Culture Study Podcast - Everything We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Periods

00:00:00.000 So I was 14. I had gotten my period before this, like I had maybe had one or two like

00:00:08.540 starter periods that were, you know, very, very light flow, like enough to be like,

00:00:14.240 oh, you got your first period, but not like the full experience. And I was in eighth grade

00:00:24.320 science class and I started getting like really sweaty I started having full body sweats my

00:00:31.860 stomach really hurt I couldn't figure out like what was going on but I felt like I might have

00:00:36.140 to throw up and so I asked to go to the bathroom and realized as I was going to stand up I couldn't

00:00:41.760 stand up all the way I had to kind of like hunch and waddle like out of the classroom and I just

00:00:49.420 have a very clear memory of having one hand on like the lockers in the hallway and trying

00:00:55.220 to like walk down the hallway and having to stop and like bend over and wait for the wave

00:01:02.080 of nausea and cramping to pass and halfway to the bathroom I just was like I don't think

00:01:09.060 I'm going to make it to the bathroom I'm going to go to the nurse's office instead and the

00:01:13.020 halls were empty and I was like I don't know if I can make it like I don't know if I can

00:01:16.880 get there just like how do I move I had never felt pain this bad and I had had a friend a few

00:01:24.100 months before who um had had her appendix out and I was like oh this must be my appendix

00:01:31.680 totally totally and so I had this like fantasy of like I'm gonna get to the nurse's office

00:01:36.800 she's gonna see how much pain I'm in I'm gonna tell her where it hurts she's gonna call an

00:01:42.180 ambulance I'm gonna go get emergency surgery like they're gonna tell me what's happening 0.50

00:01:47.020 and then I got to the nurse's office and she asked me a couple questions I threw up in her bathroom

00:01:52.780 and she was like oh are you on your period I was like yeah she was like oh well then here's a hot

00:01:59.760 water bottle like you can hang out here for a little while but like you have to go back to

00:02:03.700 class eventually and I was like what like how I'm in so much pain like why are you behaving like

00:02:12.480 this is nothing this is so crazy and after about an hour of me getting up to throw up every 10

00:02:19.920 minutes and like passing out on her little cot she called my mom my mom came and picked me up

00:02:25.940 I was hyperventilating so much that my hands were like in claws my mom took me home my mom had no

00:02:33.040 idea what was going on. She doesn't get bad period pain like this. And so eventually I just passed

00:02:38.220 out. And when I woke up, my cramps were gone. And we all kind of were like, huh, weird. And

00:02:46.620 that was my first time having death cramps. This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm

00:02:58.520 Anne Helen Peterson. I'm Kate Helen Downey, and I am a podcast producer and horrible period haver.

00:03:06.520 So, first of all, I'm so thrilled to have a fellow middle name Helen person on this podcast.

00:03:13.400 Did you also have a great aunt Helen? Oh, mine was Grandma Helen. Yes! So I had a Grandma Anne

00:03:18.960 and a Grandma Helen. So that's where my name came from. We're carrying the name Helen.

00:03:23.400 okay so back to your story about your first death cramps it reminds me of when i was in seventh

00:03:29.560 grade i mistook first a yeast infection for my period and then a uti for my period i got those

00:03:41.900 so young because i have various antibiotics that i was on yeah and i think that i just understood

00:03:48.060 discomfort as like this must be my period yeah but like and to me personally as someone who

00:03:56.140 hasn't had death cramps and hasn't had horrible periods like that I thought oh this is just what's

00:04:02.720 gonna happen I'm just gonna feel this way every month for the rest of my life and that that was

00:04:06.900 just normal right and and the way that I had understood what period pain would be like like

00:04:11.900 it was so vague like it was you know you'd read 17 magazine or you'd see a commercial for my doll

00:04:17.200 and was like oh period pain take these pills and it'll go away it's always like what did that do

00:04:23.520 yeah it's always sort of like you you first of all you get told so little before you get your

00:04:29.680 period you get told like you're gonna bleed and it's gonna happen every month and it means you're

00:04:34.060 a woman and also some other stuff might happen don't really worry about it and right and even

00:04:38.700 if you have like progressive feminist moms yes you know it's like my mom like was very same frank 1.00

00:04:44.300 about it same and it's still I still didn't understand the scope of what a period actually

00:04:50.040 was yeah same no it uh I think because it's hard to describe it is well it's hard to describe and

00:04:56.000 you don't get it from anywhere else like you don't get information about it even just like

00:05:01.180 things we get information about as preteens and kids where it's like you have an idea of what

00:05:07.400 having a boyfriend or a girlfriend is like from watching tv from right disney movies like you get

00:05:14.880 kind of educated about this stuff even if you don't know you're getting educated about it

00:05:18.840 you have some information about like what's normal and what's not normal and then this thing happens

00:05:23.820 and in one of my episodes i talked to my therapist and she is like yeah you basically the first time

00:05:31.240 you get your period you get told like welcome to period club the first rule of period club is we

00:05:35.620 don't talk about period club and like that's it and it's right like you do things like in my junior

00:05:44.040 high you do this dates me but I feel like because we're a similar age you're gonna understand it

00:05:50.100 sometimes you'd be like does anyone have a dime for a tampon like at the lunch table to try to

00:05:55.740 like gesture towards like your coolness right um and I remember like before I even really got my

00:06:02.240 period i'd be like does anyone have a dime yeah yeah um but i also think like the value this would

00:06:09.580 never happen because we understand menstrual blood as abject in our society and thus like

00:06:14.320 there is a taboo on depicting it in any capacity other than uh like the only ways i've seen it

00:06:22.220 depicted are like blue dye yeah pulling up a tampon right or um like bright red blood which

00:06:29.480 is not how it generally manifests like the value in one pamphlet or one health book of like what

00:06:38.200 spotting looks like yeah I had I talked to one person for the podcast who was like I thought I

00:06:43.760 shart myself twice because I didn't have any idea that period blood could look like that so I was

00:06:51.240 like wait I couldn't have shart myself twice in a day this must be my period but um okay so we did

00:07:02.940 all this wind up and all this discussion we haven't even talked about why we're talking about

00:07:06.920 this which is that you have a fantastic new podcast out it's called cramped so can you tell

00:07:11.700 me a little bit about like the animating thesis and how you decided there's a whole podcast in

00:07:16.600 this yeah uh it's a podcast that has been like living in my heart since I started making podcasts

00:07:22.500 uh about five years ago where I this is something I've experienced my whole life I've been to so

00:07:28.940 many doctors about it I get severe period pain and I have since I was 14 it doesn't happen every

00:07:34.860 single month sometimes I get regular cramps and sometimes I get death cramps and there doesn't

00:07:39.680 seem to be a rhyme or reason as to like what causes it I've been to so many different doctors

