How Menstruation Works

Two dudes talking about menstruation? You bet! And there’s no way you could be any more nervous to listen than we were to record it. But give it a listen, we think you’ll find it enlightening – whether you menstruate or not.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's here with us UM for oversight,
and this is stuff you should know. Just a couple

(00:21):
of dudes tucking menstruation. That's right, and it sounds totally
normal when you say it like that. It sounded like
the making copies guy. You signed it to me like
Troy McClure. Yeah, you're right, I am. I'm definitely more
right than you were. That's right, that's exactly right. That

(00:43):
was dead on. Actually you weren't even trying. Oh I
used to do Troy McClure back in the day. Yeah,
that was one of my bits. Well you still got it, buddy. Thanks.
And I don't know, I think long time listeners will
have picked up Chuck that we're stalling right now. Um.
New listeners might be like, what are these guys doing
and talking about? I'm never listening to them again, But

(01:05):
hang on, wait, just chill out. We do this sometimes,
especially when we're taking on a topic that we're um
only equipped to understand as researchers. Yes, I think it's
a good way to put it. We are researchers. That's
what we do. And anybody who researches something, um well
and with an open mind, I think is perfectly legitimate,

(01:27):
in a perfectly legitimate position to talk about whatever it
is carving out our territs right here, I guess so
uh yeah, but we're talking menstruation today. We are. And
another bit of just upfront knowledge that we want to
drop is, uh, we're gonna use different terms. We're gonna
say girls, we're gonna say women. We're gonna say people

(01:49):
who men straight because we don't want to overlook the
trans community. And even though you know most websites you
go to, we'll still say girls and women. We're gonna
just sort of interchange words here and there to cover
all our bases and to be respectful of of everybody. Yeah.
Another one will be men's straight towards we should just

(02:10):
say menstruators period. Didn't even mean that, wow, chuck, so
um yeah, I think that was really good to say.
And it's not like, you know, I'm sure we'll fall
into women girls, um pretty frequently. Uh. And that's not
to say that we are um judge or critical of

(02:30):
the concept of men menstruating UM, it's just that it's
it's a fairly new concept to us and we're still, um,
we're still getting used to it. So please please accept
our apologies in advance if if we do that. And
also for our younger listeners, especially are the young girls
who listened to our show. You know, in addition to
our Puberty Female Puberty podcast, we did, we did male

(02:53):
Puberty two. Right, we did both. Yeah, we did both. Um,
this is something that you know, I think is a
lot of anxiety comes with Uh, We'll go ahead and
say the word monarchy, which is the first period, the
first menstruation cycle that someone can undergo. We I've used
that before. It's one of our favorite words from the
early days of the show, from I think the Totem

(03:14):
Pull episode. I think so because the Native Americans celebrate
the monarchy in the right monarchy, that's right. But especially
to those listeners, we just want you to know that, uh,
we hope that you embrace this as a the wonder
of human biology that it is, because it's just an
amazing thing that happens, and uh, knowing more about it,

(03:39):
I think it's just powerful for little boys, little girls
across the gender spectrum. And men and grown men and
uh women alike. I suspect that of all those groups,
grown men are the most childish about it, probably and
probably know the least about it. M hmm. But I
think we're dying off slowly, but surely we're being replaced

(04:00):
by way cooler, smarter with it um people. So that's cool.
It'll go away eventually. But what we're talking about is menstruation,
which is uh. And again we're gonna say some stuff
like four weeks is a menstrual cycle, a biological cycle,
but we know that there are wide ranges of times.

(04:21):
There are people who don't menstright at all, or whose
menstruation is occasional. Um. There are all sorts of reason
for all these things. So we're using a lot of
like averages and average terms here, um. So just know
that going in. But it's roughly takes place every four weeks.
And what is simply happening, which is amazing, is that

(04:42):
the lining of the uterus, uh, the endometrium is getting
ready to host an egg that is fertilized, and that
thing sheds, and with that shedding comes blood and become
in some tissue, and that's called men disease, and it
starts generally without monarchy anywhere from twelve to thirteen. It

(05:06):
ends generally at menopause somewhere around fifty to fifty two
fifty three. So that means that between the ages of
twelve to thirteen and the early fifties, someone will go
through an average of four hundred and fifty six cycles,
or about six point two years of their life. Isn't
that interesting? Wow, that's amazing nice math. Yeah, there's a

(05:30):
lot of lifetime math I figured out. So um, I
think even people who have had um cycles, they're they're
reaching the end of their what do you say, four
hundred and thirty six fifty six cycles? Maybe they're on
four fifty five and they're like one more baby. By
the way, if you're just going through monarchy, it doesn't

(05:51):
actually work like that. I'm just teasing. But my point
is that I think even people who menstrate and have
menstruated for years in decades don't necessarily know why women
men's stright in the first place. Why would a human
being men's stright? Um. There's practical reasons, which we'll get into,
but evolutionarily speaking, we don't fully understand it, and The

(06:14):
reason why we don't really understand is because so few
mammals actually men's strate. There's plenty of other adaptations for
getting an egg ready to be fertilized, and then what
happens if the egg doesn't give fertilized what you do
after that, But men's struation is is fairly rare in
the animal kingdom. Humans are one of just a handful
of bright, shiny um people. Yeah, they have companions in

(06:36):
the uh, some primates like the chimp or the large
headed capuchin, the vulvous fruit bat. Interestingly, Uh, there's a shrew,
an elephant, shrew and a mouse. Did you look those up?
Oh my gosh, they're uh, and the spiny mouse. They
all men straight. Um. But most mammals undergo something called

