High School Drama Waterloo Road has returned for its 14th Series on BBC One and iPlayer and this series features an important story line on menstrual health. Tonight’s episode, which is already available on BBC iPlayer, is the start of a story line which follows teenager Tonya struggling with her menstrual cycle, and starts to experience symptoms of what could be a menstrual health condition. It highlights themes of dismissal and isolation, as both her Mum and the GP initially don’t believe her symptoms.
It may be a difficult watch for many - as we know many will have faced challenges in accessing a diagnosis of a menstrual health condition and feeling believed by those around you. If you’ve been affected by the story line, please head to our support pages for information and support.
Commenting on the story line, Head of Communications Faye Farthing said: “The new series of Waterloo Road brings home the reality that many young people face in accessing a diagnosis of a menstrual health condition – young people are all too often dismissed, and it’s time that changed. It also highlights that stigma and myths surrounding menstrual health are still very much prevalent in our society – including that people are “too young” to get a menstrual health condition including endometriosis or that menstrual related pain is normal. This is preventing young people from seeking help, and Endometriosis UK is determined to turn this around. The impact of lost education and academic attainment can have a lifelong impact on career and prospects. As well as impacting on physical health, the psychological effect of being told your pain is not real, or not believed, can be significant.
Awareness and education are key to empowering young people to recognise the symptoms of menstrual health conditions and seek help. It also relies on parents or care-givers, peers, teachers and healthcare practitioners to believe people who are experiencing pain and empower them to get the help they need to access treatment and support, rather than dismissing or not believing them.
If you’re a young person and pain is interfering with your everyday life, it’s important you seek help. Endometriosis UK has information on our website, as well as tools to help equip you to speak to your GP - including a symptom checker that is a 60 second questionnaire that you can fill out and generates an automated personalised letter with your symptoms to give your GP”.
Endometriosis UK is also campaigning for:
- Governments in the UK to ensure compulsory menstrual wellbeing education is being properly implemented in primary and secondary schools
- Governments to improve awareness, education and training of all healthcare professionals so that everyone understands the symptoms of endometriosis and places people on the right referral pathways to accessing treatment and support
Menstrual Cycle Support
The ‘Menstrual Cycle Support for Teens’ course, which aims to transform stigma and shame, empower young people and reverse diagnosis times for endometriosis (average 8 years 10 months), premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) [12 years], heavy menstrual bleeding and other menstrual health conditions, launches in Parliament on Thursday.
The initiative, a partnership between Menstrual Cycle Support and Endometriosis UK, is free to all schools and teens on social prescription. Eight founding partner schools from across the UK helped shape the course and have signed up to offer it to their students.
You can view more information here.
Photo credit: BBC