00:07:44.680 and they've all kind of shrugged at me and been like, don't know, which made me feel like a freak

00:07:51.600 and made me feel like a medical mystery that has no answer until I started talking about it with

00:07:57.700 other people. And that wasn't until college. It wasn't until probably the middle of college I

00:08:03.280 started being like, wait, I get horrible period cramps. It also, freshman year you share, at my

00:08:09.720 college you shared a bathroom with like 25 people on your floor so it's like if I'm in there throwing

00:08:14.940 up for seven hours a day like you're gonna notice and we're gonna talk about it but um I ended up

00:08:20.620 finding so many other people who had very similar experiences and that was a real cognitive dissonance

00:08:28.220 for me because I was like if all these people that I'm just sort of randomly meeting also get

00:08:35.020 the same thing I get how can doctors have like no idea what's going on or like nothing to tell me

00:08:41.780 and that cognitive dissonance just kind of like stewed in there for years and years I was like

00:08:47.780 trying to figure out what was going on with me I read about endometriosis and I was like maybe I

00:08:52.120 have that I had a bunch of doctors be like no no it's definitely not endometriosis for various

00:08:59.100 reasons. And so I just had no idea what was going on with me. And so like, I would just deal with

00:09:05.580 it as best I could. I kind of cobbled together like a toolbox. I went to the ER a few times for

00:09:11.480 my period pain at different points with varying levels of effective treatment and total disregard.

00:09:20.360 And so once I like had made a few podcasts and like really gotten on my feet and understood how

00:09:26.220 to make a podcast I was like okay I want to do this I got a grant to make 10 episodes and I spent

00:09:33.200 a year researching going to doctors and specialists and like finally getting a diagnosis but also

00:09:39.900 doing deep dives into like why did it take me 22 years to get a diagnosis yes why don't we talk

00:09:47.020 about it like there's the obvious answer which is like patriarchy and stigma and it's like but

00:09:51.920 where exactly does that happen? Where I want to point to it exactly. I want it like if we're

00:09:58.160 going to fix it, how would we do that? Where would we attack it? And so I made 10 episodes

00:10:04.200 of a podcast called Cramped. It's amazing. I was just listening to the one where you talk with

00:10:08.700 your sister about the fact that you rarely talked about it, even with your sister until

00:10:13.120 like fairly recently. And my sister, my sister's four and a half years younger, and she also got

00:10:18.220 death cramps from a young age and yet we didn't talk about it to each other yeah yeah yeah and

00:10:24.600 then also part of that episode is you talk with your friend who is a data scientist and i i just

00:10:32.180 loved the part where they were like i look at bad data for a living and this is the worst data i have

00:10:39.000 ever seen yeah and unfortunately that's sort of a theme of the podcast right right and i think a lot

00:10:45.340 of people are arriving now at this understanding that we delegitimize or downplay women's pain

00:10:51.640 also there's not a lot of research about women's bodies but like it all comes to a head yeah in

00:10:58.680 this series also I just have to note that you have a banging podcast theme song I know that

00:11:04.880 manages to take everything about the show and turn it into like a song that I would listen to

00:11:11.220 if it was on the radio and I can take no credit for that that is by a an artist named Faraday

00:11:16.060 who just posts songs on TikTok and this song was posted like while I was in pre-production for the

00:11:23.280 podcast before I had even started thinking about a theme song and like 20 people sent it to me and

00:11:28.680 they were like oh my god this would be perfect for your podcast I was like yup

00:11:32.880 morning sickness endometriosis menopause migraines PCOS what's happening to your body 1.00

00:11:37.860 we don't know because we've never really studied the female body

00:11:41.160 female body say it's all in my head but the research is quite spotty no we've never really

00:11:51.180 studied the female body like it's like an earworm like it's like it was like such a moment of

00:11:58.160 synchronicity of just like well i guess that's done like yes um so the five different questions

00:12:05.540 from listeners are going to take us in a bunch of different places. And to start us off, let's

00:12:09.660 hear from Yasha Zvini. How do we talk about period pain without slipping into either martyrdom or

00:12:14.900 dismissal? I notice conversations about menstruation often fall into two extremes.

00:12:20.320 Period pain is either minimized or brushed off as a normal inconvenience that people should

00:12:24.580 silently endure or overemphasized in its suffering to the point of martyrdom, where the conversation

00:12:30.280 becomes centered only on pain and endurance. Both can be limiting. Dismissal invalidates

00:12:36.160 lived experience and martyrdom can reinforce a view of menstruating bodies as inherently broken

00:12:41.080 or burdened. How do we make space for real disruptive pain while also avoiding discourse

00:12:46.800 that defines menstruation solely by that pain? What does honest and compassionate language around

00:12:52.320 period pain sound like, where we can validate people's struggles without trapping them in a

00:12:57.140 story of suffering i would love to hear your thoughts on how cultural narratives around pain

00:13:01.620 are evolving or not evolving and what kind of storytelling feels most useful for creating

00:13:06.920 better systems in medicine education or work i mean what a question i love this question any

00:13:13.360 question with the word martyrdom in it is like yes but also like i think that you you tread this

00:13:20.020 line pretty carefully and interestingly in cramped so can you talk a little bit about negotiating

00:13:25.180 those tensions as you were as you were crafting the podcast yeah so first of all it's not something

00:13:29.900 that I like explicitly thought about because it's something I live every day right like I

00:13:36.380 live in a state of like I'm totally fine now I'm totally capable I'm like here I'm ready to go I'm

00:13:44.480 excited and also in some point in the next four weeks I might be in the most pain I've ever felt

00:13:51.040 in my life, totally debilitated, puking for seven hours at a time, passing out, like completely

00:13:57.560 unable to function. And also sometimes I've like had horrible cramps and had to just suck it up

00:14:04.340 and take a bunch of ibuprofen and go do the thing that I committed to do and get through it. And so

00:14:12.560 you and I know and question asker we know that that binary that either women or people with

00:14:21.820 periods are in pain and suffering all the time and like broken or period pain doesn't exist and 0.92

00:14:28.840 everything's fine that binary is bullshit like it doesn't exist we are all on a spectrum all the

00:14:36.180 time and where we are on that spectrum changes throughout our life so like I think a very 0.96

00:14:43.640 similar thing has happened with PMS um culturally over the years like I think we can talk about

00:14:49.740 this on two levels of like personal and like large-scale cultural because on a personal level

00:14:55.540 it's very easy we encounter this all the time right it's like yeah I can be debilitated one

00:15:00.620 day and fine the next day. And both are real and both deserve recognition and support. And I am

00:15:07.980 not defined by the days that I'm in debilitating pain. And, you know, I'm not really defined by

00:15:13.980 the days that I'm normal. Like, I am all of these things and it changes. But that's really hard for

00:15:20.940 us to do. It seems to be really hard for us as humans on a large scale to hold multiple truths