(06:59):
an estrus psych goal. Uh. It could be a seasonal thing,
which is why you have things like mating season. Uh.
In the case of some other mammals like cats, it's
actually or our friends squirrels, uh, friendly squirrels that we
just talked about. It's actually brought on by the act
of sex, which is really interesting and sort of makes sense. Yeah,

(07:19):
but it also makes sense. It's like, let's not let's
not get into anything before it's really time, right, So
that to me makes a tremendous amount of sense. And
the reason that there would be any kind of cycle
at all, whether it's an estra cycle or a menstrual cycle, um,
is because there's a really high energetic and metabolic costs
to keeping the uterus prepared to host a fertilized egg,

(07:43):
and that if you're an animal that constantly has a
uterus ready to accept an egg, you're going to expend
way more energy, way more of your metabolism um keeping
that uterus fluffy as they say sometimes and ready for
an egg, a fertilized egg, than an animal who just
does it once in a while or when it's triggered
by sex. So evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense for it

(08:05):
to be seasonal or activated by sex, or even a
monthly thing. Yeah, And I just that's something I never
thought about. I never stopped and thought, well, why can't
you just get pregnant any time evolutionarily speaking, because that
would seem like a big time advantage if you're trying to,
you know, put people out in if your took took

(08:25):
and you're trying to help put people out there in
the world, right, But it does make a lot of sense,
and they've seen evidence in this like if someone and
like a developing nation maybe just you know, have like
extreme nutritional deficiencies, Uh, they may not menstruate at all
because their body like it extends that kind of like

(08:47):
that drastic of a I guess, just a workload on
the body that that's that's one of the things that
can get rid of if you're malnourished. Yeah, malnourished. It
also pops up in the elite ath eleats because they
are exercising so much and also usually have such a
small amount of body fat. So there's like, I guess
your your body does like a body check every month,

(09:11):
and it's like, okay, are we equipped to do this?
And if not, okay, we'll just skip it. If so,
let's go through it. Yeah, And the really interesting thing
is we were talking about some of the mammals that
go through the extra cycle. They don't actually um bleed,
they don't have an external shedding process. They re absorb
it and it is literally digested in the body by

(09:33):
enzymes that are there just to do that. So that
question is still there, like why would evolutionarily speaking, why
would the menstruation process to where you literally shed that
lining out of your body take place. And they're not
really sure why no, But there's theories. One of the
predominant ones up until the nineteen nineties. And after I

(09:56):
say this, you'll be like, you mean the eighteen nineties,
and I'll say again, the ninety nineties. They used to
think that the purpose of menstruation was to wash the
uterus out of pathogens that might have been introduced by
seamen during sex um. Until the nineteen nineties, that's what
they thought that menstruation was four And then finally somebody

(10:17):
was like, let me, let me study this, and they did.
They conducted a study where they tested bacterial loads of
different phases um from a woman's uterus and found that
not that that's actually not the case at all, So
that one finally got discarded. It did, and whoever proposed
it to begin with, they're like, he's sure, Like, yeah, man,

(10:37):
I got a Nirvana show. I'm trying to get to
it sounds good to me. They went Nirvana, this is
the ninety nineties. Yeah, that was kind of a dud.
I'm sorry. I tried to bring forth the chuckle a
laugh or something, I can't do it like you. Um.
The other thing they thought might at least be related

(10:59):
to this is maybe the size of the animal, or
the size of the uterus in relation to the size
of the animal. But there's such a large range of
uterine size and the animal kingdom that do men stright
that they basically kind of toss that out as well. Yeah,
and it's the reason why that was a theory, because
you're like, elephant, true, spiny mouse, what kind of stupid

(11:19):
theories that we've just very recently discovered the other animals
men straight. We didn't know that at all, So that's
why that theory was so longstanding. And then also they
think maybe it has to do with um, the way
the endometrium forms, or the fact that um, some animals
for um, carry their young in placenta. Those are still

(11:42):
the jury's out on them. But yeah, we don't really
have any idea of you know, what what menstruation is
actually for. We know what it does, but how did
it come along? And so it remains a beautiful mystery
of the springtime of womanhood. All right, should we take
a break and get into the nitty gritty, Yes, all right,

(12:03):
we'll be right back after this with details on menstruation. Chuck.

(12:31):
No one can see me right now, but I'm holding
each elbow very tightly, and I didn't realize I was
even doing it. Like, I'm really anxious right now. We
got this, We did. We shouldn't get nervous about this stuff.
Every time we tackled something like this, we always get
great support and say, you guys do what you do,
which is, you know, research something. And it's not like
we're not serial killers yet we've talked about them. I

(12:55):
would hazard to say that almost all the things we
talked about we don't have experience with. No, No, definitely,
I'm not really anxious about that. What I'm anxious about
is screwing it up and giving a thirteen year old
some bad information or making it harder to understand them before,
or you know, just I just want to be helpful
with it, and I'm anxious about not being as helpful

(13:16):
as we could be. That's what I'm worried about. No,
I'm totally with you, Um, and I think that this
nitty gritty part is straight ahead science, pretty easy, so
let's do it. Yes, but we have to say so.
Ed helped us with this one. Ed doesn't menstright either,
but he's a really good researcher too, and our hats
off for really um kind of diving into this and

(13:39):
wrapping his head around it. But he he points out
something that is not commonly seen, but I researched it
and it's it's I guess, the more clinical and medical
you go, the deeper into it, the more it becomes
apparent that the menstrual cycle is actually what we think
of the menstrual cycle is actually a couple of different cycles.
And Ed did the clinical way and likely broke it

(14:00):
out into these two different cycles that are happening simultaneously
into the same end. Right. So we're talking about the
ovarian cycle and the men and the menstrual cycle. And
like I said, generally, like when you think about, you know,
a period or something, you think about a week or

