“Who here has taken a painkiller in the past month?” A sea of hands shoots into the air. OK, too easy. “Who’s taken one in the last week?” Only one hand returns to its owner’s lap. Most of the Stylist office, it turns out, had taken a painkiller, for various reasons, in the past day or two. When I ask the same question at the pub a few days later, I get an even more conclusive answer: everyone has taken a painkiller that day.

I’d wager that if you rummaged through the average woman’s handbag, gym kit or Uniqlo sling, you’d find a packet of pills nestling somewhere between the Stanley cups and Dr Pawpaw balms. That’s certainly true in my case; I’ve got paracetamol pouring out of most pockets, and the bottom of my rucksack is covered with a light dusting of ibuprofen. Having lived with migraines since year eight at school, I can’t hack the possibility of being caught on the hop, and having to trudge through the day feeling like my left eye might explode.  

Like many people, I’ve not been to the GP about my migraines because I don’t have time. I also know what they’ll say: “Try to manage your stress.” When I was hospitalised with a gallstone (14 days of agony), I was given four codeine tablets and told that unless I managed to reduce my stress, I’d need to have my gallbladder removed. The gallstone eventually dissolved, but even after changing jobs, relationships, flats and diets, I still get the odd migraine. Regular painkillers don’t work (I take a couple to prove to myself that I’ve done everything in my power to reduce the throbbing); usually, I’ve just got to wait it out for 24–48 hours.

It’s a fact that women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB) live with more pain than men. Even if you’re healthy, active and not living with a diagnosed pain condition, it’s likely that you still live with a semi-regular threat of pain. Author and writer Rebecca Reid, 32, tells Strong Women that when her daughter was eight weeks old, she developed pancreatitis from gallstones that she’d not had time to get assessed or removed. “I remember having such a bad attack that I was lying on the floor and convulsing in pain (it was unquestionably more painful than my C-section) while trying to feed my baby in her moses basket. Eventually, I called an ambulance, but before that, I had to call my mum to come and take care of the baby.

“I definitely take more painkillers as a parent. When you’re sick or in pain, you just have to crack on. Having a baby can take a massive physical toll on your body: my back’s in a bad way from carrying a toddler all the time, I have RSI because I’m always typing with one hand while doing something else with the other, and you don’t get the rest time to deal with anything.” She says that while she’s a lone parent, lots of her friends who co-parent report similar experiences. No one has the time to manage pain effectively. 

According to Hertility, 60% of women live with hormonal and gynaecological issues, while one in 10 have endometriosis and/or polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), both of which can cause painful periods. A whopping 75% of women have regular premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptoms including, you guessed it, pain. The latest research from the Bupa Wellbeing Index has found that nearly half (47%) of women experience severe pain or cramps every month or most months – and that’s just seen as normal. 

Stylist’s Shahed Ezaydi says: “As soon as the PMS hits, I go into management (and crisis) mode with my period, knowing the pain and cramps are inevitable in the coming days. I’ve always had really painful periods; I have to make sure that I’m not doing too much socialising or exercise that week because I know I’ll be in pain. If I can, I try to move workloads around so that deadlines or bigger projects aren’t due the first couple of days of my period. I’m constantly stocked up on painkillers (I don’t go anywhere without paracetamol) and boxes of period pads so that I’m prepared. And once one period is over, I’m already thinking about the next one.”

30% of women suffer from headache disorders compared to 20% of men, for example, with migraines becoming three to four times more frequent for women post-puberty. Women are also more likely to get lower back pain than men – and not just because we’re typing away at subpar workstations. Endometriosis, childbirth, high blood pressure and osteoporosis all put us more at risk.  

It’s hard to say if we’re living in more pain than ever or whether women have always just put up with the buzz of discomfort but today, one in six women experience severe pain every day. When Nurofen released its first See My Pain report two years ago, it found that one in four women felt their pain had been ignored or dismissed because of their gender; today, that figure has risen to one in two. In fact, the Gender Pain Gap widened by 9% from 2022 to 2023. Unsurprisingly, this has led to more women taking pain treatment into their own hands, with 74% choosing self-care rather than seeing a healthcare professional – hence the packets of readily accessible painkillers spilling out of everyone’s pockets.

