I recently asked the women of the BuzzFeed Community to share things they didn’t learn about their bodies until it happened to them, and I received an overwhelming amount of responses. Reading through them was a rollercoaster of emotions for me. Here is what some shared:
1.”What your first period can actually look like! I was 12 when mine started (thankfully, I was at home), and I kept seeing brown stuff in my underwear. I was highly embarrassed because I thought I was shitting myself all day (I thought I had food poisoning even though I felt fine otherwise), so I didn’t say anything to my mom at first. Finally told her, she had a look, rolled her eyes and said it was my period. I thought period blood was only red until that point.”
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2.”My uterus not going back to its usual spot after I gave birth. Just before I was going to my 6-week post-pregnancy gyno appointment, I decided to ‘check’ how everything was doing there with my fingers. About 1cm in, I felt my cervix! After a lot of freaking out, thinking my organs were falling out, and wondering if I would ever be able to get pregnant again, I saw a midwife, my gyno, and a urologist. My bladder prolapsed a bit, and I brought everything down with her when I was in labor.”
“It will never go back to before unless I get surgery, which I will have to wait until I’m done having kids (which I want more of). It isn’t painful; it doesn’t really affect my day-to-day life (urinating, sexual relations, etc.), except that I can no longer wear a menstrual cup. I am in my 20s, healthy, and so not the usual type of person who gets prolapses, but it can happen, and I wish more people talked about it so I wouldn’t have felt like such an alien.”
—rohonhonhon
3.”About six years ago, I started having debilitating pain in my lower back and groin. I was no longer able to sleep on my right side because my back would get ‘stuck’ in the middle of the night, and I couldn’t roll over. I started at my gynecologist and was told it was my IUD, so I had it taken out; the pain persisted. Then they thought I might have cysts on my ovaries, but after a super invasive ultrasound with a wand, no ovary issues were found. I was sent to a pain specialist, and after x-rays and an array of painful physical tests, I was sent away, basically being told it was somatic and in my head. Now, a couple years into investigating, I cannot work, hike, or ride my bike without pain.”
“The spasms increased, my mobility was so limited, and I was starting to miss work frequently because my back was on fire and I couldn’t move. I had an orthopedic surgery years prior due to a dance injury, so one day, I thought to call the same surgeon and see if they could check out my back and hip. After the first MRI, my labrum was torn. This was unfortunate yet fortunate news because my intuition was validated, but because I hadn’t had a specific injury, something else caused the tear. I was so lucky that the top hip surgeon in the country was at my practice.
It was discovered that I was born with hip dysplasia, so my pelvis was cut in four places, and my hip joint was moved to the correct position. It was a journey with crutches, a cane, and months of physical therapy, but I am back to 100%. This occurs more often than we originally knew, and I have since met more people my age (I’m 36 now) with similar issues. It is generally female and the firstborn due to the mother’s initial trauma to the birth canal. Pediatricians are checking babies now and can provide early intervention. The surgery I had was Periacetabular Osteotomy (PAO). Hopefully, this will provide some guidance and assurance that you can trust your gut if experiencing something similar.”
—Allie, 36
4.”I would’ve considered myself a healthy 33-year-old at the time. I worked out a few times a week, ate a healthy diet, and worked a non-sedentary job. One evening at dinner, I received an alert from my Apple Watch that my heart rate had unusually increased to 110bpm. I thought nothing of it until it happened again a couple of days later, followed by a sudden round of deep, hard heartbeats lasting a few seconds (tachycardia). I blamed it on holiday stress, but still scheduled an appointment with my primary care provider who was booked out a whole month.”
“Before I could make it to my appointment, my average resting heart rate had increased to 120 bpm (140 at work), I began to have hot flashes, needed to take frequent breaks at work, had trouble breathing, lost my voice, lost my appetite, and lost 14 pounds. My coworker’s husband, a vascular surgeon, stopped by our office to bring her flowers one morning and noticed me hot flashing. It took him less than 30 seconds to diagnose me with hyperthyroidism based on the jugular pulses in my neck.
He ordered bloodwork for me and sent the results to my primary care provider, who immediately sent me to an endocrinologist. He diagnosed me with Grave’s Disease. I never thought I was at risk of an autoimmune disease (no family history of any of them). I also fully understood a friend of mine living with Lupus when she told me that autoimmune diseases feel like your body’s working against you no matter how healthy you try to be.”
