As a child, I recall vivid memories of hot water bags hanging in the bathroom of every woman’s house. There would be a box of Massengill stuffed in the corner of the tub, medicine cabinet or under the counter. I didn’t know what they were, but I was sternly told to never touch them. In school, I was shown a video that illustrated how the egg leaves the ovaries, travels up the fallopian tubes into the uterus where it is fertilized or discharged through the vagina. My teachers reinforced the feminine hygiene tips my mother taught me: always wipe from front to back; change your pad every time you use the bathroom; roll it up, place it in the plastic bag, put that in the wax bag in public bathrooms or in toilet paper at home, and throw it away. I eventually learned what the douche and hot water bag were, and thankfully, that those were no longer sanitary means to cleanse the vagina.

I reached my menarche at the early age of eleven. My menstrual cycles were horrendous. I had cramps that felt like metal clamps gripping my fallopian tubes. The pain made me irritable and fatigued. I lived through it; I worked through it. It couldn’t be used as an excuse not to go to school, participate in gym or get out of chores. I suffered in silence thinking it was just the curse of Eve. That’s what my mother did, and I guess that’s what my grandmother did too. It was normal. All women must go through it, right? Wrong. The most important thing I learned as an adult is that health care is supposed to improve your quality of life. That means that we are not supposed to suffer. Woman have a lot of hormones that we need to balance by eating healthy, staying active and investing in Midol. Those are great practices passed on to us from our mothers, but now we have to recognize that there is a science to our menstrual health. Seeing a gynecologist when our periods are abnormal may be the solution. I love going to my gynecologist. That’s crazy, right? If you think so, you haven’t met my gynecologist, Dr. Diana Bitner. She’s taught me so much about myself and how my crazy hormones affect all other aspects of my life. Here are three things she taught me that I wish I knew right from the start.