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Betterdays

Period and pelvic wellness, science, stories, and more.

All Articles Pelvic Health 101 How-To Guides Advocacy Personal Stories

What is Chronic Pelvic Pain?

Some research suggests that as many as 20% or 1 in 5 women have chronic pelvic pain, but the numbers are most likely much higher.

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What is PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder)?

What is PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder)?

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What is PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome)?

What is PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome)?

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What is Endometriosis and How To Treat It

What is Endometriosis and How To Treat It

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Embracing Rest as Resilience: Why Laziness is a Virtue

In our fast-paced, productivity-driven world, the concept of rest often takes a backseat to constant hustle and busyness. We often associate success with non-stop activity, applauding those who burn the midnight oil and juggle multiple responsibilities. However, what if we challenged this notion and considered rest as a form of...

My Journey From Period Pain To Co-Founding Somedays

I was 9 years old the first time I went to the hospital for abdominal pain. I remember my mom telling me the doctor was going to ask if I had started my period yet and if I knew what that meant.  I didn't — but if this is what...
Tags: Advocacy, Personal Stories

You’re Not Going Crazy: Managing your Menstrual Emotions

It’s 8AM. You wake up in a pool of your own blood.  Fuck.  It’s happening again.  You look for your bottle of Tylenol. Your room’s a mess.  There’s no point. You learned the hard way that painkillers don’t work unless you take it before your period. If you take it...
Tags: Personal Stories,

What is PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder)?

I am 1 in 20.I am a clinical psychologist and I have a disability that impacts 1 in 20 individuals of reproductive age, yet most people have never heard of it. In fact, it’s a mental health disorder, yet I -- a licensed mental health practitioner -- and most of...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

How to Support Someone with Pelvic Pain | A Partner’s Guide to Care

Watching someone you love experience pain can be…well, painful. This topic was inspired by a question on reddit, addressed to people with periods, posed by a well-meaning, sympathetic partner: “How do I show up for my wife on her period?” The top answer: “Ask your wife.” All jokes aside, this...

The Four Phases of Your Menstrual Cycle

Are you synced with your menstrual cycle? Women and folks with uteruses who menstruate are always cycling along the four phases of the menstrual cycle, whether they're aware of it or not. Each body is different, but the flow of hormones that governs the menstrual cycle follows a similar pattern for all...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

Castor Packs: The Natural Way to Relieve Period Pain

Castor oil is a natural remedy that has been used for centuries to treat a variety of health problems. Recently, it has been gaining popularity as a way to reduce period pain, inflammation, and hormone imbalances. In this blog post, we will discuss the benefits of castor oil for uterine...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

8 Natural Remedies for Menstrual Cramps from an Herbalist

I’ve had menstrual cramps ever since I started menstruating. Some months the cramps are light and barely noticeable, but other months they’re so bad I can hardly stand up. Like menstruators everywhere, I’ve had to power through work meetings and birthday parties and stressful exams while bleeding and cramping—and I...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

How To Grocery Shop In Sync With Your Menstrual Cycle

If you’ve researched what to eat to have a happier, more pain free menstrual cycle, you may have come across a few different grocery lists of what you should buy for the different phases of your cycle. An intentional and personalized diet may help you better work in harmony with...

How to use this Somatic Care Deck for Chronic Pain

This care deck was created to support folks in feeling more freedom, ease, pleasure and safety in their bodies.   It is intended to empower you in feeling more embodied and more connected to yourself: to call your body home again.  It is for anyone; whether you experience chronic pain, struggle...

