34-year-old Sophia* lives just outside of London and has been living with endometriosis for a decade. She describes living with heavy bleeding and pain whi

Women and people with wombs are being told to wait up to a year to have their contraceptive coil (IUD) removed in England and Northern Ireland, Refinery29

wherever there is a gender health gap it is underpinned by a research and data gap!

An unknown number of women are experiencing vaginismus after painful contraceptive coil (also known as IUD (intrauterine device)) fittings. Vaginismus is a

The first time Mariam*, 29, was prescribed the oral contraceptive pill at 16, it was for her painful and heavy periods. While the pill helped (she didn’t

NHS contraception waiting times are driving women to buy oral hormonal contraception privately when they could be accessing it for free via the NHS where t

Disrupted sleep, anxiety, tearfulness, irritability, breast tenderness, food cravings, fatigue, bloating, headaches, brain fog, clumsiness: these are just

It’s time we all had a frank conversation about hormonal contraception. At present, around 3 million women in England are taking the combined contracepti

Unless you know someone affected or are a doctor yourself, you’re probably unsure what fibromyalgia syndrome is. The silence around this chronic pain-rel

“Women are more likely than men to be under treated or inappropriately diagnosed and treated for their pain,” wrote Dianne E. Hoffmann and Anit

If you’re a fan of non-hormonal contraception or even looking for a new form of contraception to try, you may well have heard excited rumblings about a n

“I recall bawling in a gynaecologist’s office – begging him to perform a hysterectomy. I told him I never want children: never have done, nev

When she was 19, Brittnee started to experience painful sex. “That’s when my endometriosis started impacting my daily life and relationships, thoug

“It’s just sort of like a folklore thing, PMS,” says Charlie. “It’s like, your mother had PMS, and her mother had PMS, and all these

Thirty-one-year-old Neelam Heera is the founder of Cysters, a Birmingham-based group dedicated to supporting individuals and improving the health, educatio

Zoe Bennett, 28, was in intensive therapy for an eating disorder and sincerely trying to recover when some reservations began to arise about her weight gai

Warning: This article includes descriptions of suicidal ideation. I was sitting still on the sofa but everything around me was moving. I couldn’t make it

In 2018, The Week ran an essay that went viral. Its argument was that we live in a culture “that sees female pain as normal and male pleasure as a ri