Pads for very heavy periods don’t really seem to exist. Because I’ve tried everything. Those Always pads worked good, but for those really heavy days or for nighttime, we need something industrial  grade.

I had tried overlapping overnight pads, making one very long pad, that helped a little, but I needed way more help than that.

Medically speaking, they consider that a heavy period is one when a pad or tampon is soaked or full in one hour. I had a 2 hour window on my 2 heaviest days, and this caused serious border-line anemia that was difficult to treat.

When my iron was down, I could not do any exercise without running out of air asap. If I ran up, or even walked, up one flight of stairs, I could feel my heart pounding and feeling like I was incredibly out of shape. I wasn’t out of shape to that degree! But I didn’t know, I was getting older, etc, things change. Now that I don’t get periods, I can jog, I can run up 2 flights of stairs, I could walk for hours. You see, when your iron is low, and you exert yourself, your body needs iron to carry the oxygen to the cells that need it, like those thigh muscles you just used going up stairs.  If that oxygen isn’t there, your heart starts to pound harder in order to speed up the delivery of oxygen. It’s trying to supply many little bits of oxygen carried on the little bits of iron.

I had an epiphany when I was cleaning up the diapering station at home after the kids were all potty trained. I must have been having my period at the time or I may have not thought of this. But as I held this toddler diaper, I realized I might be able to use this!

I stand up and place this toddler diaper over my clothes. The sides don’t do up cause I’m not that thin, but it fills in all the area between my legs, covers the sides and is almost to my waist. Time to test it……

Pads for heavy periods, those old toddler diapers!

And this is what it would look like, the image on the right, the sides don’t do up but a snug pair of underwear definitely holds it in place. Now you can actually sleep the night. No more fears of the dreaded gush that soaks clothes and bedding!

Maybe an incontinence pad would work.

You could also consider incontinence products, like the image on the left. These are a heavy pad-like material and are way longer than a regular period pad.

Yup, maybe those adult diapers for the extreme period days, and those nights.

They make also make a diaper style, which is used in hospitals for adults. When I ran out of my toddler diapers, I did go and buy these, in another town, just in case I got seen. And if you do buy these, these are not like the sizing in clothes, when a large fits like a medium. When these say large, they mean large. And these worked extremely well.

A medical site on heavy periods, good to know information.

And if you happen to have an accident when you are out with the kids like I did, you could do this, lol.

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