(14:21):
so in someone's life, but it's really it's a four
week cycle and each part is triggered by the release
of hormones and it's sort of always going on, and
these two different cycles are sort of working with each
other to you know, to get ready to have a
baby basically. Yeah, And an easy way to remember it

(14:41):
or think about it that I kind of stumbled upon
is that the menstrual cycle gets the uterus ready for
an egg, and the um ovulation cycle gets the egg
ready for the uterus. What a beautiful dance, thank you.
You know. Well, yeah, I think it's in credit to
you that I was biology and nature. But sure, well

(15:04):
I consider myself God I created all. Uh. So in
this case, we're gonna describe it. And I think ed
does a is a does a good job of where
he places this in the cycle as a listener or
you know, in this case as readers. But we're gonna
start at the midpoint of the cycle, um, right after
the period has stopped. And at this point, like we

(15:26):
said that the uterus, uh, the lining has been shed.
That would mean it's at its thinnest point at that point.
And this is the beginning of what is known as
the proliferative phase. Yeah, the proliferative phase of the menstrual cycle.
UM is. The big star of that is a hormone
called estrati all, which says, hey, endometrium, get a little thicker,

(15:51):
um double in size. Let's um, how about we build
some new arteries and blood vessels called spiral arteries. To
bring blood to all this new two issue that's being developed. UM.
New structures are are being built. The cervical mucus normally
kind of yeah or chill out, I think is a
way to put it. UM. The cervical mucus usually has

(16:13):
a pH of two point eight to four point five
or sorry, three point eight to four point five, which
is very acidic um. And the pH raises more towards neutral,
like around seven during this time, which makes the um
the uterus much more hospitable as sperm because sperm thrive
in about a seven pH they would die very quickly
in the normal acidity of the of the uterus. So

(16:36):
that's like this the process that's it's like the very
beginning of the phase of prepping the uterus for an egg.
If it happens, that's right. Uh. And while this is happening,
the ovarian cycle kicks in with a folicular phase. Um.
There are two ovaries and they have hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of eggs within these little sacks called follicles,

(16:59):
and the hormones control all this, like we said, So
in this case, it's a follicle stimulating hormone is gonna
allow a few follicles to mature, and eventually most of
them will die off and then there will be one
follicle left. Uh. That's in to rule them all, that's right,
want to rule them all. And this last about ten
to fourteen days. Um, it's a little bit pre the proliferative. Man,

(17:24):
it's such a hard word for me. Proliferative phase the
menstrual cycle, and that's also about tend to fourteen days.
So as you can see, it's all sort of kind
of sinking up. Yeah. I saw. The follicular phase actually
begins on day one of the menstrul phase, so it
it has a couple up to maybe five or so
days headstart on the proliferative phase. But the two work

(17:46):
in conjunction. Right, eggs starting to get ready, the endometrium
or the use of the uterus is starting to get
ready to that's right. Now. We move on to two
more fun phases with fun names, uh, the luteal phase
in the case of the ovarian cycle, and then the
secretory or secretory phase. I would say secretory me to uh.
And that's part of the menstrual cycle. Yeah, and they

(18:08):
call um the secretory phase. Um. That because no there's
a lot of secretions going on. And this is when
like those initial preparations that were begun in the proliferate
proliferateory phase, proliferative phase, all those preparations that were like

(18:28):
the very basic structure of the endometrium that was being
developed really starts to fill out. And I said, um,
the womb is frequently referred to as being fluffy. At
this time, it's maybe doubled in size. It's much more
hospitable to an egg. And then the reason it's called
the secretory phases. The chemicals that are being secreted are

(18:50):
all sorts of like proteins and hormones and other things
that will sustain the carbohydrates too, that will sustain an egg.
If fertilized egg shows up in your uterus, it's all
sorts of secretions are being fed into your endometrium so
that the egg will be nourished as it grows into
a little bouncing baby. That's right, uh, back to the

(19:12):
luteal phase. At this point, the follicle is going to
rupture and this is called ovulation. It's when the egg
is released and the egg travels down that fallopian tube
towards the uterus, and if it becomes fertilized, it's you know, ideally, Uh,
if everything goes right and the wide end of the
fallopian tube where it meets the uterus, you can also

(19:35):
undergo what's called an ep topic pregnancy. That's when it
implants on the outside of the uterus. Uh. Emily and
I went through one of these with one of our miscarriages.
That leads to a miscarriage. It's very very sad thing,
but also quite common. Uh. At some point we should
probably do a whole episode on miscarriages, because that is

(19:55):
something that people don't talk nearly enough about. Uh. And
it happens like the time, and it's just not the
sort of thing that people, you know, bring up with
one another. But once it is brought up among friends
and family, more people start saying, Oh, yeah, I had one,
I had to I had three. Uh. And it's all
very sad stuff. So we'll cover that at some point.

(20:16):
But I wouldn't have the daughter I have now had
our life not taken us in that direction. So I
can't imagine things any other way. You know. It's like
Garth Brooks said, Chuck, some of God's greatest gifts are
unanswered prayers. Are you sure that one? Chris Gaines Chris
Kaines covered that brook song even head spinning dose of

(20:38):
postmodern irony. But at this point, if everything is going well,
you have the egg again at the wide end of
the fallopian tube. Yeah, so that's where it's fertilized. If
it's fertilized, it goes poop and falls into the uterus
where it sticks to the endometrium and gets secreted all
over and nourished and fed with lots of carbohydrates and proteins,

(20:59):
and there's horn one's going berserk and the pregnancy begins.
That's if the egg is successfully fertilized. And we should
say that ovulation phase is the shortest phase of this
whole cycle. It lasts only twenty four hours. That's how
long you have for your egg to become fertilized into
a blast assist is what they call it. It's a
very unromantic name for a fertilized egg, but that's that um.