Women’s pain is complicated. For years, it simply wasn’t believed by the medical community and today, we’re all still affected by the lack of research involving female bodies. “Women’s bodies are far more complex than men’s,” says chartered psychologist Dr Mark Rackley. “Historically, women were viewed as being more hysterical when it came to medical challenges they faced. Thankfully, with the development of scientific and medical research, we now know more about how women’s bodies work and how to assess and treat conditions, but obviously, the medical community is a mixed bag and you’ll still have some doctors who don’t listen to their patients properly.”  

Dr Rackley goes on to explain that pain is a survival signal for the brain: “It signals the brain to prepare for fight or flight and deal with an incoming threat. In response, the brain changes physically and chemically to prepare to deal with the pain. This is coupled with changes in the body, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. While the body usually resolves these changes and returns to normal after temporary pain, chronic pain presents a different issue.

“Chronic, persistent pain prolongs these systemic and chemical brain changes, leading to real psychological changes.” And that, he warns, can mean we become more sensitive to the anticipation of pain and also can affect how we cope with it.

Understandably, pain and poor mental health tend to go hand-in-hand. If you live with unrelenting, unpredictable pain, then you may find your world retracting as the anxiety of pain grows. “In turn, that can lead to exhaustion and fatigue, which can leave people socially isolated as their friends get on with their own lives,” says Dr Rackley.

In other words, pain is a physical, mental and social issue – and one which the following women know about only too intimately.  

“I just wanted someone to kill me” 

Jess Bruno, 33, has ulcerative colitis and lives with a stoma bag. She was initially misdiagnosed with Crohn’s disease at 20. She currently takes five pills a day – down from 40.

Daily medication:

• Mesalazine
• Loperamide hydrochloride
• Citalopram
• Amitriptyline
• Paramol 

At my worst, I was taking 40 pills a day to manage my inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) – one for pain, one to counteract the side effects of [the pain medication], five for the mental impact of living with such a painful condition and so on. People would say stupid things to me: “You must rattle when you walk” or “You take more pills than my nan.” Fun fact, my nan and I are currently on the same pills!

My story starts back in uni when I thought that I was having horrific hangovers. It didn’t matter how much or little alcohol I drank, I’d suffer the next day – and then I started to pass buckets of blood. Despite that worrying symptom, my GP brushed me off as having IBS or haemorrhoids. Eventually, my housemate encouraged me to go back for a second opinion; I was sent to a specialist who diagnosed me with Crohn’s disease and put me on life-long medication – a devastating outcome for someone in their early 20s. And it was then that the pain floodgates opened.

I quickly reached a point where I wanted someone to kill me: I couldn’t face a future of taking 40 pills a day, passing buckets of blood every day and living in constant, excruciating pain. It may have been an internal pain, but it used to turn me green and white. It made me want to tear my skin off. My body felt like it was being poked by a million needles, and after a while, I was self-medicating so much that painkillers couldn’t touch the pain anymore.

Then I had surgery and just like that, my life changed. Suddenly, it felt like I was back in my 16-year-old body. It took 10 years of agony and being told that I had Crohn’s for someone to finally do a biopsy of my bowel to find out that I actually have ulcerative colitis – a disease that only affects your large bowel. Once you’ve had that removed, you’re technically cured. Had they diagnosed me correctly in the first place, my life would be completely different.

I’m now down to five meds a day (including a pessary) that help to deal with pain, chronic fatigue, rectal bleeding and more. And I have a stoma bag, which has been lifesaving. Even though I’ve managed to reduce my med load, I hate the shame around pill taking. The whole My body is a temple and You can cure pain with your mind rhetoric is total bollocks. 

A big part of IBD treatment is steroid-based, and you don’t really hear about the impact that can have on you. Steroids have saved my life countless times but the mental health impact of that medication is awful. My body ballooned; I was walking around like a depressed blueberry. I wish I’d been offered counselling at the time because I couldn’t afford to go private.

While I’m in a much better place these days, I still take paracetamol every day because I still have a little bit of bowel left (it’s being removed in three years). That nib still causes me a lot of pain and I get headaches from dehydration (a key side effect of colitis). Sometimes I’ll take some paracetamol to pre-empt pain, which isn’t healthy, but it’s necessary. I also still carry codeine in my bag because I’m so used to thinking about ‘just in case’.

