We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share their period horror stories. These are the stressful results.
1."I've always had a problem with heavy bleeding and anemia. One time, I started bleeding heavily and didn't stop for over a week. I went to the ER, got a high dose of hormones, started bleeding again, got food poisoning, and ended up in the hospital overnight with a transfusion needle in my arm. I lost so much blood that I was gray and could barely hold my own body up. It took almost a month before I could walk more than two blocks without getting dizzy."
2."I was studying at the library during college. I had to change my tampon, so I went to the restroom, took it out, and put in a fresh one. I left the stall to wash my hands and noticed a trail of blood on the floor. I went back to the stall and saw a blood clot on the floor. To my shock and horror, a clot had fallen out when I removed my tampon. I'd stepped on it and trailed the blood everywhere. I rushed to clean up the spots, but there was still blood on my shoe, which kept making a bigger mess. It was a true nightmare."
3."I bled through my pants in eighth grade, so I went to the nurse's office to call my mom to bring me a change of clothes. I didn't want to get blood on the office's chair, so I decided to kneel on the floor while I waited for my mom. Eventually, my knees started to hurt, so I stood up and promptly passed out, hitting my head on the way down. My mom finally arrived in time to see me getting loaded onto a stretcher so they could take me to the ER. I had to spend the rest of the day getting tests done at the hospital. When I finally got home, there was a message on the answering machine from my friend asking if I was still alive because she had heard I died at school!"
4."I was 18 and about to do the nasty with a lad I had fancied for a long time. We were going at it, with me on top, and all was going well. I climbed off so we could change positions. Apparently, my period had started, and there was blood everywhere — all over his crotch, legs, and stomach! He was so grossed out, we had to go and take a shower. He left not long after!"
5."I was on my way to meet a guy for a first date. I went to the bathroom right before I met him and noticed that I had just gotten my period. It was already heavy, I had light blue jeans on, there was no toilet paper in the stall, and there was nobody next to me to pass me any paper. I had to sacrifice the sweater I was wearing to clean up what blood I could before meeting my date."
6."My period horror story happened two months ago. I started my period like normal, but at the end of the week when it should've been tapering off, the blood kept coming. For two months, I heavily bled with mild clots. I kept staining the bed and my clothes, and I felt very weak and tired. I bought a reusable bed pad to keep my bed from getting ruined. I kept going to the emergency room and my gyno, but nobody could figure out why the bleeding wouldn't stop. My gyno put me on birth control pills, which have been working, but once I start taking the placebos, the heavy bleeding starts again. I have been given permission to skip the placebos, and the only thing my gyno speculates is that I have too much estrogen. I still need more tests done."
7."A couple years ago, my mom and I were driving home from the store when I felt my period leaking through my jeans and onto the car seat. It wasn’t a small leak — it was as if floodgates had opened. We were at a busy intersection, so my mom panicked and cut through the back of a banquet hall parking lot to bypass the traffic. Turns out it was private property. A cop, who was waiting out back, pulled us over. My mom frantically apologized to the cop and pointed to me in hopes that he would let us go with a warning. He looked at me, told her it was private property, and wrote her a ticket. The worst part was him looking at me and my blood-soaked pants. It was definitely a 'kill me now' moment."
8."About eight months ago, I was at my boyfriend's house and we were watching a movie. I got up to go to the bathroom and my boyfriend said, 'Oh, you have a string hanging from your shorts.' He pulled out my tampon and blood got on his white couch."
9."My mom left for a monthlong work event, and two days later, my period started. I ran out of pads after the first day. I was 13, had three guys in the house, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking any of them to get me pads. So I improvised with toilet paper. Well, during this time, I was attending a day camp at a barn where I was taking riding lessons. For the entire week, I rode horses through increasingly difficult courses, all with wads of toilet paper in my underwear."
10."I was at my graduation ceremony while on my period, so every time we had to stand up, I would ask a friend sitting behind me if I had a stain. At one point, I stood up and she just nodded. I panicked because my pants were beige and the chair had a white fabric cover. I forgot I was in the middle of the ceremony and ran straight to the bathroom. When my parents found out, they started knocking on the gym bathroom door and calling my name loudly, so everyone heard."
11."When I was around 11, I wasn’t used to my period yet. I also had an overactive bladder and never knew just how badly I needed to go until it was an emergency. One day, I was sitting in class and had a big sneeze, which made me push all liquids out of both my uterus and my bladder. I covered my chair, pants, shoes, and the floor with a mix of urine and blood. This was during first period. To make it worse, my teacher was a nightmare, and not only called me out in the middle of class, but also made me clean it up while everyone watched. She wouldn’t let me call my mom to ask for a change of clothes, so I had to change into my gym clothes and an ill-fitting pair of underwear from the nurse. The pants were ruined and I had to hear about the incident from everyone in my grade for nearly two years."
12."Junior year of high school I went on a band trip to Florida and didn’t realize beforehand that my period was going to come during the trip. I was unprepared, and, because of the structure of the trip, I didn’t have the opportunity to go to a store to buy more supplies. On the bus ride home, I bled through my jeans. When we stopped at a gas station, I had to explain to my male band teacher why I desperately needed to get a new pair of pants out of my suitcase, which was stored under the bus. He and the driver had to pull out a bunch of people’s stuff to find mine, while my classmates (including my crush) watched."
13."A couple of years ago at a water park, I put in a tampon with the cardboard applicator still on it and could barely walk from the discomfort. I wasn’t sure what was wrong because I had used tampons for years, but never the kind with the cardboard applicator. It wasn’t until I finally gave up and took it out that I realized the cardboard tube was still wrapped around the tampon and had been inside of me the entire time."
14."I started my period when I was 12 and in middle school. It was the early '80s and peasant tops were in style, so I was wearing a white one with ruffles all down the front of it. I was on my period and using a pad, and I went to the bathroom. While sitting on the toilet, I bent forward to get toilet paper, which led to me getting blood all over my beautiful white ruffles. I hid out in the bathroom stall while my best friend cleaned the ruffles and tried to get the blood out."
15."In middle school, I had really heavy periods. At some point in time, between school beginning and meeting up with my boyfriend, I started bleeding. I didn't realize it until he hugged me from behind and stepped back with a red stain on his jeans. It's probably one of the most embarrassing things I've ever been through."
16.And finally: "One time, my friend started her period and didn't tell her mom because she was embarrassed and wanted to figure it out on her own. So she stuck in a tampon and went on with her day. Later, she went to the bathroom and blood was everywhere. That's when she realized she had stuck the tampon up her butthole."
Do you have a period horror story of your own? Drop it in the comments!
