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Training with your period

Heather Watson at the Australian Open.

Professional sportswomen are “suffering in silence” as the effect their menstrual cycles have on their performance is still taboo, a former tennis star said, after British tennis star Heather Watson was praised last week for discussing how her period impacted her Australian Open performance.

Watson, currently the top women’s player in Britain, lost in the first round of the of this year’s Australian Open after feeling sick and calling for a doctor.

The 22-year-old revealed she suffered from dizziness, nausea, low energy levels and spells of feeling light-headed as she lost 6-4 6-0 to Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova.

Watson later said that she was suffering from side effects of her period, and she was going to consult with a doctor to prevent this from affecting her play in the future.

“I think it’s just one of these things that I have, girl things,” she told the BBC. “It just happens.”

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Watson’s remarks drew applause from the women’s tennis community, who said the effect of periods on a female athlete’s performance is a common problem that is rarely discussed.

Annabel Croft, a former British tennis champion, called the topic the “last taboo in female sports.”

“Women dealing with these issues at any time is hard enough, but actually trying to go out there and play high-level sport… it’s just really unlucky,” Croft told the BBC’s Radio 5.

“Women’s monthly issues seems to be one of those subjects that gets swept under the carpet and is a big secret,” she said.

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Tara Moore, another British tennis player, told The Telegraph that she also struggles with balancing her menstrual cycle and her professional career, saying she mostly just hopes her tournaments don’t line up with it.

Moore said she has nightmares about bleeding through her uniform during Wimbledon, where all players must wear white.

“If something like that happens it’s mortifying - it’s a nightmare,” she said.

But it’s not just professional athletes who suffer, according to WH resident GP Dr Ginni Mansberg, the culture around periods is still taboo.

“I think that’s a real shame given that you spend effectively one week in four with a period. One in four women of an age who are still fertile are having periods at any given time. That’s pretty common. That’s more common than depression, which we’re now starting to talk about. If you walk through the city at lunchtime you can expect one in four women are having a period at any one time. How can we still think that’s icky?”

While training does increase blood flow, you still lose the same volume of blood. Although the total amount comes out a bit quicker when you’re running around.

“There will be heavy days when you need to change your tampon every two hours but if you need to change it every 15 minutes that’s a problem,” says Mansberg.

Got a big event coming up? She advocates her patients on the pill to skip their period. “Blood is blood. It comes out of your uterus instead of a cut on your leg. I want it in your body, we don’t need to be losing it every month.”

According to Mansberg a lot of women push through the pain. “I cant believe how many patients work out at the gym all the time and are really iron deficient. I’m thinking don’t you have back pain? Don’t you get headaches? Aren’t you exhausted. Women are just heroes. It’s amazing.”

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