Menstrual Pain Relief – How to Relieve Pain
April 7, 2008
Many women (up to 90%) have menstrual cramps. Most are simply due to menstruation itself and don’t indicate any underlying gynecological problems. The medical term for this is Primary Dysmenorrhea. Dysmenorrhea is from Latin words meaning “bad menstruation” .
Menstrual cramps are a very common problem for most adolescent girls and women. The cramps can be mild, moderate, or very severe. In fact, they are the single most common cause of days missed from school and work. Around 80 percent of the time, cramps are part of the primary dysmenorrhea syndrome. Cramps are caused by hormones called prostaglandins, which cause painful cramping of the uterus during menstruation.
Irregular Menstruation Remedies
Following a healthy balanced diet that is high in zinc, calcium and B vitamins, especially vitamin B6 (just don’t consume more than 100mg per day) should help to relieve cramps as well as bloating. It is also a good idea to cut back on your salt, sugar and caffeine intake during the week leading up to your period. Less of these items means less severe menstrual cramps.
Some herbal teas like raspberry leaf tea and cramp bark tea have been known to relieve menstrual cramps. Speak with a trained herbalist to learn more about how to properly take these teas.
There are basically two types of herbs for Menstrual pain relief: phytoestrogen and non-estrogenic herbs. The phytoestrogen herbs (e.g. Black Cohosh, Dong Quai) contain estrogenic components produced by plants. Though, these herbs are good for treating low hormone levels, because they replace some of the missing estrogen hormones, they aren’t the best solution for treating hormonal imbalance. As a result of adding hormones from outside, your body will become less responsive to produce estrogen on its own. This causes a further decrease of body-own hormone levels.
Macafem, for example, is an excellent non-estrogenic herb. Its simple, rather than putting hormones from outside into your body artificially, Macafem stimulates your hormone glands to produce the necessary hormones naturally. This is what makes Macafem so unique.
Comfort measures can help but are not always adequate. Since uterine hormones called prostaglandins are responsible for causing menstrual cramps, medications in the nonsteroidal family of drugs, which prevent production of these hormones, work well to alleviate symptoms.
This class of drugs includes ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil, Nuprin) and naproxen (Aleve), available in nonprescription strengths. Most of the combination medications marketed for menstrual cramps, such as Midol, also contain NSAIDs.
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