(21:22):
So you've got twenty four hours and if that doesn't happen,
the the luteal phase keeps going. So you've got that
that follicle that the egg came out of that turns
into like this kind of conductor that's conducting the symphony
that's going on in your uterus, that's making it just
more and more hospitable for a fertilized egg if it
shows up. So the egg has twenty four hours, but

(21:44):
the lootal phase keeps going on well beyond that twenty
four hours. It doesn't know immediately that there's um there,
like the fertilized egg isn't coming, so it keeps preparing
for it as if it's going to for many days
I think, um something like a week and a half
the louteal phase lasts, and then if actually they realize
that the fertilized egg isn't gonna show up, and so
that follicle that's a conductor, it's putting out um progesterone

(22:08):
suddenly just stops putting out progesterone, and all of a sudden,
you have a huge imbalance between your progesterone levels and
your estrogen levels, and it can make you extraordinarily irritable, sad, anxious,
and a bunch of other stuff just a few days
before your actual period starts. And that's what they call
pre menstrual syndrome a K. A p MS. That's right. Uh,

(22:32):
it is a very normal thing to happen. Uh. This
is something that we maybe could uh we could probably
get a whole episode out of this. Uh. It can
be very severe in some cases and be very disruptive
in some cases. Uh. And and when that is the case,
it's called pre menstrul dysphoric disorder. Uh. And it's funny,

(22:53):
you know, Emily and I were talking about menstruation, you know,
because I was researching this, and she just got back
from the doctor and they told her flax seed is
uh can really aid with PMS symptoms. And you know
it's like here we are. You know, she's cruising up
towards fifty years old, and it's you know, just learning

(23:13):
this stuff about flax seeds. So there's always room to learn,
I guess, is what I'm saying. Um, you said that
the progesterone and estrogen are gonna cease to be produced
at this point, But what does happen is a substance
called prostaglandin is gonna come along and it's gonna constrict

(23:37):
all those spiral arteries that made those connections to get
ready for you know, their big scene and that's going
to cause them to tear themselves apart, and it's gonna basically,
you're not gonna get the blood flow to the endometrium
that you had going on, So it's gonna start breaking
down away from the uterine wall. And so that that

(23:57):
is the minsies, that is the menstruation, and that's what's happening.
Is aos blood vessels, that's where the blood comes from,
right um. And then the tissue is your actual endometrium,
that lining of your uterus um that was built up
into like this fluffy um fertilized egg loving habitat. Uh.
That's no longer needed because the fertilized egg never showed up,

(24:18):
So you got to get it out somewhere. And again,
animals that go through estrus they reabsorbed this. UH. Animals
that men's stright get rid of it. They discharge it.
And the reason why is because if you didn't, that
stuff would build up awfully quick over the course of
even just the first year, you started to have periods.
And also, as we'll see, UH, it could cause you
a whole host of health problems. So it's actually really

(24:39):
good and really smart evolutionarily speaking and biologically speaking to
have um the menstruation phase of the menstrual cycle. UM.
And one of the things with that endometrium that I saw, chuck,
it can come out almost intact as a whole, like
it can come out in the shape of the uterus,
like the whole lining just comes out as in as

(25:02):
in one chunk. It's very rare, but if you go
look on the internet, it's actually a real thing. They're
called decidual casts, like a cast of something, um, not
a not a cast of like a play, a cast
of like like you'd make of a statue. All right,
So I mean that's that's it in a nutshell, right, yeah.

(25:22):
I would say even more than a nutshell, Like that's
several nutshells worth, uh acorn squash shell. I yeah, I
think that's good. But we should say that you wouldn't
need an acorn squash shell to hold all of the
blood that comes out, because typically when you go through
the menstrual phase of the menstruation phase of the menstrual cycle,

(25:43):
what you call your period, usually it's only results in
about five or six tablespoons of blood over the course
of like five to seven days, that's right. But it
can come in inconvenient times, people can be caught off guard. Uh,
And we'll talk about all that stuff, but um, first
let's get into some of the disorders and problems that
can happen with the menstrual cycle, because it can be

(26:04):
a very finicky thing. Um. If if you are someone
who has just a super regular, very um, you know,
straightforward menstrual cycle, then you should count yourself lucky. Because
it can go in all sorts of different ways. Uh.
There's one way you can go called dysmenorrhea, and these

(26:25):
are cramps. Basically that there changes to the uterus that
can cause these muscle contractions, and that cramping is very
normal and I think most people who menstrate have some
amount of cramping generally, but it can get really severe
and also, uh, as with other things, very disabling and disruptive. Right.
There's also um a man a rhea, which is where

(26:48):
you just don't menstrate when you should be menstruating, at
least biologically speaking. Right. So they say that there's two kinds.
Primary man arhea is after a girl who has turned
age five teen still hasn't had her first period, that's
primary a manorrhea. And then um, a woman who has
had periods regularly before and then all of a sudden

(27:09):
misses three of them. And we should say, who is
also not pregnant at the time. UM, that would be
secondary men a man aihea, and both of them are
nothing necessarily to be super scared about or anything, but
they're probably something you would want to go talk to
your guynecologist about. UM. One other thing, well, a bunch
of other things that can cause a man aihea to UM.

(27:32):
Like I said, UM, elite athletes get it from too
much exercise and not enough body fat. You can be
malnourished for whatever reason, or maybe have an eating disorder
that causes you malnourishment. Stress can do it. UM. Your
doctor might say, I think you're sniffing too much cocaine.
That can definitely bring on a manorrhea. UM. There's a
lot of lifestyle changes that you can make that are

(27:54):
probably fairly easy. UM. That would that would bring your
period back in if you want that kind of thing, right, Uh,
and we'll talk about it. But birth control pills are
sometimes people get on birth control pills to regulate their
period and it really has less to do with getting
pregnant or not. Yeah, So what else is there menorasia minoragia.