I want women to know that their pain is valid. It’s not normal to be in pain – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’ve got three years until the final bit of my bowel can be removed (which will leave me with a ‘Barbie bum’) and then, hopefully, I can look forward to a more pain-free future. 

“It’s distressing to think that your body is attacking itself” 

Helen Bownass, 43, was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis seven years ago following a cycling trip.

Daily medication:

• Sulfasalazine
• Hyrdrochloriquine
• High dosage turmeric tablets
• Multi-vitamin
• Folic acid
• Ferrous sulfate

Seven years ago, I was on the trip of a lifetime to New Zealand, which included a long day of mountain biking. That night, though, I was in absolute agony. I couldn’t lie down due to a searing pain in my shoulder. It was really frightening; I’ve always been active and never had any major medical moments. After a few days, the intensity eased off, but I was still struggling to move freely, and my hands were swollen.

Back in London, I tried an osteopath as I thought I might have pulled something, but that made things worse. I went to a local pharmacy for advice on how to bring the swelling down, but he took one look at me and told me to go see my GP, which I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t have done otherwise. After various tests, a consultant diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis. I didn’t know what that meant at the time: I’d always assumed arthritis was something for older people and involved being bed-bound with gnarly joints. It’s quite terrifying being told you have a lifelong, incurable condition and not knowing what sort of impact it might have on your life. 

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease: your immune system accidentally attacks your joints, leaving them swollen and painful. I’ve read that it can be triggered by specific events, so that cycling trip could have been the catalyst, but I probably would have got it eventually. There’s also evidence that it can be both genetic and environmental: since I’ve been diagnosed, we’ve discovered my sister and cousin also have it.

When the pain is at its worst, I can’t sleep because I’m unable to lie on my shoulder – I’ve cried through quite a few nights and have had to try to sleep sitting up. When I do get a good sleep, it’s common to wake up feeling stiff and fragile, like I’ve done a hardcore HIIT class the day before. There have been plenty of times when I haven’t been able to cycle or play netball because of the pain.

The hardest symptom to manage, however, has been the total lack of energy that hits during a flare-up. My body feels like it becomes a deflated jellyfish, which impacts my mental health. I also find that the swelling and pain increases in the run-up to my period. I’m not sure if that’s common, though, because there’s not enough research on the link between women’s health and arthritis to get any real answers.

I take eight pills a day specifically for my arthritis – as well as supplements – and I now take two biologic injections once a fortnight that specifically target the immune cells that cause arthritis and help to reduce the damage they cause. Since I’ve started them, I’ve noticed a huge difference in pain, inflammation and fatigue, so I’m grateful that my consultant put me on them (they’re not cheap, and I often think how lucky we are to have our NHS). For a long time, I buried my head in the sand about my diagnosis. I found the emotional reality of living with a life-long condition just as difficult as the physical symptoms; it’s still not something I talk much about.

It’s a weird and distressing feeling knowing that your body is attacking itself – and this can make you really vulnerable to infections and, well… pandemics. It has affected some of the exercises and activities I’m able to do, but now that the pain is more under control, I’m less freaked out about what the future holds. It’s all about finding new ways of moving and living.

“It feels like my muscles and cells are tearing apart”

Reni Adebayo, 34, who uses they/them pronouns, was diagnosed with scoliosis as a teen and has lived with chronic back pain ever since.

Daily medication:

• Naproxen
• Codeine
• Ibuprofen
• Pantoprazole

My back pain is always there. If we’re talking about pain on a scale of 0-10, I can’t remember a time when it was ever at 0. I was diagnosed with scoliosis of the upper spine in my early teens and since then have had two surgeries to try to realign my back. Because the scoliosis is along the upper part of my spine, however, my neck is often super sore, and pain radiates along the shoulders and arms. My forearms often tingle. Further down my body, my back issues have made my hips uneven, so there’s also a lot of hip and pelvic discomfort.

Mine’s a daily, chronic pain. The titanium rods in my back make my body sensitive to temperature and weather, so I experience pain going from heat to cold and vice versa. At its worst, the pain feels like my muscles and cells are tearing apart. I’d prefer to be unconscious when the pain starts moving up towards a 10 or 11 on the scale. It feels like my back is trying to leave my body. 

