My name is Amie Raphael (she/her) and I’m the Activities & Employability Officer at the Guild of students at the University of Birmingham. I have an undiagnosed period problem and I’ve decided I want to challenge how we talk about periods.
Periods are natural, but many feel ashamed to talk about them. Period problems are normal, but there’s no proper education on how to spot abnormalities in your periods and when to seek medical help. Many medical professionals can be very dismissive of women seeking help when they believe they are have a problem with their periods. These all need to be discussed, challenged and improved.
I was very lucky to have quite a positive experience when I sought help for my periods. In secondary school I noticed that by year 9/10 I hadn’t had a consistent period cycle. There’d be some years where I’d have 2 and other years where I’d have none, which to me yelled abnormal. I talked about it with my Mum and we decided that I should go to a doctor to discuss the problems I was having. Luckily my doctor listened to me and sent me off to get some blood tests and to be assigned to a specialist consultant.
I got the same specialist consultant my Mum has, as she had problems with her periods after she gave birth to me which only got worse after she had my sister. She also had a brain tumour in her pituitary glands (completely fine now), which this consultant also handled and still sees her for annual check ups.
My blood tests came back and turns out I had slightly higher testosterone which wasn’t anything abnormal and low oestrogen which was abnormal. Since I was young and underweight my lack of oestrogen got pinned to my weight. So, I gained weight to see if that would trigger anything. Nothing happened.
I got told to get an ultra sound. Which at the time I didn’t think too much of but the night before it hit that this ultra sound would tell me if I could have children. Luckily, I’m fertile and there was nothing wrong with my eggs or uterus. I got sent for an MRI to check nothing had passed on from my Mum, my pituitary glands were all normal. So, the consultant pinned my problem to stress. I was put on the pill with the initial instructions to go on it for 6 months and then go off it for another 6 to see if anything happened. Nothing happened. I was then told go on the pill for 1 year and then go off it for 1 year. Nothing happened.
6 years on from going on and off the pill the consultant and I had a discussion about treatment. I was fed up of the pill and how moody it sometimes made me and how little it felt like it was doing. We discussed me going on to a new pill which would give me oestrogen but wouldn’t make me bleed and this was the option he suggested. So I took it up and having been on that for nearly 9 months, all I know is it’s giving me the oestrogen I need without making me bleed. After this discussion I was sent a letter with 4 potential diagnoses. One being polycystic ovarian syndrome, one being a genetic predisposition and the other two being very medical names which I didn’t know much about.
6 years and no diagnosis. 6 years of of being on and off the pill to finally be on a new form of treatment. I’m left with the hope that I can have children, even if I require hormonal treatment. I’m also left with the hope one day I can get an official diagnosis.
Periods are hard to talk about but they shouldn’t be. If you have a problem you need to seek medical help. Diagnoses for most period problems take years to get. But, once you’ve got a diagnosis you feel relieved to have been listened to and to finally get any treatment you need. The more women who go to medical professionals about help, the more the field may understand these issues, and the quicker diagnoses can be made.
My hope is that in the future period problems become part of the period education curriculum so that girls can spot them quicker and feel open to discussing them with family, friends and medical professionals. Hopefully all medical professionals will take women seriously when they come to them about a period problem. Finally, hopefully diagnosis time gets cut down and women can finally have a quicker explanation for what’s going on in their body.
All these changes start with conversations and people seeking help and demanding to be listened to and tested. It starts with us making the effort to make a change and challenge when people are unreceptive or the education is wrong.
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Kind regards,
Amie
(She/Her)