00:15:28.140 at the same time and it is seems to be especially because there's so little representation

00:15:33.360 if someone doesn't experience severe period pain themselves it is very hard for them to

00:15:39.860 imagine a world in which someone is in such severe debilitating pain sometimes and then

00:15:47.980 other times totally fine and it's because of a normal biological process that's not to say the

00:15:56.960 pain is normal but the instigating factor the thing that seems to be causing the pain

00:16:02.400 is normal it's not like you have a tumor and you're in pain it's like yeah right this is a

00:16:07.580 thing that is normal but it is causing an abnormal amount of pain and I think that's really hard for

00:16:12.760 people to understand on a large level I saw the same thing happen with PMS where like just in our

00:16:19.960 lifetimes I feel like there was a wave of like hey PMS is real like these hormone fluctuations

00:16:27.720 are real and they affect everything about us how we sleep how we feel emotionally what our skin

00:16:34.620 does what our hair does like these are what's going on with your poop yes like this was a

00:16:39.360 BuzzFeed post while I worked there was about like someone figuring out like oh my digestive system

00:16:46.500 goes haywire that is part yes of pms oh my god so like hormones dictate everything in our body

00:16:52.240 like progesterone uh when progesterone dips right before you get your period that slows down

00:16:57.600 digestion like you can get constipated before your period and then when the prostaglandins are

00:17:02.720 released which are the little messengers that tell your uterine muscle to squeeze and push the blood

00:17:08.340 out those prostaglandins also talk to your large intestine and your colon and tell it to squeeze

00:17:14.600 and that's why you get period poops like nothing is happening in a vacuum all of this stuff it like

00:17:20.400 everything affects each other yeah our body is connected yeah like the different like organs

00:17:26.880 are not like out there operating by themselves like in their own little orbits yes even though

00:17:32.700 the medical system treats it that way treats everything like it's an isolated system like

00:17:36.860 it's not they're all affecting each other and so there was this big push of like yes hormones are

00:17:42.100 actually real they're really affecting people in different ways at different phases in your cycle

00:17:48.220 and if you are feeling irritable or like sleepy or whatever right before your period like that's

00:17:55.220 real and people should get it and it shouldn't be like you should get support for that and then

00:18:01.120 that kind of like went too far like people were like oh it's real okay so like women aren't real

00:18:07.600 people right before their period like they they act crazy and like it just got taken to the extreme

00:18:14.220 and then we had to like culture as at large had to kind of backpedal and be like no no no like

00:18:20.300 pms is real but like it doesn't actually affect women that much like we can do whatever we can

00:18:25.300 do anything during our periods like it's not real and then that kind of led to another extreme of

00:18:29.820 like pms isn't real and it's fine and women can do anything and either way we're like left with

00:18:36.860 fewer options we're left with people thinking badly of us and it's like can we please just keep

00:18:43.180 two truths at the same time of like yes hormones affect us and also we're still people and we can

00:18:48.720 still do the things we need to do and if we can't do those things it's a medical issue that needs to

00:18:55.060 get addressed and taken seriously right and like i mean what you're pointing to too is that a lot

00:19:00.860 of these discussions are very ideological and like you point this out on the podcast but like

00:19:05.120 you can map this alongside feminism anti-feminism pushback on feminism and like choice feminism

00:19:12.640 like all of these different understandings of what period pain is like my memory in the early 90s

00:19:18.200 is that like pms was a punchline right like oh are you on your period that sort of understanding

00:19:24.360 so it was visible but also like ridiculous and then it was like i think this is addressing the

00:19:32.240 question there was this understanding that like women can work through that pain like period pain

00:19:37.920 exists but it's also something that we can do it all so if you just try harder you can like

00:19:43.340 suffer with it right it seems impossible for us to be at a point where our struggles are visible

00:19:49.100 and not negating our humanity yeah and it also seems impossible for our culture at large to keep

00:19:57.820 the idea in their heads that every individual is different yes menstruating people can all get a

00:20:04.860 period and all of these periods have some things in common but also are totally different in other

00:20:10.460 ways and like I think that's really hard for people to internalize for some reason and it's

00:20:16.760 really hard to try to fit into a world that has these expectations I think a way that we combat

00:20:23.520 that is we talk about it more I mean that's going to be my answer to everything here is like

00:20:27.140 we talk about it more on every level like interpersonally when someone says oh I have

00:20:32.280 cramps like I don't feel so good instead of going like oh okay and moving on with the conversation

00:20:37.340 whether you have a uterus or not being like oh do you need anything like what are your cramps like

00:20:44.360 do they ever get really bad like how you know have you always had bad cramps like just the

00:20:49.540 curiosity and the willingness to talk about it is a huge favor to anyone who struggles with this

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00:24:45.760 off your first order. AncientNutrition.com slash culture. Okay, our next question is about like the

00:24:57.320 psychic toll of extreme pain, especially extreme pain in periods. This comes from Kayla. Can you

00:25:03.700 maybe talk about the potential trauma and psychological effects of being a person with

00:25:07.660 period pain? I was told about endometriosis forever ago, but it took 16 years for my first

00:25:14.040 gynecological visit to address my period pain to actually get a diagnosis. I was gaslit pretty

00:25:20.280 much every step of the way. A male doctor in the ER asked me if I was sure it wasn't just gas while

00:25:26.400 an ovarian cyst was literally bursting inside of me. People say, oh I get cramps too and convince

00:25:32.980 you that your pain tolerance is just really low or it's all in your head. It's not normal to go

00:25:38.120 through super plus tampons every two to three hours but nobody tells you that i got my symptoms

00:25:43.620 relatively under control thanks to hormonal birth control which as a side note changed my life but

00:25:49.580 when i have a flare-up i immediately am transported to a mental state of pain and panic and trauma

00:25:54.740 so what gives so you did a whole episode on medical trauma so there's a lot to say here

00:26:01.320 what would you like to start yeah i mean first off i'm so sorry it took you 16 years kayla

00:26:06.460 to get a diagnosis I can relate it took me 22 years to get my endometriosis diagnosis

00:26:12.700 turns out I had textbook endometriosis I don't know why so many doctors could so many gynecologists

00:26:20.800 could not see that didn't google it that's it's inexplicable to me yeah I know welcome to my world

00:26:27.980 welcome to my world um it is great you literally scratched the surface on this topic and it's like

00:26:34.420 oh i'm sorry is this just stupid and it's like yeah it is no like if you go to reddit and you

00:26:41.480 look at like the endometriosis or like anything related to period pain like it's just story after 0.76

00:26:46.720 story after story and you're like how is this not getting through people's heads like how do doctors

00:26:52.020 not understand that it's insane the who estimates that one in ten people with uteruses has endometriosis

00:26:58.800 and you can have endometriosis with no symptoms or no period pain which can make it very hard to

