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Hi there. Thank you for letting me speak to you today. My apologies. I can't be there in person and congratulations to Kevin and the Obs and Gly Society for organizing this event. My name is Rebecca. I'm the vice chair of the North Highland Women's wellbeing hub, which was established in 2021. We use our lived experiences to help change things for the better in the world of women's health. I suffered from heavy, extremely painful periods from the age of 12 onwards and was given various pills and nothing helped. It turned out I had endometriosis and polycystic ovaries. Now I'm on hormonal treatment and don't have bleeds. It has allowed me to reflect on just how much these periods affected me throughout my life. I'm gonna go through them kind of point by point because there's so many aspects of life are touched and changed by heavy or abnormal periods. So social impacts include missing family events, birthday parties, core social occasions, such as school things, senior bowl, house parties, teenagers, let's be honest, can be really mean and not everyone understands why somebody can't attend, which can sometimes lead to bullying and social upset no matter what your age is going through your life. Having to work your social calendar around your bleeds is really tiring. The panic of. Can I go in the pool on holiday or should I wear this dress? Dress in case I leak at your friend's wedding. It's relentless and relentless. Gets tiring after a while. Sometimes it's easier to go to not go to these events, which means that women are missing out on joy and happiness that comes from these life experiences. Financially work days are missed, impacting the chance to accumulate savings, secure driving lessons, rent, travel and future opportunities. Repeatedly using annual leave in place of unpaid sick leave has a doubly negative impact. These days are meant to be used for rest and enjoyment and they're instead being used up for time to recover and recuperate, giving you less time to recover and recuperate every month. It's a vicious cycle for anyone. Self employed sick page just simply doesn't exist and neither does annual leave. Often means working through horrific symptoms without the possibility to rest. I have been both employed and self-employed throughout my life. And in the past seven years, I have been solely self-employed and therefore no sick pay or annual leave. I've had to adapt to my business style opening hours of the shop and staff numbers due to my poor health over the years, mostly due to heavy periods relating to endometriosis, working in all male kitchens for many of my many years of my life has also meant that the majority of my colleagues were quite unsympathetic and there was a get on with it, attitude to time off or for the symptoms I was experiencing. We didn't even have a sanitary bin. I'm sure I'm not the only female chef or hospitality worker who's experienced this. And hopefully it will change psychologically when GPS and Gyna repeatedly tell you that the high level of period pain and heavy bleeds are normal. It really starts to take its toll. You start to doubt that you're not just overreacting or you start to believe that everyone must be dealing with the same thing. This is gas lighting at its finest and it happens on a global level having an impact for life, especially if you need to push for a diagnosis later on such as endometriosis, adenomyosis or fibroids. All of which as you know can cause heavy, heavy bleeds, delayed attendance to the doctor can lead to major damage or even organ loss if these conditions are left too long without treatment. And the knock on effect of the period pain of normal rhetoric is quite serious. We desperately need to normalize talking about periods and what's normal and educate all generations that periods that interrupt your daily life are not normal. The next generation of doctors are the key to breaking the cycle of women thinking that they should be suffering in silence during educational years. Missed school, college or university days during periods can have a knock on effect on your knowledge, your exam results and career prospects for the future physically missed pe sessions, fear of sports due to period flooding risks or the physical pain reducing activity every month can lead to weight gain, poor nutrition and obesity related illnesses. More acutely heavy bleeds often lead to anemia. And the knock on effect of feeling weak, tired and constantly exhausted also impacts social work and family experiences. It is an all around impact. In summary, the impact of abnormal heavy or painful periods cannot be underplayed. Even if you are speaking to a patient about a non gyne related issue, please be acutely aware that she may have a deep ingrained belief that her pain is normal and may not be telling you the whole story. So that was brief, but enjoy the rest of your event and thank you for allowing me to chat to you today. The impacts I've touched upon are just a few of many. Each women will have unique experiences. But thank you for hearing my view and enjoy the rest of the day.