PERIOD cramps can feel like your insides are being twisted and wrung out like a wet towel.
Most paint on a brave face, avoid cold drinks and get on with the day.
However, on some days, the pain can be so intense that you end up lying on the floor, crying, or vomiting.
Yet menstrual cramps are often written off as “normal” or “nothing serious”.
So allow me to put things in perspective with a question: Is it true that period cramps can be more painful than a heart attack?
Verdict:
TRUE
Quartz published an article in 2016 with a direct quote from reproductive health professor John Guillebaud. He said that patients have described cramping pain as "almost as bad as having a heart attack."
In the same article, writer Olivia Goldhill shared her experience in which her doctor initially theorised that the extreme pain she was experiencing may have been caused by a slipped disc (prolapsed or herniated spinal disc).
It was later discovered after a series of tests and scans that the source of her pain was dysmenorrhea, the clinical term for painful menstruation.
In 2018, gynaecologist and women’s health blogger Dr Jen Gunter wrote in a column that period cramps are often much more painful than heart attacks, which can often be relatively mild.
In her article, Dr Gunter explains that when women experience minimal or no cramps, the baseline uterine tone (pressure within the uterus) during their period is measured as less than 10 mmHg (millimetre of mercury), with three or four contractions every 10 minutes. However, contraction pressure can reach around 120 mmHg—similar to pressure during the second stage of labour.
In cases of primary dysmenorrhea, several differences occur, causing the uterine tone to elevate. Contraction pressures can reach from 150 to 180 mmHg, and there is an increased number and poor coordination of contractions.
These differences reduce uterine blood flow and oxygen delivery, thus increasing pain. When multiple contraction abnormalities are present, they can synergistically and exponentially increase the pain.
In a study published by the National Library of Medicine, up to 33% of research participants reported debilitating pain that leaves them incapacitated for one to three days, causing them to take absences at school or work.
So, if you are experiencing severe pain regularly, it would be best to consult a doctor, as dysmenorrhea could be an indicator of something more serious.
While discomfort and cramping during periods are normal, intense pain is not.
REFERENCES
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
