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Cerebral palsy and menstruation

As you can probably tell by the title of this post. I’m going to be talking about how my menstrual cycle impacts on my Cerebral Palsy. I won’t be going into any of the ‘gory’ details but I will be talking about how it makes my muscles feel, and how my mother and I found which feminine hygiene products worked best for me. If you don’t want to read this I completely understand and I’ll see you next time.

I’ll be blunt. My period and my cerebral palsy do not get on. They are not friends and I don’t think they ever will be. Most months I go from being someone who likes to use her walking frame far more than her wheelchair, to being someone who likes to leave her walker at home and take my wheelchair as much as possible.

I’m pretty sure most women get cramps. Ladies, I’m sure you know the ones I’m talking about, but I get more than that too. You see, it’s not just my stomach that hurts, but my legs too. I get pain that makes its way deep into my bones, or that’s what it feels like. I get far more pain in my legs than I do in my tummy, so I often spend a couple of days with a hot wheat bag on my lap and trying to move as little as possible. Although sometimes, the aches mean I feel like I need to move around more to try get rid of them, which ends up making it worse.

I used to get a lot of pain in my lower back when I was younger too, but that seems toyear have passed now.

When I started my periods, my mum admitted that she’d been apprehensive about it for a while. I was lss able then than I am now, and stood knock-kneed because I was yet to have the surgery that would later correct that.

As a result, putting sanitary towels on wasn’t easy. Because my legs often naturally stuck quite close together, the pads would often slip and move around. So we tried winged ones and they worked a lot better, and got the ones that were larger in size so that I wouldn’t have to worry about leaking.

For the first few months, I found changing them on my own fiddly because of all the wrappers that were involved and wrapping the wings around my underwear, but, like they say, practice makes perfect and I have lots of that under my belt now.

The stomach cramps have lessened over the years, but the pain in my legs seems to gradually get worse. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I’m more active these days?

29 thoughts on “Cerebral palsy and menstruation”

  1. I agree with you so much on this post and I’m the exact same way; although I still have back pain and it’s pretty bad, I get it in my hips too. Have you tried tampons? I’ve been wanting too but I’m scared.

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    1. So Sorry I didn’t reply to this sooner, it ended up in my spam queue and I’ve only just found it. I haven’t tried tampons. I want to but I’m nervous about it too.

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    1. So, so sorry I didn’t reply to this sooner. Your comments keep getting sent to my spam queue for some reason. I used to get ill around my period but not so much now.

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      2. I know you’re not. I have no idea why it happened. Some of your comments get through and others don’t even though I’ve approved your comments before!

        Let’s hope so for your sake. Do you mind me asking how old you are? I’m 24 and things go better once I left my teens.

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      5. I’ll be seeing my specialist soon, so I’ll run it by her since it’s consistent. But I changed my diet I think that’ll help a ton

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      6. Do you use anything to help with it? I use wheat bags that you heat up in the microwave. I spent a lot of tie laying on my stomach because I find that really helps with backache too.

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      8. My back can be pretty bad too. Usually either right at the bottom or right in the middle where my bra strap sits. That’s really annoying at times. I lie on mine too sometimes. I try to avoid curling up if I can.

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  5. Hi there thank you for sharing your experience I feel so sorry. When I was younger I to suffered like you but as got older the pain wasn’t to bad .
    I too have Cereal palsy and have cramps in my leg ect I find having a massage is go and helps me relax the mucale in my legs .hope you don’t mind me asking but how can I follow you? Hope you don’t mind me asking? ☺

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  6. I’m almost 30. The changes that happen around that time seem to be kicking in, and I hurt more (all types) now then I ever have before. Apparently that’s normal for the 30’s.

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