Your tags on the period pain poll are fascinating. Do you mind sharing if you used pads or tampons before using period underwear?
Omg I missed this, sorry!! But yeah sure -- I used a combination; mostly tampon for heavier flow days (NEVER if I thought it was gonna be a light flow, because having to remove a tampon that's still dry is one of the worst things in the world) and/or pads for lighter flow moments or if I'd just taken a tampon out and didn't want to put one back in.
I'd usually use a tampon overnight, because pads in bed are not exactly comfortable (and they shift and move and detach from your undies and stick to your pubes or skin instead and it's an all around un-fun time), but I'd use pads during the day if I wasn't sure what my flow was gonna be. Occasionally if it was super heavy, I'd use a tampon and then also a pad, bc that way if anything went wrong with the tampon (if it wasn't placed properly or if it got drowned or if I didn't have easy access to a bathroom) I had the backup of a pad being there too.
When the period undies first arrived in the mail, I still had a near-full box of both pads and tampons, and that one box of each ended up lasting me..... 9 months or so? I'll very occasionally use disposables in conjunction with the period undies -- eg, if I'm going to work, I'll put on the period undies and line them with a pad in the morning. I'll use pads through the morning, and then at or just after lunch, get rid of them and have just the undies. The ones i have are recommended for 4-6 hour use, so ditching the pad at lunch works well, and that way I don't have to worry about bringing a change with me, but I'm only using around two pads in 24 hours, as opposed to several throughout the whole day and night.
Which, by the way, trading out the undies at work or wherever is actually quite simple. I've done it a fair few times -- I'll bring a clean pair of period undies in a ziplock bag, then when it comes time to trade them out, I'll put the used ones in the ziplock bag and add enough water to the bag to make them damp, so I don't have to worry about them drying out in there, and then put the ziplock bag into a pocket in my handbag or backpack or whatever and deal with them when I get home. That way im not washing them at work (unsanitary), and because theyre in the ziplock bag, i dont have to worry about stains or smells or etc. I just ultimately decided that that was too much hassle to bother with and started adding the pads or tampons to the undies in the morning and then ditching them and going pad-less in the afternoon.
So these days it's pretty rare that I'll use disposables; it's literally only if I'm going to be using the period undies the whole day. One pack of pads lasts me like... 6 months.
But yeah I couldn't believe it when my period pain started decreasing so noticeably. I kept trying to talk myself out of it? I was like, no, you must just have developed an increased pain tolerance. It can't possibly be that your period pain has decreased because of the period undies. That's nonsense. But it was the ONLY thing that had changed --- I hadn't changed my meds or my diet or my exercise; the literal ONLY thing that was different is that I hadn't been using disposables, and each month, my pain was notably less than it was the month before.
So eventually I was like. Ok. Let's see what the internet has to say about this. It's gonna tell you that you're being insane, but let's see.
So I googled, and????? Turns out LOADS of people had reported the same thing???? It's a whole phenomenon?????? Which, someone told me that it must just be psychosomatic for me; they told me that "it must just be a placebo affect, because you knew it had already happened to other people," but I DIDNT. I didn't know it had happened to anyone else until after I'd been noticing it in myself for like 4 months!! It couldn't possibly be a placebo affect, because I'd never even heard of it before!!
So, yeah, idk if it's something that everyone would experience when swapping to reusable undies? I've always been super sensitive to chemicals, so maybe it's just us chem-sensitive types that are affected by whatever they use in disposables? I don't know. All I know is that my pain is SO much less terrible now that I'm using reusable period underwear, and that if I use too many disposables in a short space of time, I notice my pain increasing again. 🤷♀️
