Abdominal pain during ovulation is a THING, y’all!

In recent years I’ve been getting an odd pain in one side of my abdomen (it changes sides depending on which ovary is releasing an egg) around ovulation time. I had some tests a while ago and was told I have a cyst (maybe more?) on an ovary, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary as they tend to come and go, it’s just good to keep an eye on any cysts that appear, just in case, because… well, y’know.

But on doing my own research, I came across a very interesting term:

Mittelschmerz

It’s a German word that basically means middle pain as it happens in the middle of the menstrual cycle. I have to say, it was a huge relief to know this is a common occurrence for women – another reason to be grateful for the internet! The symptom tends to just be an ache around one ovary that can come and go for up to three days around ovulation day, but I have also noticed I can get a brief fever or rise in body temperature in this time.

The reason I’m writing about this is to spread the word. There are so many things that us women are still discovering about our bodies later in life that we should have learned about at puberty, or at least during our teens. It boggles my mind that things like this are so common amongst women and yet we don’t talk about it enough because we were never taught to! I’m sick of the taboos surrounding women’s health and the fear it causes when we don’t talk about things, so I will keep reporting on these discoveries and changes that are going to keep happening to my body as I begin to enter what I’m calling early middle-age.

If you want to see more about women talking about mittelschmerz, check out this Reddit thread – it really helped me to get a wider idea of what some women are going through!