Mine are also probably worse than average, but not as bad as you describe. I’m usually unable to work or do much other than read or some other low-key activity because of pain, for about half a day to a full day at a time. I’ve never experienced vomiting due to pain.
I got an IUD ~7 years ago that basically made the problem go away completely. I’ve had a couple instances of extremely severe pain with the IUD that were so bad I went to the ER, but since it mostly deleted my menstrual cycle and there were only a few bad days in many years, I feel it was a good deal on net.
I would +1 all the commenters here saying you should investigate more birth control options that could mitigate the severity—and probably try to find better doctors, if you can. I think it’s a common experience for period pain to be dismissed as unimportant or not worth spending effort to fix, but that’s utter bullshit.
I’ve gotten a lot of mental mileage out of thinking of it as “This is a minor physical disability that I have,” and try to think how I would want to work around it if it were a Real DisabilityTM. For example, I used to feel guilt about taking time off work because I was in so much pain that I couldn’t concentrate, because “periods are normal, if I can’t work during this normal thing, then that means I’m a bad employee.” Instead, I changed my thinking around it to be more like “This is a disability I have, and so my employer can accommodate it. If it’s a problem for them that I have to take off half a day here and there, we can discuss it and negotiate it, but I’m not actually able to work right now, so there’s no point staying here and pretending.”
I think your symptoms are substantially worse than average. I’ve only spoken to or heard of one other person with symptoms that bad—Julia Wise, actually, who has written about it on her blog. https://thewholesky.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/you-dont-need-to-have-a-period/
Mine are also probably worse than average, but not as bad as you describe. I’m usually unable to work or do much other than read or some other low-key activity because of pain, for about half a day to a full day at a time. I’ve never experienced vomiting due to pain.
I got an IUD ~7 years ago that basically made the problem go away completely. I’ve had a couple instances of extremely severe pain with the IUD that were so bad I went to the ER, but since it mostly deleted my menstrual cycle and there were only a few bad days in many years, I feel it was a good deal on net.
I would +1 all the commenters here saying you should investigate more birth control options that could mitigate the severity—and probably try to find better doctors, if you can. I think it’s a common experience for period pain to be dismissed as unimportant or not worth spending effort to fix, but that’s utter bullshit.
I’ve gotten a lot of mental mileage out of thinking of it as “This is a minor physical disability that I have,” and try to think how I would want to work around it if it were a Real DisabilityTM. For example, I used to feel guilt about taking time off work because I was in so much pain that I couldn’t concentrate, because “periods are normal, if I can’t work during this normal thing, then that means I’m a bad employee.” Instead, I changed my thinking around it to be more like “This is a disability I have, and so my employer can accommodate it. If it’s a problem for them that I have to take off half a day here and there, we can discuss it and negotiate it, but I’m not actually able to work right now, so there’s no point staying here and pretending.”
That sounds like a really useful idea.
For example, perhaps it would help to quantify one’s quality of life over a period to identify patterns.
And maybe there are certain metrics that should lead to certain actions (like the idea of a normal range in routine blood tests).