—Shanae, 35
5.”Your risk of developing liver complications or tumors significantly increases if you take birth control for more than five years. I was originally put on birth control in my teens to control extremely painful cramps, as many girls my age were. During my 20s, I asked my gynecologist a couple of times if I could go off birth control when I wasn’t sexually active. Still, I was always advised to stay on it because my body was ‘well-adjusted to it’ and might not react well to stopping and starting the medication in the future. Fast forward to my late 30s, an incidental finding on a CT scan revealed I had a large liver tumor. Fortunately, the tumor is the non-cancerous type and causes no pain or side effects, but that isn’t the outcome for everyone.”
“I spent most of last year bouncing between appointments with specialists and getting MRIs and just generally worried about my physical health, which took a toll on my mental health. When looking into it further online, I found Reddit was littered with similar stories of women experiencing liver tumors and complications from long-term birth control use, and I even found a few class action suits. Not once was this possibility discussed or even hinted at by any gynecologist over the 20+ years I was on the medication. Birth control is a human right and should be protected legally, but advocate for yourself and make sure you know the rewards and risks that come with taking it (or any medication) long term.”
—Anonymous
The Good Brigade / Getty Images
6.”The hymen is not a fragile, wall-like membrane; it’s more like a rim that can tear and separate from other pieces of itself. Because of this, you can get what’s known as a hymenal tag — kind of like a skin tag — that can protrude from the vagina. The vast majority of the time, they’re barely noticeable, but if they are (and are causing pain or discomfort), they need to be surgically removed. They can also be removed in the process of vaginal childbirth, though not always. Vaginal childbirth can also create hymenal tags. It’s supposedly something rather common, but not a single woman I’ve talked to has ever heard of such a thing.”
—vent456789
7.”That at age 40, I would pee a little when running or sneezing despite never having had kids. I was promised that would not happen to me!”
Travelcouples / Getty Images
8.”That your hair texture can change with menopause. I now have curly hair. It’s not a remotely tight curl, but it has curls.”
—cr1stalfairie
9.”After my first vaginal birth, sex hurt for more than six months. I was ‘cleared for takeoff’ after the usual six weeks, but I had no libido. It felt like something was broken or raw inside me for a very long time. It wasn’t until after my period returned (after over six months because I was breastfeeding) that it started feeling fun again. It wasn’t anything anatomical, it was the hormones from birth and breastfeeding. I couldn’t believe how much they impacted my sex life!”
Arno Images / Getty Images/Image Source
10.”When I went on non-estrogen birth control, after taking estrogen birth control pills for ten years, the doctor told me that my period might disappear. She didn’t tell me that only the bleeding would dissapear. I don’t track my period because I don’t bleed anymore, but I’ll still get cramps, cravings for chocolate, and mood swings that I won’t notice until later, about once a month. I’ll be looking in the mirror, taking my makeup off at night, thinking, ‘Okay, maybe I overreacted to that conversation,’ and then realize that I’m probably on my period.”
—rnd13001
11.”That not everyone has period cramps that feel the same, and some people don’t have cramps at all! I remember when I first started getting really bad cramps, my mom said I was fine because ‘Her cramps don’t ever feel that bad.’ So, I assumed we all feel cramps the same way and that I just needed to toughen up.”
—emostar31
12.”That not everyone can use tampons! My mum was a tampon girl when I started my period at 13, but she wouldn’t let me use them for some reason and only ever bought me pads. Fast forward to when I was 19, I tried them for the first time! I tried the smallest tampon, and it ended up absorbing my urine. When I went to the bathroom, I couldn’t pee till I pulled the tampon out. I thought something was wrong. I ended up googling it and found out some women just can’t use tampons. Physically, it just doesn’t work for some of us. So I’m still a pad girl and love my reusable pads.”
—n48656c421
13.”Nobody talks about how violent a miscarriage can be or how it can take months to recover. I had a miscarriage at almost 12 weeks and ended up in the ER. The emotional trauma was bad enough, but I was not prepared for how much my body would change. I never used to get period cramps, but in the months since my miscarriage, I have had debilitating cramps and PMS symptoms, which are super fun reminders of the pregnancy and loss.”