00:27:04.080 diagnose but one in ten people with uteruses how are gynecologists not getting weeks of instruction

00:27:10.780 on a thing that one tenth of their patients is going to have statistically i don't know

00:27:17.360 it's still severely understudied although a little bit more is happening now but yeah it's hard to

00:27:24.220 diagnose um partly because where the endometriosis lesions are in your body in your abdomen can

00:27:32.180 result in different symptoms, but there's also really clear indicators like severe period pain,

00:27:38.260 like GI issues. 90% of people with endometriosis have GI issues that get misdiagnosed as Crohn's

00:27:44.340 or IBS or gluten intolerance. And so because of the understudied nature of it, the undertaught

00:27:51.040 nature of it, and how differently it can present in different people, there is an average diagnostic

00:27:57.620 delay of 7 to 10 years. That's 7 to 10 years from when symptoms start. And it's one of the top 20

00:28:07.020 most painful conditions in the world. So that's 7 to 10 years on average. Clearly, Kayla and I

00:28:13.740 both waited way longer than that of this severe pain before you get a diagnosis and effective

00:28:20.360 treatment. It reminds me of discussions that I've had with others, especially people who are older

00:28:26.200 than me about treatment for menopause and the revelation and this has been really clearly laid

00:28:32.220 out by various doctors and like culture study comments threads that part of it is that there

00:28:37.680 is so little instruction in medical school yes about menopause right and like so even just the

00:28:45.480 idea I think that like in our heads we're like if there's something that's wrong with a lot of

00:28:50.260 people then they teach you in medical school how to deal with that thing and that that is not the

00:28:56.200 case. Nope, not if you have a uterus. It feels revelatory, right? It's really only true if you're 1.00

00:29:01.920 a white man. But we are taught that that is true. We grow up being like, yeah, the doctor will know 1.00

00:29:08.740 what to do. They know all this stuff about our bodies that we don't, and it's not true.

00:29:13.960 Part of the problem is that we don't talk about it. But if you do talk about it, you get gaslit

00:29:18.060 oftentimes. So there's a reason why people don't want to talk about it. They're like,

00:29:23.040 if I just talk about my pain, then people are going to be like, oh, well, maybe you have a

00:29:26.640 low pain tolerance or maybe it's psychosomatic. I want to address the like medical trauma of it

00:29:31.560 all because I had a real. So I had a whole episode about medical trauma. I brought on

00:29:35.780 my therapist who I've been seeing for years to be a guest on the podcast to talk about medical

00:29:41.040 trauma because I had a real issue with the term medical trauma. I have obviously been gaslit and

00:29:48.000 dismissed by doctors and misdiagnosed and mistreated or not diagnosed. But in my head,

00:29:56.020 I was like, medical trauma is when you get a glove left in you after surgery or you get

00:30:02.340 sexually assaulted by your doctor. That's medical trauma. What I have experienced is just a bad

00:30:08.040 time. And so I asked my therapist about this during this episode of what defines medical

00:30:16.240 trauma, do I have it? And her explanation was really crucial and like totally changed my mind

00:30:24.380 about my experience. So medical neglect and medical gaslighting is also medical trauma,

00:30:32.920 leads to medical trauma. It is, you know, not as dramatic as some of the things I had in my head

00:30:39.280 as medical trauma. But the key with these like less dramatic incidences is that they are repeated

00:30:45.920 over time and so it is not just if you go to a doctor and they say oh yep you have period pain

00:30:52.720 like that happens deal with it goodbye that's just a bad time right like that's just a bad

00:30:59.080 a bad doctor a bad medical appointment and if that just happened to you once and then you went

00:31:04.800 to a new doctor and you got appropriate care and you got you were listened to and validated

00:31:08.800 you wouldn't have medical trauma probably but when it happens over and over and over again

00:31:15.820 When every doctor you see invalidates your pain, gaslights you, doesn't give you options and sends you away with ineffective treatment or no treatment, then that leads to trauma because the absence of appropriate care and gaslighting are abuse.

00:31:34.500 like that is if a parent was doing that to you that would be abuse and this is someone in a

00:31:40.700 position of authority who you have gone to for help and they have treated you like this and so

00:31:48.100 the effects of this kind of medical trauma can be really subtle and really insidious and affect you

00:31:56.180 far more than you ever imagined like I'll speak for myself I have this idea of trauma that it's

00:32:02.000 like a thing that happened to you once that affects you forever and like if you can process

00:32:07.800 that like one thing that happened to you you can like fix all your issues and it's like right no

00:32:14.260 no it's more often a pattern and then your body gets into a pattern your mind gets into a pattern

00:32:21.960 based on those experiences that are harmful for you and so what happens with this kind of insidious

00:32:30.120 medical trauma is that you start to invalidate your own experience you are feeling something

00:32:36.440 you go for help you don't have knowledge of you know you're saying I don't know what's happening

00:32:41.260 to me help me please and they're saying nothing's happening to you you don't your pain is imaginary

00:32:47.500 or your pain isn't that bad or they everything that's wrong with you would be solved if you

00:32:54.180 just lost weight yes or if you stop being so stressed out yes yeah yes a hundred percent like

00:33:00.060 they are it's either not happening or it's happening and it's your fault and so what what

00:33:06.580 that teaches us to do especially if you're like me and a little straight a student who takes as a kid

00:33:13.300 took authority very seriously it teaches you to ignore your own body ignore your feelings ignore

00:33:20.940 your sensations and disconnect and that what you're feeling isn't real and that carries over

00:33:28.100 to a lot of other things so that kind of medical trauma leads to things you wouldn't necessarily

00:33:35.020 connect uh it obviously can lead to avoiding the doctor even when like something totally

00:33:40.300 different from your period is happening it like i don't want to go to the doctor for a checkup i

00:33:45.200 don't want to get my blood pressure taken i would prefer to avoid the whole thing entirely

00:33:49.900 when I'm in pain that isn't connected to my period my first instinct is like it's not that bad I can

00:33:57.100 deal with it when it gets worse I'm and it's like oh should we go to the usually it's my husband

00:34:01.680 saying like should we go should we take you to the urgent care should we go to the doctor

00:34:05.220 my immediate thought is they're just gonna tell me nothing's wrong it's gonna be expensive and

00:34:11.060 I'm gonna get nothing out of it and so like I would rather just see what happens and like

00:34:16.880 that's maybe okay when we're young and healthy like as we get older as we get more complicated

00:34:23.960 you know medical stuff going on chronic issues like that may not be okay anymore we may miss

00:34:29.160 major things going on like cholesterol levels we may miss um blood pressure issues we may miss

00:34:35.940 things that could be caught early um cancers we could miss though especially um people who

00:34:41.640 experience severe period pain are more likely to get diagnosed with a later stage ovarian or

