One minute you’re fine and dandy. Slowly, the pain builds, creeping up on you. First, you get slight cramps which you tolerate since we women are used to shrugging off pain. Then along come the back pains - which we put down to just having had a long day at work. But then the cramps get stronger and you realize, *&%! it’s that darned dysmenorrhea again!
If you are lucky, it hits when you are home on your day off. If still somewhat lucky, you’re at home when it hits and can take a sick day (think olden times - we are indisposed). If you are very unlucky, it strikes while you are at work and you have to just grin and bear it because the darned meds aren’t working.
dysmenorrhea for those who are not familiar with - which means you are either male (and as such will never experience it or have no female connections who suffer this) or are among the females who have been blessed to not experience this - means a painful menstruation period. The symptoms vary as does the strength of the pains. Some, aside from the cramps and backache, also get leg cramps, headaches, migraines, are nauseated, experience vomitting or faint. Some also get diarrhea, as if the tummy were trying to dump all of it’s contents in time with the uterus. Talk about double teamed!
Oh, and let me not forget the feeling of alternately being chilled then overheated like your internal temperature just got busted. Yes, definitely no fun. You can’t make up your mind to wear a blanket or not. Best way, turn on the fan but pile on the blankets while under it you wear a light outfit in case you feel heated and choose to fling the blankets off.
Think of it as giving birth every month (though not as bad) but without the huge tummy and surgery. You look for a pain killer (Ibuprofen is usually what works), prepare a hot water bottle and try to sleep off the pain. You pray that when you wake up it’ll be gone and you bet it’s annoying when someone wakes you up when they don’t have anything important to ask you.
Guys talk about PMS - well, I wonder how they would feel when your system is acting as wonky as this. Add, by the way, the fact that you seem to have weird taste buds at this point sometimes. So yes, really rather like a pregnant woman - which if you’ll notice most of thse symptoms point you to - you do get cravings.
They say it is due to lack of exercise, lack of sleep, poor diet - in short an unhealthy lifestyle. I would say, yes, these apply to me at this point. Here’s the funny thing though. I had dysmenorrhea when I was doing ballet or cheering where the workouts are really intense. I had them even when I got 8-10 hours of sleep a day. I had theme even when I was eating a very balanced diet including veggies and liver (yuck!). So, it’s due to something else but what….science is trying to explain. You can look up their discussuion of Xenoestrogen, Natural Progesterone and obstructions which cause difficulty for the blood to get out of our system.
For now, don’t we wish the men were the one’s who had to go through this every month in our place?