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- We found this thing called Livia online,
there was an Indiegogo campaign for it,
and it's basically this little square device,
you attach it to your stomach and
it's supposed to ease your cramps.
(music)
- My cramps are really light.
Sometimes I don't even have cramps.
I'm drawing my period.
I drew my period as a flower,
but then with a bird pooping on it,
because it's just, like, a little annoying.
- Those first two days, I'm just on the couch.
Here are the clouds, which are raining down
more blood, because I literally change
my ultra *** probably twice an hour.
- I have endometriosis;
when I'm on my period, I can't leave bed, I'm vomiting.
Here's a knife, and I've often contemplated
cutting out my own uterus because it hurts so bad.
- Hi, I'm Doctor En Gunter and I'm an OB/GYN
and I specialize in pain medicine for women.
- Okay, so when I sent you that link to
the Indiegogo campaign basically,
what were your first impressions of Livia?
- That it was a transcutaneous electrical nerve
stimulation device; it looked like a TENS unit to me.
- Would it work to get rid of period pain?
- Well, if Livia is a TENS unit, then it would work,
cause TENS units do work for pain.
Vibration travels faster than pain.
And so, the brain likes the signal it gets first,
and so you get a vibration type signal,
that then shuts the gate to your brain receiving pain.
- If feel a little skeptical,
but I'm super excited to try it.
- I'm hoping it works.
- I get a little emotional thinking about if it
did take my pain away, because I would feel like
I had my life back.
- I've had it on for maybe 10 seconds now
and I turned it up as high as it would go,
because my cramps are so bad today,
and the craziest thing is that
it actually works.
I wish I could describe the feeling,
it's like vibrations instead of pain.
There's a little bit of pain in the background,
but it's much easier to ignore when you have this on.
- I don't know if it's working yet,
but I'd say it is certainly distracting me from my cramps,
because I have two vibrating pads on my stomach.
- I'm feeling some heat and it actually is
making me feel a little better,
but it's nothing drastic.
- Day two, and the cramps are worse than ever.
I used my Livia and I actually feel a lot better.
- My pain got incredibly bad around two hours ago,
and I ended up having to take more pain killers,
and when I had the Livia on, it didn't do anything.
I've noticed that when my cramps are of medium strength,
that putting the Livia on really does help it go away,
but when I have those extreme cramps,
like I normally do around the time of my period,
it kinda barely touches them.
- I actually had a great time with the Livia.
It really distracted me from the
awfulness that were my cramps.
There I was, able to work, because I felt like my
body was just vibrating and I wasn't feeling the cramps.
- My cramps aren't that bad; I think maybe the effect
wasn't as great on me because it took it from
"not that bad" to "oh, like a little better."
- Livia did help me in a lotta ways.
I would definitely use Livia again in the future.
I didn't have to take as many painkillers,
I wasn't vomiting, but as far as getting out of bed and
living my life, still wasn't able to.
- It also just made me realize, all the things women have
to go through and deal with.
Women are having horrible cramps at their desks
at work, on medication and just have to
pretend that they're totally fine.
And that's crazy,
so it is good that there're products like this
that do help women in those situations
and there should be more.
(folk music)