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.