It’s early on a Sunday morning and I’ve been woken up suddenly by horrendous first day period cramps. The type of cramps that make you feel physically sick, like someone is wringing your uterus out to dry – and there’s no escaping them.
I’ve battled with severe period pain since my early teens. God knows how many packets of ibuprofen and paracetamol I’ve ploughed through over the years. Likewise I can’t even count the number of times I’ve scalded my stomach on a boiling hot water bottle (sadly it’s sometimes the only way to minimise, or distract my mind from, the pain).
For this particular crampathon, rather than reaching for my standard combo of ibuprofen and hot water bottle, it’s time to try something new. Unable to get back to sleep, I take a shower, get dressed, then unpack Livia from her box.
She’s a small portable device – turquoise in my case, though she comes in lots of pretty pastels and brights – attached to two wires with gel patches on each end. The idea is that you stick each gel patch just above the top of your pubic area, plug the wires into the device, clip it to your waistband and increase the mild electrical current it sends into your body until the pain subsides. Which is to say she’s something women have dreamt of for eons – she promises to “switch off” our period pain.
In very simple terms, the device works by transmitting a pulse to keep your nerves “busy”, explains the Livia website. So when the nerves are stimulated, the nerve gate is closed, preventing pain signals from reaching your brain and you feeling them. For those who’ve given birth, it’s essentially a small pastel-coloured version of the TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machine, albeit for menstrual pain. As someone who suffers with horrific, nausea-inducing cramps, I am totally ready for this to change my life.
I lie down on the hotel bed (I’m enjoying a rare weekend away, a spa break if you must know) and up the pulses a few times until I begin to feel a manageable prickly sensation – I can’t actually bear much more than that, it’s quite uncomfortable, like extreme pins and needles. And then I wait.
The device, which is both FDA and CE approved (meaning it’s considered safe for use in the US and Europe), reminds me of my mum’s ab-toning device that I used to steal in my early body-conscious teens, which sent pulses into your abdominal muscles to tense and supposedly tone them up.
Initially I think Livia might be working because the pain isn’t overwhelmingly bad, but it turns out I’ve spoken too soon. I’m hit by wave after wave of intense cramps which are not in any way, shape or form diminished by the tingly pulses emanating from the device attached to my trousers.
I lie there hoping for a miracle but after 15 minutes the pain is still there and, doubled over, I reach for the ibuprofen. I need to be able to get on with my day, after all.
The piece of kit itself, while fairly small, isn’t inconspicuous. You have to be wearing quite a baggy top to hide the bulge of the device attached to your trousers and the wires themselves are a bit of a faff to keep under wraps. When you go to the toilet you’ve got to try not to drop everything into the bowl.
Another thing to consider is that if you wear a dress (which I like to do when I’m on my period because it’s less restrictive), there’s not really anywhere to clip it. Livia seems quite bulky to be attaching to your knickers and I don’t want to risk it pulling my pants down around my ankles.
The day after my Livia debut, I decide to try again. This time I’m sat at my desk at work when the pain hits so I have to nip to the toilet, which is inconveniently on the opposite side of the office, with my bundle of wires in a tote bag. I then spend a good 10 minutes getting everything into place (and trying to clip the damn thing to my belt loops) before switching the magic button on.
As I sit at my desk with a tingly sensation around my waistband, it does feel like it’s doing something to distract my brain/body from the pain though admittedly, my period pain isn’t as intense as it was on Sunday. The way it works is almost like a distraction technique – you’re busy thinking about the weird pulses being emitted from the device and catastrophising about fried ovaries – and I’ve got to hand it to the machine, it does take my mind off the pain for a while.
Either that or the cramps have subsided of their own accord, I can’t be entirely sure... I’m the kind of gal who can be doubled over with pain one moment and fine the next – periods, huh? In an independent clinical study, 163 women who suffer from “significant menstrual pain” were given a Livia device and 80% said the device allowed them to “drastically” or “completely” eliminate the use of pain medications.
Concerned that my body is somehow broken because the device does not appear to be “switching off” my pain in full, I persuade my colleague to use Livia when her period arrives a few weeks later. The prickly sensation does not reduce her pain in the slightest, she tells me, before adding: “It feels weird.”
Perhaps if you’ve got less severe period pain, Livia could be a good way to cut down on the amount of painkillers you take (surely a positive thing that could save some serious cash over the years!). But for those who suffer with intense pain, it just doesn’t feel like a good investment. The negatives definitely outweigh the positives for me and, for £129, I’d have to be really enamoured to encourage you to spend such a large chunk of money on wearable tech.
On the whole, Livia is a great idea and a pretty product. I really want it to work, but I’m sad to say it just doesn’t do the trick for this particular uterus – so it’s back to the hot water bottle for me.
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