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Vicki Lesley's avatar

This makes me so angry on behalf of you and your teenage friends in that Catholic school. And I don't know how much better it is now - only a few years ago I heard from a parent in Brighton that their child had been shown photos of aborted foetuses at their Catholic *primary* school. Appalling. I've not heard of the Red School but will have to check them out. I've generally been pretty lucky that my periods were not that heavy/painful and also quite short. But since I had a major haemorrhage when I miscarried in 2018, I've found the sight of the pale pink blood that started it (which is mostly all I get now I'm in perimenopause) re-traumatising. There's still *a lot* of work for us to do as a society around our attitudes to womens' bleeding. Thanks for this post. And take care of yourself - sending much love to you and your family on the anniversary of your dad's death xx

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Sam Galloway (she/her) 💕's avatar

Hi Vicki, that is absolutely outrageous! I hope they were reported to OFSTED, that is unacceptable.

I am so sorry to hear about your miscarriage, it’s so hard isn’t it? Bleeding is awful. My HRT doctor has changed my progesterone so hopefully my bleeding will now stop 🤞

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Alys Hedd's avatar

I'm sorry it's been such a lifelong struggle for you. I've mostly just viewed mine as inconvenient and messy. I've discovered the menstrual disc more recently and much prefer it to the cup, which used to give me yeast infections. Still messy to empty though.

I did have a couple of early miscarriages, bleeding happening earlier in the pregnancy too, and they were horrendous, and a totally different kind of bleeding.

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Sam Galloway (she/her) 💕's avatar

Hi Alys, I am so sorry to hear about your miscarriages. They are so tough.

The menstrual disc sound interesting. I can’t figure out how it works though, ha ha!

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Alys Hedd's avatar

It's basically life the cervical cap, so sits right up at the cervix, rather than in the vagina like the cup. To an extent they 'self-empty' a bit when you go to pee, because the same muscles that stop urine hold it in place. It can take up to 12 hours flow - has a lip underneath on one side to hook it out with your finger. I hated the cup - preferred it to other methods, with environmental considerations in mind but was constantly getting yeast infections and irritations from it and found it a bit uncomfortable. I can forget the disc is in - mine is just a cheap one, about £9 I think! Haven't had any issues with it so far and I've been using it for about a year.

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