focuses on pain that specifically affects women and girls. So a lot of menstrual pain. And what her research has found is that literally just talking about your period pain with other people makes you rate your period pain lower for up to a year afterwards. This is, like, a full-on like study that is published in the NIH so like it's it's real and that doesn't that just make the injustice of this taboo about talking about our periods that much more evil yeah because like if we just got to talk about them more they wouldn't hurt as much but like let us talk about our periods.

Jennie: 42:22

That feels like the place to end. Like, let us talk about our periods.

Kate: 42:24

Well, and of course no one's gonna let us and we just have to do it and you know i'm a yapper and I don't really give a shit what anybody thinks of me so I have tried to lead by example um but truly yeah talk about your periods. It will make yours hurt less and you will find you will get so much more information. You will find community around it. You will want to check in on your friends now that you know they get they get period pain. I just brought my friend- my friend just had a um, like, I forget what you call it, it's the a colposcopy uh where they like take a chunk out of your cervix to test for um abnormal cells after you get a pap smear. And she was like oh, I'm going to do this it's gonna hurt so bad. And I was like okay great, I'll bring you a care package with like some painkillers and some like Gatorade and some like fun snacks and then we just like hung out on her on her couch and chatted and it's like we get to take care of each other like that, but we have to talk about this.

Jennie: 43:25

Kate, this was such a delightful conversation. I feel like I could talk to you forever about it. But being respectful of your time, thank you so much for being here.

Kate: 43:34

Thank you so much for having me. And I will literally come talk on anybody's podcast or just anybody's living room about periods. So, thank you.

Jennie: 43:43

Okay, y'all. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kate. I had so much fun talking to her about periods and cramps and all things related to uteruses. It was a lot of fun, and it was just great to get to talk to her. And like we say, let's talk about our periods more. It was wonderful. So with that, I will see everybody next week. If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@ reprosfightback.com, or you can find us on social media. We're at rePROs Fight Back on Facebook and Twitter or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all.