Painfully Periodic is a Web platform that invites people to visualize and describe their menstrual experiences, especially of discomfort and pain, through engaging poll interfaces. Answers are anonymously aggregated and transformed into interactive visualizations that depict trends and variability in menstrual pain. The platform also invites those who don’t menstruate to read and explore the visualizations as witnesses and allies. The questions and visualizations were designed on the basis of more than 100 qualitative survey responses from menstruating people, with input from menstrual pain researchers. I designed the platform with the aim of sparking individual and collective reflection on the diversity of menstrual pain experiences and the conscious and unconscious misconceptions leading to the dismissal and under-reporting of menstrual pain. I also hope that this resource will enable advocacy for more research and funding to shed light on the etiology and pathophysiology of menstrual pain.

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