00:34:48.500 cervical cancer because they're not getting pap smears. Because they have experienced dismissal,

00:34:54.980 they might notice something is wrong but not trust themselves or not trust that a doctor

00:34:59.940 could help with that. So medical trauma affects so many things that like I didn't expect it to

00:35:06.060 effect. And it's really, really important if you feel you have experienced it, even on a mild level

00:35:12.080 to talk about it, to, you know, work through that. My guest for that episode was Max Gross,

00:35:20.800 who is a trans man who recently had a hysterectomy. He has severe endometriosis along

00:35:28.300 with some other issues and decided to get a hysterectomy partly for the endometriosis,

00:35:32.500 partly for gender reasons and has had a medical experience that is just one for the books and

00:35:39.000 we talked about this and he he came out as trans in his mid-20s and he realized kind of while we

00:35:46.340 were on mic as after I played some of my therapist talking about like the ways that we invalidate

00:35:52.000 our own experiences after medical trauma he was like hey I started getting treated this way by

00:35:58.440 doctors when i was about 18 and i think i had an inkling that i might be trans then but i sure got

00:36:07.540 used to people telling me that i don't know what's going on with my body and i'm not the authority on

00:36:12.020 my body and so it took me probably an extra few years to come out to like believe my myself that

00:36:20.060 i was trans and so it's like things you would not necessarily connect with medical trauma

00:36:25.520 can really be there like uh and so if you feel like you are experiencing this and this is

00:36:32.500 happening to you like i really hope that you can process that in whatever way you need to whether

00:36:38.140 that's journaling therapy like talking about it with your friends and of course finding a provider

00:36:43.880 who listens to you validates you and works with you to make your quality of life and your health

00:36:50.580 a priority. Yeah. And sometimes that involves moving to a different place, which is really

00:36:55.620 hard. Or working with someone outside of your insurance, which sucks and can be expensive. And

00:37:00.180 I resisted it literally until last year. But yeah, and I had a bunch of money saved that I

00:37:08.560 really wanted to use for something else. And I have spent over $10,000 in the last year

00:37:14.140 on getting a diagnosis, seeing a specialist who's out of network. There are no endometriosis

00:37:20.120 specialists in my insurance network. And that apparently happens quite often because insurance

00:37:26.600 companies don't reimburse endometriosis specialists in the way that they should.

00:37:32.500 So this next question is kind of like the ultimate getting rid of period pain and also about how

00:37:36.880 people, I think it really keys into a lot of like the gaslighting and not being an authority on your

00:37:41.140 own body, that whole thing. Let's hear from Michelle. My period pain and generally horrific

00:37:45.960 periods eventually drove me to get a hysterectomy, which was an amazing

00:37:49.480 improvement to my quality of life. 100% no regrets about uterus. But in

00:37:54.820 conversations with other people with uteruses, I've discovered it's often

00:37:58.100 incredibly difficult to get a surgeon to agree to a hysterectomy, even when it's

00:38:01.820 definitely indicated. In fact, I was worried my surgeon would not agree to it.

00:38:06.160 Why the gatekeeping? Is this just more patriarchal nonsense? 0.72

00:38:09.260 So I've heard this a lot. Why is it so hard to get a hysterectomy?

00:38:12.840 yeah uh okay well i mean short answer yeah it's patriarchal nonsense um longer answer um

00:38:20.980 it seems like uh and this is entirely anecdotal this is not based on any research i've seen but

00:38:27.400 uh based on stories i have heard it seems like if you want a hysterectomy it's very hard to get one

00:38:33.820 if you don't want a hysterectomy it is often your doctors will tell you it's the only option you

00:38:39.460 have to have one yeah and that is not true so hysterectomies can be a really touchy subject

00:38:45.800 because especially in like the history of gynecology which is racist and horrible and

00:38:54.040 bloody in the history of gynecology many many women but specifically and especially black women

00:39:01.320 were often told this is what's wrong with you and you have to get a hysterectomy it's the only cure

00:39:07.940 Yeah. 0.98

00:39:08.640 And that is partly because of eugenics.

00:39:11.060 So it is a really, really touchy subject.

00:39:14.840 There are doctors out there who will tell you you need a hysterectomy for fibroids or endometriosis, that that is the only cure.

00:39:23.520 There is some truth to that for adenomyosis, which is kind of endometriosis's nasty sister, where cells that are similar to the lining of your uterus end up growing inside the muscle of the uterus.

00:39:38.300 And so it leads to like an enlarged uterus, really, really painful periods, often very heavy bleeding.

00:39:45.320 And that can be cured by having a hysterectomy.

00:39:49.200 and that is a big choice for someone to make

00:39:52.200 and it is absolutely a choice that should be made

00:39:54.900 with full informed consent

00:39:56.780 I have heard so many stories from people

00:39:59.260 who know they want to have a hysterectomy

00:40:01.780 know they don't want kids

00:40:03.080 are very clear about that

00:40:05.040 and they have doctors who say

00:40:06.640 well what if you change your mind later

00:40:08.420 what if you want kids in the future

00:40:11.140 like I don't feel comfortable recommending this surgery

00:40:14.880 or giving you this surgery 1.00

00:40:16.040 which is total bullshit 1.00

00:40:17.420 And it is 100% patriarchal nonsense where we are not trusted to make decisions about our own bodies. 0.99

00:40:27.200 On the other hand.

00:40:28.180 Again, like reproductive capacity. 0.76

00:40:30.200 You're like, no, I don't want kids to listen to me. 0.77

00:40:32.820 Or if I do want kids, I'll find another way to have kids.

00:40:35.380 Because there are many other ways to have kids.

00:40:37.180 Exactly.

00:40:37.800 And actually, my quality of life is more important to me than my ability to have kids.

00:40:41.740 Yeah. But on the flip side of that, there are doctors who, if you have endometriosis or you're struggling with another kind of period pain, they might say, well, the only option is to have a hysterectomy. And that is not true.

00:40:54.400 And they're, like, laying it out as in, like, either you have this massive surgery or you deal with it.

00:41:00.180 Yeah, exactly.

00:41:01.120 You should deal with it.

00:41:02.380 And the heartbreaking part is a lot of people take their doctor's word, have a hysterectomy for endometriosis,

00:41:08.940 and then find that it doesn't help the pain because often endometriosis is outside the uterus.

00:41:16.440 That's kind of the whole deal with endometriosis is it's outside the uterus.

00:41:20.620 And so taking the uterus out doesn't actually change the pain that you're in.

00:41:25.580 Even though you're not bleeding, you are still having cyclical monthly pain because

00:41:30.060 the hormone fluctuations are activating the endometriosis lesions and causing a ton of

00:41:35.380 inflammation, even though you're not having a period.

00:41:37.940 And so hysterectomies are a really difficult topic sometimes.