Paracetamol doesn’t work for me, so I usually take over-the-counter ibuprofen. During the recent cold snap, my back pain was out of control, so I was prescribed codeine; it reduced the pain but knocked me out to such an extent that I wasn’t able to work. My GP then suggested I try naproxen with a stomach settling medication (because the medication can aggravate the stomach lining), and that really helped. I try to keep a bit of that in stock because when the pain gets really bad, I need to know I’ve got something that might help.

Despite temperatures being a big trigger, hot water bottles and ice packs really help during flare-ups – especially as I try not to pre-empt pain with painkillers. I always take medication when the pain is there, but I try to be mindful about it because a lot of my medication can interact, so it’s about balancing the side effects with how effective the pain relief is going to be in the moment. There’ll be some weeks when I don’t take anything at all for back pain (I try to have as many painkiller-free weeks as possible), but if I’m having a flare-up or bad patch, I’ll take them most days. I’ve also got a standing desk at work now so I can be more mobile and have better core control – sitting really isn’t good for me.

From a holistic point of view, exercise has really helped – especially strength training. I’ve been advised not to lift anything above my shoulders, but I can still do pretty much everything else. Some days running seems to help; other days, it makes things worse. There are no hard and fast rules, but staying fit generally does appear to play a positive role. We think my scoliosis is probably a genetic disease, but we don’t know who in my family has got it because there aren’t many medical records available in Nigeria to offer up conclusive proof.

I’m lucky that as an AFAB person, my pain has been taken seriously by everyone I’ve met in the NHS – maybe because I’ve usually been on the verge of tears when I’m talking to them. I think about how amazing my life would be if I wasn’t living with pain, but my mum’s always impressed on me that everyone’s always dealing with something – there’s no one in the world who is living a perfect life in terms of health. You’ve got to work with – rather than against – what’s going on.

“I take painkillers, but I don’t know if I actually need them or not”

Latoya Busumbru, 36, has had various fibroids removed – including one the size of a four-month-old foetus. She’s learnt to handle her condition after becoming immune to medication.

Daily medication:

• Ibuprofen
• Paracetamol
• Ferrous sulphate
• Magnesium
• Vitamin D

I used to plan my life around periods. If you invited me to a party the day before I was due, sorry, but there’s no way I’d go. The pain was always at its worst at the start of my cycle but given that my periods lasted upward of 10 days, the threat of pain and excessive bleeding would be on my mind all month long. Still, I‘ve been quite lucky: I’ve heard from other members of the fibroid community who’ve bled continuously for three or four months. 

My fibroid journey began when I was about 16. My periods were so painful that I’d be crying and rolling on the floor in pain. I’ve even fainted and vomited in the past. It won’t surprise you to hear that my GP gaslit me into believing that all of this was just part and parcel of puberty. It wasn’t until I started bruising from the inside out in my 20s that doctors took me seriously. I was referred to a gynaecologist, who discovered that I had a fibroid in my pregnancy sac. Shortly after it was removed, it grew back and the pain and very heavy bleeding returned. This time around, a scan found four fibroids, including one the size of a four-month-old foetus.

I realised that I couldn’t keep having surgeries, and if something didn’t change, that’s what my future would look like. So I started researching diet and lifestyle; I wasn’t unhealthy, but I wanted to get to the root cause of my issues.

At first, I took mefenamic acid (a kind of anti-inflammatory painkiller) but stopped in 2019 after becoming immune to its effects. After that, I started to work with a nutritionist, who suggested an anti-inflammatory diet and calming, stress-reducing supplements such as magnesium and vitamin D. I’ve also been taking iron tablets for anaemia, which can cause their own stomach issues. Today, I try to only take paracetamol if I’m due my period and feeling a bit niggly, but I think it’s partly psychological. I need the painkillers mentally, but I’m not sure that I always need them physically.

In this country, there’s a serious knowledge gap around fibroids. If I hadn’t had bruising to show the GP all those years ago, I don’t know if I’d be here today. Fibroids just don’t receive the same kind of attention as other conditions in the UK: even though they can affect most women, they’re a lot more common in Black and Asian communities. The endometriosis community, for example, has a loud voice in this country – there are even APPGs (all-party parliamentary groups) for it. But fibroids are much more common than endometriosis: one in three women will develop a fibroid, compared to one in 10 who live with endo. The US has been great in speaking up about fibroids, but the UK? Not so much.

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Photography: Dennis Pedersen; Getty Images