What is Endometriosis and How To Treat It

Endometriosis impacts approximately 1 in 10 (or 176 million women) during their lifetime. This number is most likely much higher, as it does not accurately account for transgender people, or those who struggle to get an accurate endometriosis diagnosis in the first place. What is Endometriosis? Endometriosis is a condition...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

What Is Medical Gaslighting and 5 Ways To Recognize It

Am I exaggerating my symptoms of pain?  Do I really  need medical attention?  Doctors are always right, so they must be right about my experiences of pain….right?  These were the thoughts that plagued my brain immediately following appointments for seeking medical help for my chronic pain. I remember feeling as though there were two conflicting...
Tags: Advocacy,

My Journey With Endometriosis As A Black Woman

It has taken me weeks to start writing this piece. To sit down and write openly about my experiences in the healthcare system as a Black woman with chronic pelvic pain is to pick at wounds that have yet to heal. Uncomfortable, to say the least, with an underlying aura...
Tags: Advocacy,

My Journey with Provoked Vestibulodynia

Five years ago, if I had been asked to write a 1200-word blog post on my physical, sexual, and mental health struggles, I would have fallen short by a thousand words. Unfortunately, in the present day, reaching this word count will be an easy task.  For three years, I have battled a...
Tags: Personal Stories,

The Connection Between Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Endometriosis

During my undergraduate degree, when I was researching and writing on the experiences of people navigating the health care system with chronic pain, one of the participants said something that stood out. When they were discussing their pain, they said that they had received a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). They...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

What Is Chronic Pelvic Pain?

Chronic pain is defined as pain of a certain part of the body that lasts for 3 months or longer. Chronic pelvic pain in particular is associated with menstrual cycles and can manifest through a variety of different conditions and disorders such as endometriosis, adenomyosis, and others. The areas of...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

The Dark and Racist History of Gynecology

An oath to do no harm applies to some but not to all. Gynecology has a shameful history of racism. To anyone that has been paying attention, 2020 brought late but much-needed awareness and attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and race-related issues that have existed for centuries in...
Tags: Advocacy,

The Different Treatments I Tried to Treat My Vaginismus

When I was first diagnosed with Vaginismus after a strenuous journey, I could feel the relief slowly evade my senses, though this sense of relief was short-lived. I originally thought the diagnosis would be the key to “normality”, to recovery, to achieving the goals for my body that I had...
Tags: Personal Stories,

4 Ways To Improve Your Chronic Period Pain

The dominant understanding of period pain is that it is a condition of the body. While accurate, this perception fails to address the very real and extensive mental, emotional, and physical implications that come with chronic pain.  Research has shown that individuals who have been diagnosed with various menstrual related chronic...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

7 Ways To Create A More Period Inclusive Workplace

As I’m writing this, I’m ironically and fittingly bleeding ferociously on my break from work. I'm sandwiched between two flax seed heat pads, waiting for my next piano student to arrive, as I try to muster the energy to engage meaningfully with an eight year old. I was reluctant to...
Tags: Advocacy,

How My Endometriosis Led Me To Become a Nutritionist

“She is just unlucky, she can either go on the pill or get pregnant.” My doctor told my 11 year old self.  I started my period when I was 10 years old and the first few ones were absolutely painless and more of a question about why it was there. I never...
Tags: Personal Stories,

Holistic and Integrative Approaches To Period Pain Relief

There is currently a substantial disconnect between western and holistic medical treatment when it comes to chronic pelvic pain management. Most medical professionals aren’t familiar with and so don’t recommend natural options for menstrual pain management and vice versa with holistic practitioners. Not only is this disconnect counterproductive but it...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

Latest Online Resources to Learn about Period Pain Management

Throughout history, menstrual pain and the people that it impacts have been under researched and underserved. This has created a culture in which people who have menstrual pain are unable to effectively access the support and treatment they need to lessen or alleviate their pain. Across countries around the world...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

The Importance of Celebrating Black Love

While 2020 was an important year for the fight in racial equality and upward social mobility, it was also incredibly difficult and traumatic. Black people had to watch their communities, families, and friends fight and suffer just for the right to be treated as equal citizens by the same institutions...
Tags: Advocacy,

A Curious Touch: Exploring Intimacy With My Menstruating Body

For most of my adult life, come my monthly menstruating, my body isn’t one I have particularly liked or felt good in. Three or four days before I bleed, everything starts to get a little puffy all over: joints ache, tummy bloats, and a dull pain rests in my abdomen....
Tags: Personal Stories,

