I overdosed on painkillers just to survive my painful periods
A woman in pain. Medical experts warn that severe period pain and absent periods are serious health indicators that point to underlying conditions like endometriosis or hormonal imbalances.
What you need to know:
- Three women share their stories of severe menstrual pain and irregular periods that have cost them thousands in medical bills.
- Despite trying everything from overdosing on painkillers to emergency injections, they continue to suffer debilitating cramps, unpredictable cycles, and missed work days with no proper diagnosis or effective treatment.
- Medical experts warn that severe period pain and absent periods are serious health indicators that point to underlying conditions.
There’s a certain kind of grief that comes with never knowing your body. A kind of quiet, personal betrayal when the calendar that you’ve been told to trust from the moment you understood what a “cycle” meant, stops making sense. For Linah Wambui, it started with confusion and pain as a teenager. Years later, she still lives in that haze of uncertainty, as do many other women — silently, bravely, and often alone.
She was only 13 or 14 when it happened. “I didn’t understand what was going on,” she recalls of that day in Form One. “I had very bad stomach pains. It took me almost a couple of hours before I realised I was having my first period.”
That moment was the beginning of a painful rhythm that would repeat itself every month as chaos wrapped in clots, cramps, and fear.
The pain was so intense that she sometimes passed out. Teachers didn’t understand it. “Sometimes they would punish me thinking I was just being errant,” Linah says, laughing softly, the way people do when pain becomes a familiar part of life.
Injections
“I’d carry painkillers from home and overdose just to manage the cramps. This did not help much and having my periods meant at least two days away from the class.”
She tried everything. Nospa, Panadol, and other painkillers that she took religiously — two every few hours. When they didn’t work, she relied on injections.
“That jab directly to the bloodstream was the only thing that worked,” she says. Each month came with not just pain but also costs; hospital visits, drips, consultations, and medication that could run up to 5,000 shillings.
But the worst part wasn’t the money but in the not knowing what exactly was wrong with her. Years of tests — hormonal, blood work, scans and all came back “normal.” The doctors told her it was just a phase. “They said, ‘Every person is different. You’ll grow out of it.’” She didn’t and she has never.
When adulthood came, so did new horrors. One month, her period wouldn’t stop. It stretched on for two weeks.
“I was exhausted. The doctor said my hormones were unbalanced and gave me birth control pills.”
That helped temporarily, but the pain returned, this time without any bleeding. She was in her early 20s, in college, when a doctor bluntly told her she should consider having a baby. “He said most of his clients who’ve had babies don’t experience the pain anymore. I wasn’t ready, but the statement stuck with me.”
When she hit her mid-20s, she was ready for a baby. Or so she thought but pregnancy didn’t come easy. “I struggled for close to a year and a half. I did a million and one tests. No fibroids. No hormonal issues. Nothing.” Still, she wasn’t getting pregnant. And in that season, her period disappeared entirely a cruel twist for someone who’d always had too much of it.
Eventually, after several rounds of hormonal drugs, she conceived. “It was a very difficult pregnancy. I even quit my job and went on full bed rest.”
A woman at a doctor's clinic. One woman says her doctor told her to get pregnant to stop period pain.
Everyone had said that once she had a baby, her periods would normalise. But when they returned, they were worse. “I thought the earlier pain was bad, but this was worse. The clots were darker, the cramps unbearable.”
Despite being in and out of clinics, her results remain frustratingly inconclusive. “I’ve spent thousands. I even had a biopsy done after a lump was found in my breast — thankfully, it was benign. But the fear is always there.”
Linah marks her calendar, stocks up on painkillers, and waits. “Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s light, sometimes it’s clotted and black. I’ve tried every drug. I know which clinic to go to when I can’t take it anymore.”
Unlike Linah, who has sought medical help almost religiously, Joyce Kwamboka has kept away from hospitals — perhaps from fatigue, perhaps from having once tried and found little help. Joyce’s period story started unusually late.
“I was 17 when I first saw my menses,” she says. And even then, they were irregular from the start. “I could go two, three months without them. My sister got worried and took me to hospital. They found a cyst, but even after treatment, nothing changed.”
For years, she couldn’t tell when her periods would come or for how long. Sometimes it was just light spotting for a day or two. At other times, particularly after travel, they would crash down with unbearable force.
“In 2013, after undergoing surgery that wasn’t even related to my reproductive system, the cramps came hard. I lived alone at the time. I remember sitting on the toilet the whole night, screaming like a mad person. You can’t walk, sleep, or even lie down. You just wait it out.”
She believed, like Linah, that having a child would reset her body.
“My sister had similar issues, and she always said a child helps.”
After delivering in 2018, her periods disappeared — until March 2019, when they returned, lighter, almost manageable. But things turned again when she moved to Nairobi and had a painful encounter with her coil. “It had moved down and they had to remove it.”
She thought things had stabilised until she travelled to Tanzania in late 2023.
“That December, the menses checked in with everything I had dreaded — pain in my nails, headaches, heaviness. You just want to disappear.”
Since April this year, she hasn’t seen her periods at all and she hasn’t gone to the hospital for a check-up because she has taken medicines before but they never seem to work.
Family planning
“I’ve been down that road. You’re given pills that don’t work, told it’s stress or hormones. Sometimes I think, why bother?”
She no longer takes medication. “We used to get painkillers at work, but they didn’t help. I just sit through the chaos when they check in. Excruciating pain throughout the night seated on the toilet bowl throughout the night till the clots come out. And that’s that. During such phases my productivity is on an all-time low and I do not even go to work”
Jane Atieno, a communication specialist based in Mombasa, has never even taken that first step into a doctor’s office. Her story starts early, in Grade Four and like Joyce’s and Linah’s, it has always been marked by inconsistency.