00:41:44.100 And whenever people want to talk about, like, patriarchal nonsense within medicine and, like, informed consent, especially around medical procedures, I always like to talk about at one point in the late 1800s, breast cancer was kind of identified.

00:42:03.600 They figured out, like, what breast cancer was, and they didn't understand how people got it, why they developed it, and I think we still don't.

00:42:11.720 But they were recommending that if someone has breast cancer, they don't tell anyone about it because they were so convinced that women were getting worried and anxious and hysterical about breast cancer.

00:42:28.260 and that's what caused breast cancer that like streak of paternalism and like that that way of

00:42:36.820 thinking about what is happening in a woman's body it has gone more underground in medical settings

00:42:42.380 but it has never really gone away and I think that is totally present with the hysterectomy

00:42:47.360 conversation where when they don't want to give you a hysterectomy even when you have decided it's

00:42:52.580 the right choice for you they're thinking well you don't know yeah if you're going to change

00:42:58.760 your mind in the future you don't know like all of this these ideas that we are somehow going to

00:43:03.560 make decisions or actions that harm our our bodies like by accident and that they're protecting us by

00:43:10.340 limiting the information we get about our bodies that's such a good point

00:43:15.260 this episode of culture study is brought to you by graza my longtime favorite olive oil it's fresh

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00:44:52.520 And the drizzle, it's like,

00:44:54.540 it tastes so like light and fresh and almost springy.

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00:45:30.580 It's for your finishing.

00:45:31.320 Oh, I also used the frizzle for my frozen Costco wontons, and it really elevated them.

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00:45:53.180 Or to having your husband Bobby cooking your next chef-quality meal.

00:46:01.320 I want to get to these last two questions because they do something that I was really

00:46:08.960 hopeful we could do in this podcast, which is talk about some of the lesser discussed

00:46:13.580 symptoms of period pain.

00:46:15.880 So this comes from Julia.

00:46:18.500 Why did no one tell me that the first period after having my Mirena IUD removed would be

00:46:23.760 like the final boss of periods?

00:46:26.800 I got it within a month of removal, but bled nearly three times as much as what I now

00:46:30.940 understand to be normal for me and was in at least three times as much pain. When I called my OBGYN

00:46:36.680 out of concern something might be wrong, she very nonchalantly mentioned that this sometimes

00:46:42.020 happens. Why? And why is no one talking about it? So I want to connect the dots here too to the fact

00:46:49.280 that very few people talk about the amount of pain that a lot of women experience in the insertion 0.57

00:46:54.240 process and the removal process yeah i think that iud's have become very normalized and

00:47:01.140 i like our generation of women who have really adopted them in their 20s and 30s like we are

00:47:08.200 only now really having the discussion about like people said like oh this is just so easy like why

00:47:14.020 don't you why wouldn't you get this right instead of talking about like what it actually feels like

00:47:19.260 that there's no discussion of like the pre-medication that you can do all this sort of

00:47:23.560 So maybe we could talk just broadly about this discourse about insertion and removal.

00:47:29.060 Yes.

00:47:30.120 Okay, IUDs are a huge flashpoint.

00:47:34.300 And again, I think birth control is amazing.

00:47:39.340 Birth control is a huge innovation, and it is one of the greatest innovations in medicine in the last 500 years.

00:47:48.140 And also, it is really important that every person be given all the information that is available in order to make the decision for themselves.

00:47:58.860 Fully informed consent and choice, like to be able to weigh the risks.

00:48:04.180 And absolutely connecting to the last question, there were, oh my God, go look up the birth control hearings from the 1970s.

00:48:11.580 there were congressional hearings in the 1970s because it was discovered that birth control

00:48:17.700 at that time had way higher levels of estrogen than it does now. And it was causing a huge uptick

00:48:23.900 in strokes and blood clots. But women were not being informed of these risks. They were known

00:48:31.220 but to doctors, but they were not being informed of these risks when being prescribed birth

00:48:36.140 control uh there were these hearings at which no women were slated to speak it was all men

00:48:43.760 uh speaking to a to all male congress people and so women were go activists were going to these

00:48:51.600 congressional hearings in the audience and standing up and being like hey do you want to hear from an

00:48:55.760 actual woman who took birth control like do you want do you have any interest like it's insane

00:49:00.180 that you're discussing our best interest and there are no women speaking um and anyway these hearings

00:49:05.580 and the laws that were passed after them

00:49:09.060 are why anytime you get any prescription,

00:49:12.120 you are given that like pamphlet full of side effects

00:49:15.300 and like information that you don't read anyway.

00:49:17.740 But like, because that was the point

00:49:20.920 where it was determined that people have a right

00:49:23.700 to know the full, all the information

00:49:26.620 and possible risks of a medication that they are taking.

00:49:29.860 Before that, you didn't legally have to tell anyone

00:49:33.140 how a medication would affect could potentially affect their body. And so I feel very strongly

00:49:40.800 about this, because I also was on a lot of birth controls in my 20s that did not work for me. I got

00:49:46.600 an IUD, was told like, oh, it's just going to be a little bit of cramping to get it inserted. And I

00:49:51.860 was like, whose cramps? My cramps? Like, whose cramps? Right, right, right. That's such a good

00:49:58.540 point right like it's not an objective measure no and it was incredibly painful um I got LASIK

00:50:05.400 surgery last year and they offered me a Valium and I was like are my eyes gonna be numbed for

00:50:12.080 this and they were like yeah but some people get anxious about like eye stuff so do you want a

00:50:15.960 Valium and I was like yes I want a Valium but why can't I get this before every pap smear like

00:50:21.200 that makes me way more anxious than somebody doing surgery on my eyes and yet I am never

00:50:27.140 offered a Valium casually in the waiting room, you know? Yeah. First and foremost on this topic,

00:50:32.700 I do want to say there are many places now doing local anesthetic for IUD insertions. It's

00:50:39.700 literally lidocaine. Like they can take a long Q-tip with lidocaine on it, smear it on your

00:50:45.540 cervix before they force it open to stick the IUD in. And yet it is still pretty controversial.

00:50:52.700 there are a lot of places that like refuse to offer it um you can get local anesthetic for iud

00:51:00.640 insertion and you should if you want if you are interested in that if you are worried about it

00:51:05.220 you should absolutely call places say that that's what you want and find a place that does it this

00:51:11.520 this actually i mean so much of this ties back into these conversations about like martyrdom and

00:51:17.420 pain suffering and like it that somehow like suffering through pain makes you a better person

00:51:21.040 or not complaining about pain right and i finally found this dentist that i really really love

00:51:27.560 a woman who is also an anesthesia nerd as she describes it cool and so she told me about how

00:51:34.600 like there is a certain amount of the population that has like a different like the nerve forks

00:51:39.580 differently in their mouths and if you have this then you need more anesthesia yeah when you need

00:51:45.400 to be numbed more yeah and because most people don't know that right and it can't be like they're

00:51:52.080 just like oh this is a normal amount of pain to be in while I'm having dental work performed and

00:51:56.600 she provided me with more anesthesia and it absolutely transformed like I was getting a crown

00:52:02.080 done and it just it made me think about like I never complained before because I wanted to be

00:52:08.160 I felt shame about having dental work done in the first place and I wanted to be a model patient

00:52:12.700 Yeah. We are trained. We are trained from such an early age as women to not make our pain anybody else's problem.