(28:20):
I heard, and you know, I've looked it up. But again,
with these pronunciations sometimes that you'll get three different ones,
so it's kind of frustrating. But I saw or heard
rather uh miner agia. Okay, you're gonna go with minora gia. Well,
this is essentially heavy flow, right, yes, And again usually

(28:42):
you're looking at what three to five table spoons of
blood that comes out again over the course of five
to seven days on average. That is that is not
There plenty of people who men straight out there who
are like, um, yeah, like quadruple that or whatever. Um.
There are there are people who have heavy bleeding um
and either it's they bleed for longer, like beyond seven

(29:04):
days is considered menorasia um or. If you apparently soak
five sanitary products a day, or you soak more two
or more in two hours, you definitely have minorasia. And
the two or more in two hours actually means you
want to go to the emergency room because you're losing blood.

(29:25):
Don't forget. And there's all sorts of things that can
happen when you're um blood levels drop like um iron
deficiencies like anemia, um, all sorts of terrible stuff. So
you want to go to the e er. If you're
bleeding that often or that much, Yeah, you're probably passing
more clots as well, and you're probably also going to
be having much more severe cramps if you're undergoing menorasia.

(29:49):
Sounds no fun. It does sound no fun. And I
guess we should talk about dealing with periods. I mean,
that's all part of it, right, Or should we take
a break and do that? Yeah, I say we take
a break. Can we come back? Um? Uh? All fists
and elbows talking about dealing with periods. All right, let's
do it all right? Uh. We talked a little bit

(30:33):
and talked a little bit about in the beginning about
just getting past monarchy can be very anxiety inducing. Getting
into the world of menstruation for someone at the age
of thirteen or so can be very anxiety inducing. Um.
But it's again, it's a wonder of nature. It's not unusual,

(30:56):
it's not gross, it's not weird. Uh. Um. At the
same time, it is blood coming out of your body.
So it's something that uh, you want to you know,
take care of. You don't want to. I read that, God,
I can't remember the statistic of the amount of ruined
underwear that a person goes through in their lifetime of
menstruation and just the simple cost of that. So if

(31:20):
for no other reason than that, uh, and you know,
health and sanitation, it's something that you're gonna want to
take care of with what's called a sanitary product. Yeah,
And from what I can tell, the desire and the
drive to use sanitary products UM is almost innate to
where it's, like you said, there's nothing to be ashamed of,

(31:41):
but at the same time, you will want to use
the sanitary products so much so that I've seen it
described as a human right. Access to sanitary products for
menstruation is considered a human right. Everyone should have it
because if you don't have access to them, it can
induce so many hits to your well being, like anxiety, UM,

(32:02):
hits to your social life, like you might stay home
from work, you just you you just don't want to
leave your house or interact with people. You just don't
feel comfortable doing that because you have no protection between
your period and the rest of the world, which is
one of the big points, one of the main points
of sanitary products in the first place. Yeah, I mean,
it's an evolutionary thing. If you see your body bleeding,

(32:24):
you either want to stop the bleeding or if you can't,
you are going to be wiping it off your arm
or your leg or wherever it's coming out, right exactly,
and nobody wants that, and most of all the person
who's menstruating. That's right. There are many different ways to
deal with this. I think most people, um sort of
probably experiment around until they find something they like or

(32:47):
can at least tolerate. Um. I think the word like
it is probably not the right word to use there.
I don't know, I think so. I mean, there's definitely
like a fit to it, you know, I think that
they can you can feel reassured by it. Maybe, yeah,
I mean absolutely in that kind of way. But I
don't think any of them or any kind of picnic
to deal with, Okay, you know what I'm saying. So

(33:07):
the one that you tolerate best, in that you deal
with the best, I think, is probably what you're going
to end up going with after you kind of try
different things out. Um. One of them is a menstrual cloth.
This is sort of the non disposable diaper of the
sanitary product world in that it is fabric that is
washed and rewashed and re used again. Um, you're probably

(33:31):
not gonna see this use very often in you know,
developed nations. It's mainly in places that are poverty stricken
or in an emergency, or if there's like a refugee
crisis going on. Right. Um, If you take that menstrual
cloth and you add wings to it, um, so that
it stays fast into the underwear, what you have is

(33:53):
a reusable pad basically, And with both of them, you
can actually remove them after they become saturated, wash them
out really really well, and then reuse them so they're reusable.
And as because they were usable, reusable pads in particular,
starting to see an upticking use in countries like the
United States because environmentally speaking, their way preferable to things

(34:17):
like disposable pads and tampons. You also have the disposable
pad and the tampon. These are the two, um, I
think the two still to the two most common used
in the US. A pad is gonna, you know, have
some absorbent material, there's gonna be some plastics in there,
there will be an adhesive to hold it in place

(34:37):
in the underwear. These like I said, are disposable. Um.
Along with the tampon, which is a cylinder, it's also absorbent.
This is inserted into the vagina and is gonna soak
up that menstrual blood on the insite before it actually
leaves the body. UM And again obviously disposable. And we'll

(34:58):
talk about toxic chuck syndro them in one second. But
I did a little calculating, uh, or actually I went
to websites that did the calculating formula because we could
get it wrong. And I was just wondering about costs,
like we we hear about the the pink tax. Isn't
that what it's called? Which is just sort of the
amount of money that uh, that women pay over their

(35:20):
lifetime and for stuff like this and other things that
men don't have to pay for. Uh. And I think
that they said for tampons, you're looking at close to
two thousand dollars for a lifetime, pads about forty seven
hundred dollars dollars for a lifetime. UM, Far and away,
the the the best deal going is the minstrel cup.