“Anytime I travelled, I wouldn’t get my periods that month. It’s been like that since I was a girl.”
Even now, at 32, she’s lived with skipped periods for so long that it feels normal. “I haven’t had sex in three years, never used family planning, and I’m not on any meds. So it’s not that,” she clarifies. “Last time I saw my period was end of April. Then in May, I went to Nairobi for a week and boom, no menses. They haven’t come since.”
When they do show up, though, they don’t come quietly. “It’s like payback. The pain is insane — vomiting, diarrhoea, headaches, I even lose consciousness for hours. Then after rest, it eases.” But still, she has never consulted a doctor. “I’m not a hospital person,” she says with a shrug. “And I’m scared. What if they tell me something I don’t want to hear?”
She doesn’t even like taking painkillers. “When I’m at home, my mum or sister will force me. But when I’m alone, I just cry through it, sit, stand, lie down until it goes away.”
Work, too, takes a hit. “If it lands on a workday, I won’t go. Or if I do, I just don’t want anyone talking to me. People say I’m moody. But they have no idea what’s happening inside.”
When the periods skip, people assume she’s doing well because she adds weight and glows. “They say, ‘Life must be going smoothly for you’ or ‘You’ve added weight, what are you eating?’ I laugh and say ‘I’m not entertaining stress,’ but inside I know the truth - the anxiety of how chaotic they will present when they happen stresses me.”
She’s gone for up to four months without a single period. “And I didn’t even flinch,” she says. “It’s just how my body works.” In a world that often treats period pain as something to be hushed, endured, or prayed away, women like Linah, Joyce and Jane carry quiet battles that few can see. They know pain intimately. They know what it means to miss work, to dread travel, to spend thousands with no diagnosis, or worse, to avoid doctors altogether out of fear of finding something worse.
Experts take
Dr Grace Kanyi, obstetrician and gynaecologist, Tharaka Nithi and Meru County
“In countless households and classrooms around the world, girls are quietly pushing through debilitating period pain, brushing off heavy bleeding as "just part of being a woman." But normalising this suffering is misguided and dangerous. Menstrual health isn’t just a “women’s issue”; but a public health issue that needs to be paid attention to.
Painful, heavy periods medically termed dysmenorrhea and menorrhagia can be symptoms of underlying conditions like endometriosis, fibroids, adenomyosis, or hormonal imbalances. Left untreated, these disorders can be early warning features of potential long term complications such as; fertility challenges, chronic pain, and significant disruptions in education, work, and daily life.
This silence stems from shame and stigma. In many communities, menstruation is still shrouded in taboo. Girls are taught from an early age to be discreet, to hide their pads, to suffer in silence. In such an environment, it’s no wonder that accessing medical care for period-related issues feels out of reach or unnecessary.
This must change and we must teach our daughters that listening to their bodies isn’t weakness. We must empower women to advocate for their health without fear or embarrassment. And we must demand that healthcare systems, schools, and workplaces treat menstrual health with the seriousness it deserves.
Seeking medical assistance for painful or heavy periods can be life-changing. With proper diagnosis and care, many women find relief—and in some cases, they discover and treat conditions that might have gone undetected for years. Early intervention saves lives, reduces suffering, and improves quality of life.
While some discomfort during menstruation is common, *intense* or debilitating pain is not normal and it often points to something deeper.
Endometriosis leads the list. This condition occurs when tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, causing severe pain, especially during menstruation. It's shockingly underdiagnosed, even though it affects millions of women globally.
Uterine fibroids - noncancerous growths in the uterus that can cause heavy bleeding and intense cramps. These often go unnoticed until the pain becomes unmanageable.
Adenomyosis - is another hidden cause, where the uterine lining begins to grow into the muscle of the uterus itself, leading to pain and bloating.
In some cases, the cause is not known as in primary dysmenorrhea - caused by excess prostaglandins - can lead to severe cramps. But here’s the message: severe pain, even without a secondary condition, still deserves medical attention.
Another menstrual health issue which is frequently overlooked is the sudden absence of periods. Secondary amenorrhoea—the condition where a woman who previously had regular menstruation stops getting her period for three months or more—isn’t just a minor inconvenience. It’s a powerful signal from the body that something deeper may be wrong.
There’s a misconception that not having a period is a blessing in disguise. Fewer cramps, no monthly supplies to worry about—what’s not to love? But this thinking dangerously ignores the root causes of secondary amenorrhoea, which often lie in hormonal imbalance, stress-related disorders, or more serious medical conditions.
Common underlying medical disorders leading to secondary amenorrhoea include but not limited to; polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), thyroid dysfunction, excessive physical exercise, eating disorders, and premature ovarian insufficiency. Even long-term use of certain contraceptives or sudden lifestyle changes like extreme weight loss can disrupt the delicate hormonal orchestra that regulates menstruation.
Cultural silence
And that matters because hormones aren’t just about reproduction. They affect brain performance, mood, bone density, heart health, and metabolism. Ignoring a missed period could mean missing the early signs of conditions that can affect fertility, long-term health, and quality of life.
What’s most troubling is that many girls and women don’t seek help. Cultural silence around reproductive health, stigma, or simple lack of awareness keeps them from stepping into a clinic. That has to change.
Menstrual periods are a vital sign just like heart rate and blood pressure. When they disappear without explanation, it's not just a footnote but a screaming headline. Medical care isn't just about bringing periods back—it's about uncovering the story behind their absence and restoring holistic well-being.