Many women will suffer from painful periods, some debilitated by it. So what’s normal period pain?
Normal- cramps that don’t prevent you from your daily tasks, call a sick day.
Not normal- explained below
Dysmenorrhea (Painful periods) are of 2 types:
1) Primary – pain not due to other diseases. Pain begins a day or two before or when bleeding starts, and can be accompanied with Nausea, vomiting, shivers. Felt in the hips, thighs and low back.
2) Secondary- pain due to a disease – endometriosis, fibroids, infection. The pain can last weeks before the period begins and isn’t typically accompanied with nausea, vomiting.
An ultrasound is typically done to rule out one or the other.
We are doing to discuss Primary Dysmenorrhea today:
From cleveland clinic: Menstrual cramps are caused by contractions (tightening) in the uterus (which is a muscle) by a chemical called prostaglandin. During menstruation, the uterus contracts more strongly. If the uterus contracts too strongly, it can press against nearby blood vessels, cutting off the supply of oxygen to the muscle tissue of the uterus. Pain results when part of the muscle briefly loses its supply of oxygen.
Pain killers such as NSAIDs (advil, naproxen) work by blocking COX enzymes that stop the production of Prostaglandins. We need this when in pain.
But there’s more you can do:
We can reduce the overall levels of Prostaglandins in the body.
Prostaglandins are made at local sites of inflammation.
By reducing the body’s overall inflammatory markers we reduce levels of prostaglandin.
Ways to reduce inflammation:
- Remove inflammatory substances- dairy, gluten, food sensitivities specific to you (check out my post on food allergy vs food sensitivity), stress, sugar, alcohol.
- Increase Anti-inflammatory substances- magnesium 150-300mg, zinc 15-30mg (also improves circulation to uterus), Greens, turmeric, nuts, Berries, etc
- Increasing circulation – when your body is inflamed blood cant get to the sites it needs to as well as it needs to (where my cold hands and feet ladies at)- exercise, dance, walk! Pelvic thrust?
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