(35:45):
This is a sort of like a bell shaped cup
that's flexible. It's usually like silicone and this is reusable.
It's it's washed through and I think you're supposed to
boil it like once a month. That's about You're still
not going to use that one for your whole life,
but they say about eighty bucks maybe over your life.
And there are also minstrel discs, and the difference between

(36:08):
a menstrel disc and I think that they're newer than
minstrel cups if I'm not mistaken. But a cup sits
in the vagina below the cervix UH and extends into
the canal um. It depends on the brand, of course,
but the disc UH fits back into the vaginal fornix,
which is where your cervical canal meets your cervix. Thank

(36:31):
you healthline dot com for that direct quote. Very nice.
Menstrel cups they're usually made of like silicone, and yeah,
you can. I saw that you use them for about
two years before you need to get another one. They're
also considered fairly green, especially considered compared to pads and tampons,
But like you said, pads and tampons remain far and

(36:52):
away the most popular sanitary products in the United States,
so much so Chuck that in the same paragraph, I
saw that six of Americans use pads while for use tampons,
which means that there's a hundred and four percent Americans
out there who men straight. In the same paragraph this

(37:16):
it wasn't from like two different sources either. The other
thing I did want to mention if Alan was interesting,
is we didn't get into too much history here, but
apparently in ancient Rome they use wool uh in Africa
they rolled up grasses sort of like a tampon, and
they used home about Hawaii ferns and then beautiful in
a way, I think, so, yeah, it sounds like I

(37:39):
would hope it's like very pleasant and not like not pleasant.
But yeah, ferns I saw that. I wouldn't think they
be very absorbent, but I guess I don't know. I
guess it's better than nothing. Who knows. Um. There's also
hormonal birth control or the birth control pill, which we
did an entire episode on a while back, and you

(37:59):
can actually prevent menstruation on birth control pills. UH if
you don't do don't eat the sugar pills or placebo
pills that fill up the week at the end of
the pill pack. If you just jump right into your
next birth control pill immediately you want mens stright. And
the reason why is because those hormonal pills keep your

(38:21):
estrogen levels nice and even so there's no spike, and
if there's no spike and estrogen levels, there's no um.
There's no signal to trigger the follicular phase or the
luteal phase, because both of those phases, which are really
important in dropping an egg um are are triggered by estrogen.
So if there's no estrogen spike, there's no egg that's

(38:43):
going to come out of the um the follicles. Very interesting. Yeah,
I'm sure we talked birth control right, I'm sure we
had to too. Yeah, but apparently they've they've decided now
once and for all that it's totally if you're not
trying to get pregnant, you you could just stay on
birth control um constantly and never have a period if

(39:04):
you didn't want to. And from everything that's guynecologists in
biologists can tell there's not really any ill effects that
come out of that. It's supposedly safe to just do. Uh. Well,
a minute ago, we mentioned toxic shock syndrome with their
promise to go back to it, and this is something

(39:25):
that can happen if you leave a tampon in too long. Uh.
It is a pretty rough bacterial infection, uh. And it
can include you know, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, It can include
organ failure and death. And it is a very specific
toxic staff bacteria that can really grow and flourish in

(39:47):
the fibers of a tampon. And this has led you
know a lot of people, especially UM, you know in politics,
women in Congress, to say, hey, you know, what these
tampons are all have is proprietary uh constructions, and what
goes into a tampon, and we need to know, like
there needs to be more transparency here of what what

(40:10):
is in these things. I mean, it's generally thought to
be like cotton and rayon and quote synthetic fibers, but
like I said, each one is proprietary, so they don't
release the ingredients, and these bills just repeatedly die in
uh you know, die on the floor, and to spend
years and years and still haven't gotten through. I don't think, right, No,

(40:31):
that's absolutely the case. UM. Supposedly, in response, the UM,
like the pads and tampon makers have started to release
more information about what goes into their products on their websites,
but they also still point to the f d a UM.
A lot of people don't realize this, but tampons are
regulated as a medical device in the United States, which

(40:52):
means the f D a UH supposedly tests them, verifies
their safety, UM, and make sure that the stuff that's
being sold in the US is fully safe. Again, ostensibly,
we've done plenty of episodes about how the FDA has
dropped the ball here there UM, but there there is
still kind of this like ongoing struggle to find out

(41:13):
exactly what is in tampons and UM and pads UM.
But yeah, again, the FDA regulates tampons at least so UM.
I find that curious. But I think the reason why
they got into it, Chuck, was UM from that toxic
shock syndrome and realizing that that staff can grow on
the fibers of the tampon. And I think that's when

(41:34):
the FDA got involved and started claiming domain over tampons
in particular. Interesting UM and then Chuck, we talked about
all these different UM sanitary products again, which is what
they're called UM. And even if you use them, there
can be times where they just malfunction or don't work

(41:55):
or it wasn't in right or who who, however you
want to put it. And accidents happen. And I think
if you are a teenager in high school and this
happens to you, you probably feel that your life is over.
And I just want to take a moment to assure
you that, as embarrassing as that probably is for you, UM,
your life is not over. Eventually, it's going to become

(42:16):
something that you laugh about, make fun of, UM, and
you will get past. So please don't let that. Don't
feel like that's going to frame the rest of your life,
even though it does feel like it now of course. Uh.
And you know that kind of leads us to uh,
just sort of the culture around it period, not only
here in the United States, but worldwide, because in some

(42:37):
countries it is UM. It's really awful how menstruation is
treated and how people can be ostracized for menstruating or
even if they might be menstruating. I think Ed points
out that the k h o I, the coy people, UM,
they eat their meals separated by gender just in case

