It s five years of your life, after all. You might as well be comfortable. Maybe you never thought about it, but if you add it up month after month, year after year you have your period for about five years of your life. And if you re like most women, you d do anything to sail through those days without feeling crampy and exhausted and swollen up like a baby beluga. Self-Help Book and a physician specializing in women s health.
Most menstrual pain is classified as either spasmodic or congestive.
Doctors know that spasmodic pain is caused by the female hormones estrogen and progesterone and by prostaglandins, hormonelike substances that control muscle tension. Women with spasmodic cramps generally have an excess of a certain type of prostaglandins called 2 series prostaglandins, which are responsible for contraction of the smooth muscles, including the uterus. Prostaglandin production increases toward the end of your cycle, resulting in cramps that are sometimes accompanied by nausea, constipation or diarrhea. Probably the best thing that can be said about spasmodic pain is that it tends to improve with age. It s usually most severe in women in their teens and twenties.