00:52:24.380 Yeah.

00:52:24.860 To be good. And to be good means to not make anybody's life harder, to not let our needs or experiences interfere with anybody else.

00:52:35.000 And especially, like, that's what the whole taboo against talking about our periods is about.

00:52:40.720 Like, if you think about it for two seconds, like, we don't, we just, we don't think about it.

00:52:45.700 But if you think about it for two seconds, us not talking about our periods hurts us badly.

00:52:51.740 And for reasons I'll get into in a second, like, on top of just the basic sharing of information, there's so much information I could have had so much earlier.

00:53:01.900 And again, I had a hippie mom who was very open, and that did not exempt her from this taboo, this stigma, this habit, this training.

00:53:13.340 And if we're in severe period pain and we're just downing ibuprofen and going about our day, fulfilling our obligations, not because we want to, but because we're expected to, who does that benefit and who does that hurt?

00:53:29.080 we are trained this way because it makes men's lives easier you know it's funny because you

00:53:35.900 know how like sometimes we like as women off like we'll joke about a man cold about how like men are

00:53:41.420 are like totally incapacitated by a cold or an illness and it reminds me that like actually we

00:53:48.300 should be incapacitated sometimes by illness and what we're doing is we're making fun of them for

00:53:53.600 not rising to the standard of non-complaining that we have understood as how we should perform

00:54:00.060 in the world. Yes. And I think what we're doing is we're saying, I want permission to behave like

00:54:04.380 you. I want. But I never have that permission. Exactly. Right. Okay. We got to make time for

00:54:10.460 this last question because I'm very passionate about more questions and more transparency about

00:54:15.100 butt pain. This comes from Caroline and Melody's going to read it. It took me many years to finally

00:54:21.400 look this up, but after experiencing sharp pains again in my butt last month, I found out that it's

00:54:27.600 common cramp experienced during menstruation called proctalgia fugal. My question is,

00:54:34.340 what are other uncommon or common symptoms that are not talked about related to period and hormone

00:54:39.460 changes? I remember reading my body books, but it never had any information on this. In fact,

00:54:45.300 I've never heard anyone mention this symptom. I'm approaching menopause age, and I wonder what

00:54:49.860 symptoms beyond hot flashes, bone density, and the other big changes should I be aware about

00:54:54.760 now? And what are some of the better, more comprehensive resources that can prepare me

00:54:59.340 for these changes? So we had a great thread on Culture Study several months ago, and I'll link

00:55:04.740 it in the show notes, about perimenopause and menopause. And it's one of those things where

00:55:10.620 sometimes it can feel like, oh, we can attribute everything to like, oh, that's perimenopause. And

00:55:16.900 like that that's totally true right but at the same time there is a lot of shit that changes 0.58

00:55:22.180 and that we just normalize so let's talk first about periods so what are some of the lesser 0.94

00:55:28.160 known symptoms of periods that you've encountered in your reporting yes um okay so butt lightning

00:55:33.480 as as it is i have heard it informally called i love it is uh or butthole lightning depending on

00:55:40.320 where you feel it um i had heard about this for pregnancy that very often because the nerves are

00:55:46.060 so stretched in the later stages of pregnancy that you can feel like you have like lightning

00:55:50.340 going down like your hips your butt your pelvis your crotch but yes this can happen during period

00:55:56.120 cramps too um basically you have a ton of nerves in there and when your muscles are like squeezing 0.97

00:56:01.060 and wrenching and moving you know things are all squeezing in there like your butt is next to your 0.98

00:56:06.340 vagina this makes sense it totally makes sense um and that is a pretty common experience for 0.97

00:56:13.460 when you have period cramps I think some of the other stuff that isn't often talked about is I

00:56:19.900 mean something that's never talked about which isn't technically a period symptom but it's part

00:56:24.760 of our cycle medications affect us differently at different times in our cycle if you are an

00:56:30.380 ovulating person for example I'm on an SSRI an antidepressant it works better for me in the first

00:56:37.540 two weeks of my cycle, in my follicular phase and ovulatory phase. In my luteal phase, when

00:56:42.900 my estrogen goes way down and my progesterone goes way up, my body produces less serotonin

00:56:49.420 naturally. And SSRIs are serotonin reuptake inhibitors, meaning they're not actually

00:56:54.580 producing serotonin. They're letting you keep more of the serotonin that's already in your system

00:56:59.180 circulating. But I have less serotonin in my system at that time. Technically, a lot of

00:57:07.060 medication should be dosed differently depending on where you are in your cycle. But medications

00:57:13.300 are not studied on ovulating people because the hormone fluctuations make it harder,

00:57:18.200 quote unquote, harder to study, which means more expensive. And so even though 51% of the

00:57:23.920 population has a uterus and may be experiencing hormonal shifts month to month, we just don't

00:57:31.420 look at that and also a lot of medication like antidepressants is taken much more by women and

00:57:39.120 autoimmune diseases as well are taken by women but that doesn't mean that it's been studied or

00:57:43.180 tested on women and so women also have higher higher rates of adverse reactions to medications

00:57:50.160 because of course they do because it hasn't been adequately developed and tested for people with

00:57:55.440 fluctuating hormone levels like that. It may be safe for them generally, but it's not developed

00:58:01.340 for their physiology. So you may notice on your period or during your luteal phase that your

00:58:07.220 medication is not working as well. I think people with ADD and ADHD experience this a lot too,

00:58:13.120 that they're, especially during their luteal phase, their meds may not be giving them the

00:58:17.920 reaction that they are used to. Is there other stuff in that vein? Like just stuff related to,

00:58:23.140 I think like it doesn't have to necessarily be perimenopause or menopause but it could be

00:58:28.260 just like things that you discovered over the course of your research that we

00:58:32.140 were just in like knowing things as a person navigating the world that we don't necessarily

00:58:38.300 talk about one for me that I thought was so interesting that I gleaned from the conversation

00:58:42.400 about perimenopause and menopause is that there is oftentimes these spikes and feelings of like

00:58:48.720 anti-nurturing feelings yeah fuck it feelings yeah yeah like like you're like no i don't want

00:58:54.720 to be a nurturing mom right now or a nurturing person um which you know like makes sense in 0.97

00:59:00.780 terms of like how perimenopause and menopause positions us in our larger life cycle but i 0.98

00:59:07.460 thought that was super interesting that's a fun one yeah you just sort of don't give a shit anymore 0.55

00:59:11.860 you're just like i'm not i'm not doing this anymore and for me none of this stuff like i 0.82

00:59:16.460 never think of it as excuses. I think of it as like better understanding or positioning

00:59:21.020 some of what I'm experiencing. I'm like, oh, that gives me some more context to understand

00:59:26.180 how my body feels, how my mind feels in this particular moment.