(43:00):
someone might be menstruating. Yeah, those are the people from
the gods, must be crazy from the Kalahari. Um. Yeah,
so there's like that's a really good example of a
very ingrained social taboo UM against menstruation that you find
in um undeveloped or less developed cultures. And you know,
those of us in the West tend to be like,

(43:21):
you know, that's so undeveloped. Of course there's a weird
social taboo. But we should not judge so fast, because
it was not very long ago that UM. Europe had
its own well and grained social taboos against menstruation as well, right, Yeah,
I mean we're talking you know, late eighteen hundreds, which
is not that long ago. Uh. France, which you would

(43:43):
think is a very advanced country, they barred women who
are menstruating from working at food production jobs, like if
you're a winemaker, you had to take off and not
work and therefore not get paid when you were menstruating.
And as late as the eighteen nineties in Britain even
there were doctors that refused to perform surgeries on women
who are menstruating. Right, And so I mean there's like

(44:06):
reasons behind this. I think part of it is just
simple UM misogyny, UM, just just a way to to
keep women UM feeling ashamed, UM, feeling controlled by society. UM.
I think that's a big part of it. And then
also definitely tied into it is the idea, I mean,
there's blood, and you know humans are just hardwired to

(44:30):
not be comfortable at the sight of blood or want
to go toward it or anything like that, you know.
So I think those combined probably at least partially explained
where some of these social taboos came from and how
they've remained for so long. Yeah, and you know this
is uh, there are some countries that actually celebrate it.
We did talk about the monarchy being celebrated in certain

(44:51):
Native American cultures. There are other um, there are other
countries where they really take care of women who are menstruating,
whether it's UM. Like in Ghana, menstruating women have an
umbrella that they sit under, in little tints that they
sit under so they can at least be in the
shade when they're having their period. And you found another
country too that did something similar, right, Well, it was

(45:14):
a Native American indigenous group, the Ojibwe, and they actually
they consider women um who are menstruating actually on their period,
in that phase of their menstrual cycle. As being spiritually powerful,
like this is a time where um, they might have
visions UM where they they usually use it to self

(45:36):
reflect or to learn from elders. And they actually would
seclude women, um who were menstruating on their period. They
would put them in like these little houses that were
purpose built for it. But it wasn't to be like,
oh good away from us. It was like, you're in
a really um significant place right now, and you should

(45:56):
go use this time to again reflect on yourself, orflect
on you know, what you're learning from your elders, and
just basically making the most out of the spiritually powerful
you know, a few days out of this month. Yeah,
And I mean it's great hearing those stories. There are
far too many places, though, where where it is the opposite. Uh.

(46:17):
There's a term we should talk about briefly called period poverty. UH.
These are cultural barriers, political barriers, economic barriers to sanitary products,
to services UH, to education UH. And they they affect
everything everything from hygiene to your job, to your health, UH,

(46:40):
to your education and going to school. And it's a
it's a problem in the world. And they are all
kinds of great UM organizations that if you want to
help provide menstal products to people in need. There are
some great charities out there doing it. Um just you know,
just google that, like Menstrual Product Charity and they are
all are many, many of them. There's one called Freedom

(47:02):
for the Number four Girls, but there are there are
lots of them, and you should just check them out
if that's something that you feel like it's worthwhile, because
it is. Yeah, I mean, it's a really easy thing
to overlook in you know, the United States or Canada
or Australia or the UK, um. And then it's especially

(47:22):
easy to overlook in those countries as a man like
you just don't think about that kind of thing. But
even in those countries people do experience period poverty. So
I mean, it's not like you're just helping people in
less developed nations, like you're helping people in your own
country too who don't have access to it. And again
that access to sanitary products is considered a human right,

(47:43):
or it's becoming more and more considered a human right. Absolutely. Uh.
Should we close with some menstrual myths? Yes, this is fun,
It is fun. Uh. This is a myth that I
heard so much in my life. I assumed it was true,
which is that women if they hang out a lot together,
like in an office or or a small business, or

(48:03):
in a dorm or a sorority house, that they will
sync up. It can be called minstrel synchrony or the
McClintock effect, which is named after who was to blame
for this, which is the nineteen seventy one study by
Martha McClintock about women in a college dorm. It was

(48:24):
published in Nature magazine and it got a lot of attention.
And I think people still I think that women can
sync up, and that just has proved not to be
the case. It's been debunked over and over, and they
found a lot of problems with the initial study. So
I saw a couple of things I saw that was
discredited and debunked, and um, I also saw that it

(48:46):
remains unproven. And apparently McClintock's initial study was, you know,
left a lot to be desired, so her methodology was
not really great, so the whole thing couldn't be reproduced
using her exact methodology. But apparently, anecdotally speaking, it's so
prevalent um that like people just refuse to believe, it

(49:08):
just doesn't exist. And say we just haven't figured out
how to how to prove it yet. Well, what I saw,
and again maybe maybe the jury still out, but what
I saw was that the variable, the variability of the
menstrual cycle among people who menstraight, and the days that
it can change and get thrown out of sink and
it can last longer, be shorter than that overlap is

(49:32):
what accounts for people thinking that they're sinking up. Um.
But who knows. I mean, I think maybe the jury
is still out, but we can definitely say that no
one proved that women sink up. That's fun. Let's both
say that what other myths are out there? We've got
some good ones, Chuck, this is one that I didn't

(49:53):
realize either. Um. The idea that you can't get pregnant
on your period, news flash, you totally can. Yeah, and
in like really take that to heart. You can get
pregnant in your period. And the reason why is, if
you'll remember back to what we were talking about when
we kind of were doing the nitty gritty of UM,

(50:14):
the minstrreul and um ovulation cycles, they kind of overlap,
so that follicular cycle it starts when you start your period.
And if you have a short follicular cycle, you might
drop an egg pretty shortly after you stop your period.
That's fine and dandy. The problem is is sperm is

(50:35):
viable for up to five days in the human body,
in a woman's body, So if you drop an egg
and they're sperm, that's saying hanging out on day five,
it can fertilize that egg even though you're still on
your period. You had sex while you were on your period,
that's right, So again, you can get pregnant on your period.

