It’s Normal to Have Painful Periods, Right?

Wrong! 

The truth is that when the body is in balance, the blood is moving freely, hormones are communicating, and your uterus is positioned optimally, your periods shouldn’t hurt at all!  

Most of us have grown up to believe that painful menses are normal, but it simply isn’t true. Pain is a message from your body that something isn’t right, and it is bringing your attention to it so that you can fix it. If you’re between the ages of 15 and 55 you should actually have little or no pain with your periods, no clots, and no dark staining or spotting – just bright red flow lasting 3 to 5 days.

These days dysmenorrhoea (period pain) is usually considered a nuisance best ignored, or a problem requiring medical management. One common ‘cure’ is to put women on hormonal birth control such as the pill, an intervention which fails to address the root causes of the problem and switches off the menstrual cycle. This short-sighted treatment can have long-term consequences when it comes to health and starting a family.

Chinese medicine has a different approach, it goes further than just addressing symptoms. It looks at every aspect of a woman, her digestion, sleep, vitality etc, to find the source of the pain. For example Blood stasis in pelvis area may be the cause of the pain, this prevents the free flow of blood in the uterus, forcing it to work harder and causing painful cramping. In this case, blood moving herbal medicine is used but, we must look deeper to discover what caused the Blood stasis. If it was too much cold, (cold contracts and slows the movement of Blood), then warming herbal medicine is used also.

If period pain is mild to moderate, there is an alternative, something which women can learn to do for themselves.

Maya abdominal massage is a great treatment for this as it works to relieve the congestion and ease the body back into balance.