menstruation

[iFindMeHere]

Don't know if you already tried this, but it might be worth talking to your doctor, and trying  some different version of the pill.  The first one I tried (Yasmin) made me completely crazy, as well.  So we tried a couple different formulations, and eventually we found one that didn't have side effects I couldn't live with.

eh--i'm chemically sensitive as is. I've had the ligation and am just gonna work on the hysto.

[GnomeKid]

Late 14... almost 15

no clue bout me mum though...

At first I just thought it was gross but as time goes on symptoms get worse.  Now I just don't want to leave the house for the first few days and usually want to smash my head through walls. 

[Osiris]

I actually can't remember how old I was when it started. As a kid my mom mentioned periods in passing and since then I never really thought about it until that fateful day. 😛 It actually took me awhile to figure out what was going on and since then it was just part of the routine. I guess I don't remember exactly when it happened because it never really meant anything to me, sure I knew what getting a period meant, but it was mostly just an inconvenience.

But like Gnome (I like the name btw ) said as time went by the cramps got worse. It reached the point where it was debilitating. But as I found ways of coping with them it became more bearable. So I'd only be knocked out for a few hours instead of a whole day, and now it's only bad the first hour or so, and I can work through it.

[Stephen]

I started around 12. I got very bad cramps and mood swings. By the time I was 15 I stopped taking meds for it because I had already taken and adjusted to ALL of the over the counter meds. After I got into college and was exposed to the GLBTA community I started getting more mood swings faster and new symptoms. Once the mood swings got so bad I told my mom I needed something to help me so we went to the doctors and I am now on fluoxitine. I started out only taking it during my monthly and discovered that I had the mood swings most women get during their monthlys all of the time. I then started taking it every day and my mom can tell within 3 sentences if I forgot to take it the night before. The doctor I talked to refused to do a hormone test saying that I just needed birth control or something else and that if there is a hormonal imbalance birth control will take care of it with the estrogen in it.

I have been taking fluoxitine for about a year now. For the past year I have had one symptom or another I have never had before, but the pain is less and the mood swings are more manageable.

[Zeke]

I started exactly a week after my thirteenth birthday. Dunno about my mom, never asked.

I always feel like the odd one out because it doesn't really mean anything to me. It comes, it goes, that's it. I never get any cramps or pain or mood swings or anything. Maaaybe I'm just really weird (pfft, like I didn't already know that)

...Although I did get really upset and cry the first time I had mine.

[Dante]

Besides the fact that I started when I was 10, I'm similar to you, Devin. I get minor cramps (like a stomach ache) and a really nasty feeling (like dripping or something). 

And I did almost cry when I got mine for the first time, but didn't because I hadn't identified what I was. (I'm very odd in the sense that the only thing to hint towards this was that I always felt different, but couldn't tell why, and some various memories that would point to it) I didn't cry, because I really didn't know why I was so sad. I mean, sure the event was scary, but really not something to cry about. I was wrong. Very, very wrong. Looking back, I wish I had cried. That was the day I finally realized that 'different' thing about me that I couldn't identify before. What a horrible day. 

[iFindMeHere]

I started exactly a week after my thirteenth birthday. Dunno about my mom, never asked.

I always feel like the odd one out because it doesn't really mean anything to me. It comes, it goes, that's it. I never get any cramps or pain or mood swings or anything. Maaaybe I'm just really weird (pfft, like I didn't already know that)

...Although I did get really upset and cry the first time I had mine.

man you're not odd, just lucky.