00:59:29.760 Totally. Totally. Yeah. I think a big one that was unexpected for me when I started learning

00:59:36.660 about this, I'm not currently in perimenopause as far as I know, but I had always assumed your

00:59:42.400 periods slow down as you approach menopause and get like lighter and further apart and it's just

00:59:50.460 like oh it's like backwards aging right yes and it turns out that's not necessarily true that maybe

00:59:56.580 some people's experience but perimenopause can also be a time because of the way the hormones

01:00:02.160 are changing it can also be a time where your periods get heavier and closer together like

01:00:07.000 yeah like a lot of final boss periods yeah yeah and I had no and it's similar to like I was told

01:00:12.800 a lot when I was younger um oh your periods will get better when you get older your periods will

01:00:18.920 get better when you once you have a kid I don't have a kid so I have not tested that yet but I've

01:00:25.020 talked to a lot of people who have had a kid and have said oh my periods got better but then a lot

01:00:29.860 of people who had a kid and said my periods got so much worse like I think there's a lot of

01:00:35.160 misunderstandings and generalizations and everybody's experience is so different that

01:00:40.640 like part of it's frustrating because like we want to know exactly what's going to happen to

01:00:45.800 us right we want a doctor to be or somebody to be able to be like here is what you are going to

01:00:50.840 experience and part of you know being a human and being a person with a uterus is you don't know

01:00:58.140 what's coming like you don't you don't know like your you could experience the common things you

01:01:04.520 could experience one of the many many rare symptoms or experiences and you may not know

01:01:11.580 that something is a symptom of something else until you start researching it or you ask a

01:01:16.960 doctor about it and they say oh yeah that can happen and it's yeah it is really frustrating

01:01:21.860 and you certainly can go research it and talk to other people about it I think that's people get

01:01:27.900 very frustrated about like nobody told me about this and it's like okay did you ask anybody like

01:01:32.880 did you talk to your mom about how perimenopause and menopause went for her have you talked to

01:01:40.060 other women in your family about their experiences with perimenopause menopause menstruation

01:01:45.800 because they can probably give you a pretty good idea of what your path is going to look like maybe

01:01:51.760 not exactly but like they've kind of done it and you have their genes your dad's parents like

01:01:57.220 your dad's mom your your female family on on that side of the family like you have their genes so

01:02:03.480 whatever you experience is probably going to be a grab bag from their experiences i found this in a

01:02:11.460 discussion that we had in the newsletter about fibroids that oftentimes once people started

01:02:16.780 asking their parents and grandparents and like extended family about experiences with fibroids

01:02:22.540 Like, oh, yeah, we all have these. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like it's just like, oh, and no one thought to mention that this is what was coming down the pipe. Right. Right. Well, and OK, I think I want to like go out on this fact, which is for the podcast, I interviewed a bunch of different scientists doing work on period pain.

01:02:42.820 And one of these scientists was a psychologist named Dr. Laura Payne, which is so appropriate, P-A-Y-N-E.

01:02:51.860 And she did an experiment where she had teenagers with period pain, teenagers, young adults with period pain, do basically group therapy where they came in. 1.00

01:03:01.380 They had severe period pain, severe dysmenorrhea is the medical term for it.

01:03:05.000 They came in to do group therapy with each other as a group.

01:03:08.300 I think they did five sessions over the course of a couple months.

01:03:10.680 they uh basically just they got a a little bit of education of like prostaglandins cause this

01:03:19.060 cramping you know here are some conditions that you can ask your doctor about that might be causing

01:03:23.400 some of your symptoms um but it really was more about getting these people in a room to talk to

01:03:28.940 each other about their experiences yeah and they met a few times these were people who like didn't

01:03:34.380 know each other outside of this and then they went back and asked them about their pain levels for a

01:03:39.940 year afterwards so they had asked them about their pain levels before they joined the study

01:03:44.540 and then they asked them they followed up every month and asked them about their pain levels

01:03:48.920 they rated their pain lower after these group therapy sessions for a year and yes it's a little

01:03:59.100 bit of this like education and coping skills and like they had more information than they had

01:04:03.440 before but it's mostly that they had their pain validated by other people who experienced the pain

01:04:10.680 as well so they were no longer feeling alone and isolated and they were listened to they were

01:04:15.820 believed and they they had community around it and so there is literal scientific evidence you know

01:04:22.480 we feel pain through our brains like our brains are what is processing these signals and telling

01:04:26.860 us we feel pain. Our brains are social, like we are social creatures. We survive by being in groups

01:04:34.900 of people, right? And so our brains signal more pain when we are alone and isolated. Our brains

01:04:43.800 signal more pain when we don't know what's happening. You know, if we're feeling a pain and

01:04:48.140 we don't know what's causing it, that is more distressing to our brain and our brain is saying

01:04:52.080 that is going to signal the pain louder because it wants us to pay attention to that pain.

01:04:58.340 It feels threatening.

01:05:00.200 And so that literally makes the pain worse.

01:05:02.900 When we have community around us, that calms the pain signals because it's like, okay,

01:05:08.780 you're, something's wrong, but there's people around you.

01:05:11.380 They're paying attention to you.

01:05:12.640 You're being validated.

01:05:13.940 You're part of a community.

01:05:14.760 So nothing that bad is going to happen to you.

01:05:16.840 And when we have information about what's happening to us, we don't panic and ramp up

01:05:22.800 those pain signals.

01:05:24.420 So literally talking about our period pain with other people who validate and support

01:05:31.000 us and potentially also are experiencing the same thing literally lowers the pain that

01:05:37.240 we feel, that we perceive.

01:05:38.900 And yet we are living in a world that totally stigmatizes the discussion of periods.

01:05:46.840 and period pain so the stigma is literally making our pain worse yeah that is a great place to end

01:05:56.300 it and i'm so glad that we got to de-stigmatize it yeah this hour and change um if people want

01:06:01.920 to find more of you on the internet where can they find you yes so you can go listen to the

01:06:06.120 10 episodes of cramped that's c-r-a-m-p-e-d anywhere you get your podcasts you can find me

01:06:13.460 on Instagram at Kate Helen Downey. And you can find me on TikTok at Kate is cramped.

01:06:20.660 Amazing. Thank you so much.

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Culture Study Podcast - May 21, 2025

Everything We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Periods

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