A YouGov survey of 1,000 women for found 52% had, but only 27% had told their boss period pain was responsible.

Of the 52%, nearly a third had taken at least a day’s sick leave as a result. And one doctor has suggested employers should offer “menstrual leave”.

Nine out of 10 of the women reported having period pain at some point.

The problem can be so sever that women have either gone to work after taking high levels of pain relief or in some cases have had to leave work altogether.

Dr Grudzinskas said one option was to offer female employees “menstrual leave”, already granted to women in countries such as Japan.

“Menstrual leave would make people feel more happy and comfortable in the workplace, which is a positive thing,” he said.

“There is also a lack of awareness about when painful periods mean that something is going wrong, like endometriosis.

“People forget that women make up half the workforce.

“If they feel supported, it will be a happy and productive workforce.”

There needs to be more openness and understanding in the work place to ensure that women are snot suffering in silence. This issue has been discussed a lot recently including at the Olympics and hopefully it will stay on the agenda to ensure that businesses can deal with it better.