Kendall Toole Recalls ‘Nightmare’ from Painful Condition (Exclusive)

Kendall Toole is opening up about the “nightmare” she dealt with for years, and why she’s working to make sure others don’t go through the same.
The former Peloton instructor, 32, says she “never had it easy” when it came to her menstrual cycle, but she grew up thinking that heavy and painful periods were just unfortunately something she was supposed to deal with as a woman.
She later learned that she was struggling with heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB), a medical condition affecting one in three women. For many, it can interfere with quality of life, which was the case for Toole.
“The first couple days of my cycle were always so difficult, deep cramping, my legs would cramp. I would have a lot of issues sleeping just because of the discomfort… It was a nightmare, especially if I was teaching,” she tells PEOPLE, recalling the days she’d have back-to-back Peloton classes.
“I’d have to wear black leggings. And then if I had a double, teaching two intense classes, you might notice there were times I would take the towel off the bike and tuck it into the back of my pants to cover me just in case,” she explains. “Having that fear and anxiety hoping I didn’t bleed through because if I got off the bike, there were mirrors behind me.”
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In the past, Toole tried a few forms of birth control but they didn’t work for her and even made her nauseous. She wasn’t able to find relief until her boyfriend’s sister, who is an OB-GYN, recommended she look into getting the Mirena IUD. Mirena is FDA-approved to treat HMB for up to five years and is over 99% effective at preventing pregnancy for up to eight years. It’s also reversible.
Toole admitted that she didn’t know much about Mirena beforehand and was nearly “scared out of getting it” because of all the stories and misinformation on social media about it.
But despite her nerves, she got the IUD in February 2024, boasting that the process was smooth and her HMB improved significantly.
“Truly, it has been the biggest relief. Like I am back to regular tampons. I don’t think I ever was at regular tampons. I’m like, give me the yellow! I’m so proud,” she says with a laugh. “So it’s been a good experience so far and I’m really grateful for finding it.”
“I was like, oh, periods are allowed to be a whisper and not like an argument,” she adds. “It made me really upset to see that so many women struggle or had this scary perception of it, but I really found the experience to be totally fine. I was like damn, I wish I did this sooner. My life is so much easier.”
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In addition to managing her HMB, it’s also helped the fitness instructor hold off on pregnancy while she prioritizes the next steps in her career. Toole is currently gearing up for the launch of her latest business venture, NKO Club, which she created to “provide a 360 perspective of health and wellness.”
“Knowing that we’re building these businesses right now, these businesses are the babies,” she says. “I look forward to, one day I hope, getting to be a mom and opening that chapter of my life. But having autonomy over my body was key.”
“The autonomy to say, okay, we can focus on building businesses. I can be entrepreneur woman and then when mom chapter comes, I’m full tilt. We’re gonna take that Mirena out and we’re going full tilt.”
Toole tells PEOPLE that it’s been such a “huge life change” to not have to make decisions based on how heavy her cycle is and simply have more autonomy over her body. She hopes sharing her journey will encourage other women to take that control as well.
“The more women talk about what we go through, the more informed we are with the real information that we need so that we have the autonomy over our bodies, which we have, we should always have,” she says.
That’s why after nearly two years with the Mirena IUD, Toole is now partnering with Bayer for the “Your Decision” campaign, hoping to normalize conversations about birth control and empower women to make informed choices about their health.
“A big reason why I wanted to be a spokesperson was because I’ve had so many conversations with other women and we thought it had to be difficult,” she says.
“I think it’s kind of this narrative we have that being a woman should be a fight. Women have the ability to have that resilience. It’s a beautiful part of us. We will fight, we will see our way through it, but we don’t have to be in pain and we don’t deserve that kind of pain,” she tells PEOPLE. “And that was a huge aha moment to recognize, oh, I’m allowed to be confident in my body and also not struggle in it.”