Riding the crimson wave: placebo periods

The crimson wave. On the rag. Having the painters in. Shark week. According to a 2015 survey those were some of the top euphemisms in the English language for periods. Here’s a fun fact: apart from humans and our close primate relatives, the only other animals to have periods are elephant shrews and some bats.

In humans, about once a month an ovary releases an egg for fertilisation.

In response, the lining of the uterus thickens in preparation for an embryo to implant. If no embryo arrives, the thickened lining sloughs off and out of the vagina.

Periods are no joke. Yes, men, you may get annoyed by women’s mood swings and irritability. But that’s because we’re in pain and our hormones are running the show. For some, the cramps and bleeding are so severe they’re debilitating and potentially even life-threatening.

And periods cost money. Humans have about 450 in a lifetime, use about 20 tampons per cycle and a box of 16 tampons costs $4-$5. That’s more than $2250, which may not sound like much, but if you’re living on the poverty line, it’s a fortune.

But wait. For about 15 years I took the contraceptive pill because I didn’t want to get pregnant. There was no need for my uterus to prepare for an embryo. Yet every month I had a period. All because of a Catholic doctor called John Rock.

Rock was one of the people who developed the pill in the 1950s. Knowing the Catholic Church viewed birth control as a sin unless there were ‘‘natural’’ reasons that prevented pregnancy, he hoped the Pope would accept the pill if people taking it still had a period.

In other words, if you’re on the pill, your period is a costly and painful placebo designed to appease the Catholic church.

They didn’t buy it, but that’s why even today most contraceptive pills come in a pack with three weeks’ worth of medically active pills and a week of dummy pills to induce bleeding.

The good news is a 2014 study showed that those on extended-cycle pills did fine without a monthly bleed.

So, if you’re fed up with ‘‘having the painters in’’, have a chat with Family Planning about ditching your placebo period.

If you’re on the pill, your period is a costly and painful placebo designed to appease the Catholic church.