Tyler Wright hospitalised for debilitating period pain three days before Surf Ranch Pro, “Pain that would lead to passing out, vomiting and hours on the toilet”

“Competing after those three days of being mostly bedridden and unable to eat was the harsh reality of navigating my period.”

A little over one week ago, the two-time world champ Tyler Wright surrendered her yellow tour leader’s jersey to Carissa Moore after falling in the first round at the Surf Ranch Pro. Wright’s performance lacked her usual fizz, sword drawn but feebly waved.

Now, the twenty-nine-year-old Australian has taken to Instagram to explain the reason for her dulled  performance, revealing she was hospitalised for three days prior to getting into the famous Kelly Slater-designed pool. 

“It’s hard when you put so much work into something, you feel great and then you have a period so horrible it hospitalises you 3 days out from an event,” she wrote. “Competing after those 3 days of being mostly bedridden and unable to eat was the harsh reality of navigating my period while meeting requirements in my professional career. 

 

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“At times it’s deflating physically and emotionally, feeling like you have no say in it. Managing my period has been a journey. I’ve come along way from my teen years, not even knowing it wasn’t normal to suffer monthly excruciating pain that would lead to passing out, vomiting and hours on the toilet. These days my period management looks like a customised training program based around the 4 menstrual stages, listening and planning carefully for what my body needs – even if that means less time practicing in the water before comps, prioritising sleep and recovery leading up to my period and being aware this is the time I am at highest risk of injury. 

“At this stage in my life I am also heavily reliant on painkillers while I menstruate. They aren’t ideal but my other option is to have surgery to try find and fix the reason for these debilitating periods. The surgery isn’t a guaranteed solution and I would have to take time off from competing as well as rebuilding.”

Last month, after finishing seventeenth in Portugal, Wright revealed she was “no longer leaving home without her psychologist or her wife again.” 

Wright, who won her first big event at fourteen and two consecutive world titles at twenty-two and twenty-three, told the Sydney Morning Herald, “I’m the only queer person on tour, so my wife is the only other queer person I know most of the time. I love everyone around me but she makes such a difference in a way only she really can.”