Endometriosis charity, Endometriosis UK, give the following advice to people who get periods: “If period pain is preventing you from carrying out your normal activities, please seek medical advice.”
These normal activities include work, school, and general day-to-day life. For the 10% of people worldwide that have Endometriosis, this is our reality.
As somebody who has Endometriosis, as well as other gynaecological conditions, it’s hard to emphasise just how intense the pain can be. I had my first period age 10 and I am now almost 35. I’ve had periods for 25 years — most of my life — and I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t in pain.
I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 22, which is actually fairly early for Endometriosis sufferers, but does mean I spent my school days in excruciating pain without any explanation.
The thing is, we’re told that periods are supposed to hurt, you’re supposed to feel pretty terrible around them. For some people, this pain is twinges, easily solved with over the counter medication.
For others, it means pain that radiates through your entire body. It means feeling such deep agony that you race to the toilets in between classes to throw up. It means counting the seconds until you can go home and curl into a ball.
While this was my reality as a teen 20 years ago, things haven’t really improved as Endometriosis still takes, on average, 7.5 years to diagnose, according to the Royal College of Nursing. The average age that people start their periods is age 12.
With all of this in mind, it seems absurd that a school in Cambridgeshire is asking parents for proof of period pain if their children are off sick with it, according to the BBC.
School says absence due to period pain is unauthorised
According to an email that was shown to the BBC, this school said that the following conditions would be recorded as “unauthorised absence”:
- Ill
- Unwell
- Poorly
- Period pains (unless we have medical information relating)
- Has a cold
- And similar
When over half of women In the UK feel that their pain is dismissed or ignored by a healthcare professionals, what hope do teenagers have to get the adequate support that they need at school and at home?
If healthcare providers aren’t recognising women’s pain and teenagers are being asked to prove something that they’re struggling to get diagnosed, there’s not much hope for reducing the Gender Pain Gap in future.
“We work together to ensure the best educational outcomes for all our students”
The school principal, Mr Horn, spoke with the BBC and said the changes were in line with new government guidance published in August.
“These changes include increased support for students at risk of persistent absence and potential legal consequences for unauthorised absences.”
He added: “We appreciate the cooperation of parents and carers as we work together to ensure the best educational outcomes for all our students.”
The government guidance states that in the “majority of cases” a parent informing the school their child is ill “can be accepted without question or concern”.
It added: “Only where the school has genuine and reasonable doubt about the authenticity of the illness should medical evidence be requested to support the absence.”