Best Herbs and Practices To Increase Your Fertility

So you are interested in using herbs and natural practices to increase fertility? Well, you have come to the right place!  A brief disclaimer before we dive in; this article is meant to be a broad spectrum starting point in your fertility journey. The content is geared towards people who...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

How I Improved My Endometriosis and My PCOS

Hi! My name is Mikaela, and I am an Endometriosis and PCOS warrior! When it comes to your mental health, it's important to acknowledge that it's just one part of your overall health. In many ways, your physical health and mental health are directly connected with one another. There are many examples of...
Tags: Personal Stories,

Raspberry Leaf For Period Pain Relief

There is extensive research that supports the use of herbal and plant based ingredients to improve and alleviate various pelvic pain related issues. Raspberry Leaf is no exception and can be very effective in bringing about period pain relief. At somedays, all of our products are uniquely and tailored designed to...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

Toxic Things I Learned About Periods in the Catholic School System

I got my first period in the summer between grades 6 and 7. I remember being at the park with my friends months later and one of them said, “I wonder which of us will get their period first.” I kept my mouth shut. I don’t know why I didn’t...
Tags: Personal Stories,

How My Chronic Pain Led Me To Entrepreneurship

I have been building businesses since I could talk. Lemonade stands, hair cutting, tutoring, babysitting, if there was a way to structure something into a repeatable action, I was all over it. My parents sent me to an entrepreneurial day camp when I was 8 and I was hooked. Always dreaming, always scheming, always looking...
Tags: Personal Stories,

The Connection Between Back Pain and Period Pain

For many, including myself, back pain is something I’ve often overlooked. I figured it must be from sleeping weird, or sitting for too long in my sub par chair, or standing weird for 8 hours at my service job.  While these all could be reasons contributing to your back pain,...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

What is PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome)?

Before writing this, I found myself asking, what is the best way to write an informational piece about a chronic condition that is unique to every body, manifests itself in different ways, displays a wide range of symptoms, and doesn’t have a specific cause or cure?  Do you start with...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

Decolonizing The Pain Scale: Viewing Pain as Multidimensional and Non-Linear

Attempts at measuring pain, especially in the Western and European biomedical traditions which dominate medical systems in many countries, have continually fallen short. Especially when it comes to changing and healing bodies, in particular marginalized and culturally diverse bodies. The reason marginalized bodies are most impacted by the inadequacies in...
Tags: Advocacy,

How Birth Control Affects Your Period

I remember when I was around fifteen, and the majority of my peers started a form of hormonal birth control. Not due to engagement in sexual activity, but due to a plethora of other symptoms they had that the doctors said could be fixed with birth control. When I started...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

Why There Are Diagnostic Lapses for Pelvic Pain Conditions

When I first began researching chronic pelvic pain, I was blown away at how common these experiences were. I remember thinking back to those dreaded sex-ed classes in school and being angry—angry that there was no attention paid to pelvic pain when I now know the prevalence of the various conditions.  There are varying severities and forms of pelvic pain, and there are multiple conditions that cause pelvic pain. It is estimated...
Tags: Advocacy,

The Connection Between Chronic Pain and Sex

There is a complex relationship between sex and chronic pain. Chronic pain can affect a person’s sex life because of the pain itself, but also because of other factors that come with chronic pain, such as mood changes, decreased libido, medications, or stress. The relationship between sex and chronic pain is further complicated...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

How to Use Seed Cycling To Bring Ritual and Intention To Your Menstrual Cycle

We all share the same moon. It is universal, consistent in its appearance in the sky and it shows up every night. Influencing the tides and influencing all of us, Feminine in spirit, the moon energetics are Yin to the Sun’s Yang. From its brightest and fullest point, to its...

How to Exercise in Sync with Your Menstrual Cycle

Hormone levels change dramatically depending on which phase of your cycle you are in, and this process affects your brain, body, energy, skin, etc.  One thing that is rarely talked about in the fitness industry is how hormones fluctuations affect ones ability to exercise at the same level every day....