Jose Luis Pelaez / Getty Images
14.”I went to the doctor about the migraines I was having (at least once a week). I couldn’t explain why, nothing unusual was going on, so the doctor decided on some medication and to draw blood. The bloodwork showed my thyroid wasn’t producing enough hormones (hypothyroidism). I got some more meds, and I decided to look up hypothyroidism. Everything my body had been experiencing in the last year suddenly made sense: hair loss, weight gain, inability to lose weight, lack of energy, inconsistency with my periods, mood swings, depression. I was driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I was doing to myself that these things were happening, I had just figured it was my body losing it the closer I got to 40. Nope, my thyroid decided to act up. Things have vastly improved since being diagnosed and getting medication.”
—hovanmolly
15.”When I had gallstones, I also got pretty intense menstrual cramps. They didn’t go away. I had them for a full month. I had my doctor and gyno get an MRI and ultrasound of everything and saw I was having gallbladder issues. Even my gyno was like, guess we can add menstrual cramps to the list of symptoms with gallstones.”
—tmc1234
16.”Every woman has a different experience while pregnant, and each pregnancy can be different. I’m currently in my second pregnancy, and it’s a whole different ball game from the first one. My first pregnancy I had food aversions to pork sausage, strong perfumes and lotions, and was generally more nauseous. So when I got pregnant again, I thought I had an idea of what I had ahead, but no. With my current pregnancy, I barely had any nausea the first trimester and was hangry all of the time for things like Lucky Charms and cream cheese wontons. My second baby is also much more mellow than my first regarding movement in the womb.”
The Good Brigade / Getty Images
17.”For me, it was to trust what my body was feeling even if someone told me that I should (or would) feel differently. I got my blood drawn once, and my arm not only got a major bruise, but I legitimately could not move it for three days. But blood draws aren’t supposed to hurt, right? I had to get stitches in the back of my arm when I punctured a hole through it. I was told it wouldn’t hurt because I had been numbed up. Guess what? It hurt like hell!”
“In short, I’m extremely sensitive. I’ve always been this way, and I no longer pay attention when people tell me what I should or shouldn’t be feeling or experiencing. Only my body can tell me how I feel, and I have no time for anyone who argues otherwise.”
—jcismybestfriend
18.”No one told me about after-labor pains! About a week after giving birth, I started getting these random cramp-like pains. It increasingly got worse until the point of thinking I was in labor again. I knew my uterus would have to shrink back to size. I intellectually understood that muscles have to contract. But I did not put together that to shrink, the uterus goes through literal contractions! I thought I had an infection or something causing pain. I talked to a friend, and she said, ‘Oh yeah, that happens.'”
—barriv
19.”In my late 20s, during grad school, I took up exercise for stress relief and ended up dropping weight and putting on muscle. I felt great, except for my periods. For 15 years, I’d had a cycle that was clockwork regular, only a few days, and with little to no symptoms. Just an annoyance. After I got fit, my cycle was sometimes longer or sometimes shorter than usual, the days were no longer consistent, and I suddenly had extreme nausea and ‘lie-in-bed-and-wait-for-death’ cramps.”
“Most of what’s online about this topic is about those who are overweight and find their periods regulate with weight loss or those who are anorexic who lose it entirely with extreme weight loss, neither of which applied to me. But the best I could find is that body fat and hormones are linked, and when I lost the body fat, it threw mine out of whack. I’ve since put some of the weight back on during the pandemic, and my periods have evened out a bit, but I still get the nausea.”
—lobster_lemon_lime
20.”I did not know that women could orgasm in their sleep until it happened to me. It first happened to me when I was pregnant 13 years ago, and it continues to this day. Usually, it happens when I’m having a sexy dream, but not always. Nature’s cruel joke on me is that I can c*m in my sleep, but not during penetrative sex.”
—hollyskittlesb
21.”No one prepares you for perimenopause or menopause. They tell you about the heat flashes, the crankiness, and the random facial hairs that grow simultaneously as you lose head hair. They tell you about the weight gain, but no one prepares you for how emotional or how debilitating it can be.”
—imaflamibgo
If you have your own story, share it with me in the comments below!