(50:56):
Very important if you're just getting started in your uh
sexual life, to understand this or at any time in
your life. Yeah, I was gonna say, or you don't
want a big surprise, you know, in your midlife? Uh?
What about sharks and bears? Despite what Steve Carrell said
an anchorman, which is one of the very funny scenes,

(51:19):
it really is Apparently some people think that's true. And
what's weird is there was a study that was conducted
that the National Park Service hosts on their website mentions
on their website that UM said that it's entirely possible
that UM a period could attract bears because bears have

(51:40):
such an amazing sense of smell um, but that they
would not be any more attracted to that odor than
any other odor that might attract them. So it's not
like you're just guaranteed to be attacked by a bear
if you go into the woods while you're menstruating, right,
like the bears smells, it might as well be a
uneaten hot pocket to bear. That's the equivalent of menstruating

(52:03):
as far as bears are. Keep saying, Uh, did you
see the part about polar bears though no, huh, they did.
This was on the same NPS site. They did an
actual study and it seems that, or at least in
the study, polar bears actually were specifically attracted to menstrual blood.
Oh my god, So we not only didn't bust a myth,

(52:26):
we actually supported a myth. Well it's it's they said,
grizzlies and black bears. They did test where they had
like you know, tampons and stuff out with other things,
and the grizzly bears and black bears didn't really care,
but um, the polar bears did. And I don't know
like how full proof that study is, but they they
basically said, the jury is still out on polar bears.

(52:47):
And polar bears are just super aggressive anyway. They're one
of the only animals that, like, we'll stalk a human.
I think polar bears, lions, and I think there's one more,
but um so that it may be due to that,
but jury's still out on that. I think sharks is
a definite note right, Yeah, from what I saw from
what our friends that you buy co tex say, it's

(53:09):
definitely no, that's where that one came from. Um, just
a couple more things to button up before we go.
We definitely didn't want to scare you about toxic shock syndrome.
It's actually exceedingly rare. I think there's something about like
fifty eight cases a year um. And you can stay
on top of it by staying on top of changing
your tampon regularly, I think, no longer than eight hours.

(53:33):
And then also don't use one that's more absorbent than
you need, because again, they proliferate on the fibers, So
more fibers means more chance for that bacteria to proliferate
and create those toxins. That's one and then also one
other thing, even if you're not worried about getting pregnant
on your period. You can still catch sexually transmitted diseases
on your period, so you should be wearing a condom

(53:53):
in that case. Anyway. That's right, Good job, buddy, thank you,
Good job to you. There's also a tamp on shortage
going on right now, Chuck, did you see that? I did. Uh.
There's a lot of things that there's a shortage of
right now. So that's um obviously worrisome, especially with these
organizations that try to send these two places where they

(54:14):
really really need them. Yeah, for sure. But there's few
shortages that can be attributed to Amy Schumer. Uh, And
this one has been at least in part. There was
a big tam PACs ad campaign featuring Amy Schumer that
tam pac said was so colossally um impactful, and sales
went up so high that they blamed part of the

(54:35):
tampon shortage on the ad campaign. I'd buy anything Amy
Schumer told me to buy. I love her. Sure, She's
America's greatest national treasure. She's one of them. She's better
than the Declaration of Independence and Abe Lincoln's hat rolled together,
which is what some people used as tampons during the
Civil War. That's right. Nice, Uh, you got anything else.

(55:00):
I got nothing else, All right, Chuck, way to go, buddy.
Um we did it. Since I just said that it's
time for a listener mail. Uh. We had our drowning
episode run on our Saturday selects recently and got a
lot of people writing in again about that. And this
is a water safety p s a from um someone

(55:21):
who worked as a lifeguard. Her name is Ella Fineberg,
and ellis as a couple of things, one of which
is water wings are not safe parents. And these are
the things that the parents put their little kids in
that goes around their chest and then their arms. They're
called float ees. You know. They put their little tiny
arms through their Uh. Many parents think they're legit flotation devices.

(55:43):
I don't blame them, um, but they don't secure under
their arms very well. And there's a very real risk
that if a kid goes under the water, wings will
float up to their wrists and not do anything to
keep their actual head above water. Uh. And newsflash, you
can't breathe if your hands are above the water. That's
the second news flash of this episode. If only your
hands for buff water. Let should say. Uh. And here's

(56:06):
another news flash, Um, Ella says something you didn't mention
is if you are not a strong swimmer and you
don't have a flotation device with you, do not help
someone who is drowning. Uh. And it fights probably most
people's instinct. But you see stories all the time about

(56:27):
two people drowning instead of one person drowning. Um, or
you know, maybe causing that person to even drown quicker
because you're not a good swimmer. But Ella says, just
reiterates a few different times, just do not attempt to
rescue a drowning victim. If you can't swim very well yourself. Uh,
call your local emergency number, wait for someone go screaming

(56:51):
for help. Uh, and fight that instinct. And that is
from Ella Fineberg, former lifeguard. Nice. Thanks a lot, Ella,
I think you really did some good work here and
we appreciate it. And hello to your husband because they
listen together. Nice. Um. Well, if you want to be
like Ella and share some really great important information, we

(57:11):
would love to share it with everybody else. You can
share it with us via email at stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever
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