How Healing my Vaginismus Changed my Relationship to Sex

I began heading towards my healing journey for my Vaginismus when I was in high school. I was aware of the need to heal but was not confident in how or what that would look like. When you’re a teenager, it seems like everything revolves around sex. Because sex was...
Tags: Personal Stories,

Breast Pain and Your Cycle: What is Normal?

As a person with breasts and a period, there are usually a few days in the month where I can’t get away with not wearing a bra, or I find myself cupping my breasts in my hands as I walk down the stairs. Breast swelling, and tenderness is something that many people...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

The Unfortunate History of Hysteria and Endometriosis

When I started my research into medical gaslighting and chronic pain, I was awestruck when a participant of my study explicitly mentioned the connection between hysteria and endometriosis. They explained to me that they were shocked to discover that people are now starting to talk about how for years, most hysteria diagnoses...
Tags: Advocacy,

Menstrual Health: How Sex Education is Failing Our Youth

My introduction to menstrual health, pre-menarche, was as follows: when I was around 14, my mum came into my room, somewhat out of the blue and drew me a diagram of a uterus on one of those notepads you get in the mail from your local realtor. It went something...
Tags: Advocacy, Pelvic health 101,

How To Shop For Someone With Period Pain

The digital world has allowed people who have chronic pelvic pain to build supportive and uplifting communities. The distributing and sharing of helpful, innovative, and comprehensive information is more widespread than ever. Because of this, there has been the creation of immense online resources and guides to support those with pelvic pain...

Bleeding Beyond the Binary: People Have Periods

Our People Have Periods campaign is our way of capturing and sharing these gifts with the world. Each and everyone of the people in this campaign have forged their own reality. 
Tags: Advocacy,

Herbal Tea for Period Relief: A Brief History and How-To

Herbal tea has been used for centuries to help with all sorts of health concerns. For many people, herbal tea can be a powerful ally for period relief. This blog post will explore the history of herbal tea as a medicinal remedy and how to use it today. We'll look...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

What is The Vaginal Microbiome and How To Keep It Healthy

One of my favourite things to talk about is the vaginal microbiome! I learned about it a few years ago when I was on my health journey to understand why I always had yeast infections. Literally, from 5th-8th grade, until I went on the pill, I had the most horrific yeast infections. To...
Tags: Pelvic health 101,

How Queer Period Sex Changed My Relationship to Period Pain

It wasn’t until a couple of months in that I realized, instead of the instant and crippling anxiety I felt in anticipation of the pain that always followed the beginning of my period – I was thinking about sex. About pleasure. About loving my body. About being loved. That’s when everything changed.  
Tags: Personal Stories,

My Journey with Transness and Endometriosis

When I was a teenager and first started experiencing menstrual pain, it was explained to me as an unavoidable part of “womanhood”. As I got older, I distanced myself both from the idea of womanhood and it’s unexplainable suffering that seemed to be carelessly attached to the sentiment. 
Tags: Personal Stories,

My Journey With Losing My Period Due to Chemotherapy

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I have struggled with having a period. I grew up accidentally staining so many pairs of underwear, pants, sheets and I hated it.
Tags: Personal Stories,

My Journey with Transness and Endometriosis

Coming to terms with my transness went hand in hand with recognizing a decade of pain and missing out on life experiences because I was waiting out my menstrual symptoms.

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Raspberry Leaf For Period Pain Relief

6 min read

How To Shop For Someone With Period Pain

    8 min read

    4 Ways To Improve Your Chronic Period Pain

    6 min read

    Holistic and Integrative Approaches To Period Pain Relief

    6 min read

    Best Herbs and Practices To Increase Your Fertility

    8 min read
    My Journey With Endometriosis As A Black Woman

    My Journey With Endometriosis As A Black Woman

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    How My Chronic Pain Led Me To Entrepreneurship

    How My Chronic Pain Led Me To Entrepreneurship

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    My Journey With Losing My Period Due to Chemotherapy

    My Journey With Losing My Period Due to Chemotherapy

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