If you have a period, it’s probably not your favorite thing ever. It’s hard to enjoy yourself whilst hunched over with debilitating abdominal pain and red stuff gushing out of your under-bits. Like many, I have my handful of mortifying middle school period memories. I will never forget running to the bathroom in the middle of algebra to grab wet paper towels to wipe the smeary red marks off my seat before anyone noticed. I still get paranoid walking to class that someone is staring at a red splotch on the back of my white shorts I didn’t know about. What I don’t worry about anymore, however, is having my productive, chill, and happy life be disrupted by my monthly period. I don’t take any magic pill–I just stopped eating animal products.

I really don’t believe people with uteri were meant to suffer during their periods as much as they do right now.

I got my period when I was nine. Ever since then, I’d take one or two Advil every eight hours on the dot for the first couple days of my period each month. If I didn’t, I usually wouldn’t be able to move or think from all the pain. Since I went vegan in 2015, I can count the number of times I’ve needed to take Advil on one hand. I promise it’s not because I enjoy pain now; I just hardly get cramps anymore. My periods used to last anywhere from five to ten days. Now they last for three to five and have lightened up noticeably. The only times I even realize I’m on my period are when I go to the bathroom and when all three of my munchie mart selections happen to have chocolate in them.

I really don’t believe people with uteri were meant to suffer during their periods as much as they do right now. I have friends who miss classes every month because the pain is so bad, they can’t move from their beds. Some take birth control pills exclusively to stop their periods altogether. I want everyone who suffers during their periods to know that they have another option. It’s a solution I’ve stumbled upon by accident that many other vegans seem to have discovered, too. Several vegan YouTube influencers like Bonny Rebecca and Rawvana, have spoken about their own experiences with this phenomenon, and so have a few of my newly-vegan friends.

I’m not a scientist, but there are a couple things I know about hormones. The only ways in which you can ingest hormones that your body doesn’t naturally produce are by drinking your mom’s breast milk, taking pharmaceuticals and eating animal products. Again, I’m not a scientist, but in my experience, my periods have become lighter and almost painless ever since I cut the extra hormones out of my diet.

Even if I’m completely wrong and there is no correlation between lighter, less painful periods and a vegan diet, I’m sticking with it. I’ve been doing this whole vegan thing for two years now, and every month, I feel better than I did the month before. If you’ve ever had a terrible period cramp that even Advil couldn’t make go away, you know that place of absolute desperation. If you’re there right now and feel like you’ve tried everything, try eating just plants for a month. See how it affects your next period and tell me how it goes. I don’t know you or your body, and things might not change right away, but I have a feeling you’ll notice a big difference. No one is doomed to suffer every month of their pre-menopausal life just because they were born with a uterus.