Menstrual health management

Don’t be stubborn, don’t follow blindly, focus on recording, and ignore anxiety.

Last week, I met a sophomore girl in the clinic. She came in hunched over, clutching her stomach, and said that she strictly abides by the menstrual taboos on the Internet. She didn't touch the spicy ice and even used hot water to wash her hands. However, the pain still caused vomiting and diarrhea. She cried and asked if there was something serious wrong with her body. It turned out that it was actually primary dysmenorrhea, and the level of prostaglandin secretion was twice as high as that of ordinary people. It had nothing to do with whether she had food taboos or not. I was prescribed ibuprofen and told to take it if it hurts. She looked incredulous: "Didn't you say that taking painkillers will cause infertility?" ”

To be honest, I have come across too many girls who are kidnapped by standardized taboos on the Internet. Take the most quarrelsome question "Can you eat ice during menstruation?", both opinions have basis, and there is no need to argue about right or wrong: the traditional Chinese medicine system does believe that Qi and blood are deficient during menstruation, and the intrusion of cold and cold can easily lead to Qi and blood stasis. Girls who are afraid of cold and whose hands and feet are cold all year round are likely to aggravate dysmenorrhea and less menstrual flow after eating ice. There are countless clinical cases in this part. ； However, the research conclusion of modern clinical medicine is that after food enters the gastrointestinal tract, it will gradually heat up to be consistent with body temperature, and will not directly lower the temperature of the uterus. As long as your gastrointestinal tolerance is tolerated, eating ice will not directly induce dysmenorrhea. I visited my aunt two summers ago when the temperature was 38 degrees, and I couldn't help but eat a chocolate chip. Nothing happened. If it were my friend who was born with a cold palace, a mouthful of iced milk tea would cause pain all afternoon. To put it bluntly, the standard is your own. If you feel uncomfortable after eating it, don't touch it. If you eat it, nothing will happen.

Apart from the issue of food, the most controversial issue is whether we can move during menstruation. Two friends around me are completely opposite: a female runner who has been running marathons for three years does not run long distances except for the first two days of her menstrual period when she is heavy. She can't even jog 5 kilometers on normal days. She said that the feeling of bloating is gone after running, and it is much more comfortable than lying down for a day with back pain. ； The other is a patient with endometriosis. During her menstrual period, it hurts so much that she breaks into a cold sweat even if she takes two extra steps. The amount is so heavy that she has to change three 420 sanitary napkins in the morning. If you ask her to exercise, it will kill her. Is there any standard answer? If you don’t have any obvious discomfort during your menstrual period, doing some low-intensity brisk walking or yoga can actually promote blood circulation and reduce soreness and swelling. ； If you're in so much pain that you can't straighten your back, and the amount is so big that it leaks even with the slightest movement, just lie down and watch the show, and no one will say you're lazy. If the pain is really severe, no matter whether you stuff a hot water bottle or take painkillers, you will feel comfortable no matter how hard you carry it. It will only make you nervous and hurt so much that you can't eat or sleep, and it won't do any good at all.

Don't be superstitious about the standard of "normal cycle is 28 days, and each visit lasts for 3-7 days". That is the statistical average of the population, not your physical passing line. My own cycle has never been accurate to 28 days. Sometimes it comes once every 32 days, sometimes it comes every 25 days. As long as the fluctuation range of each interval is within 7 days and the bleeding does not suddenly increase or decrease, there is no need to panic. There is no need to make menstrual records like a report. Just write down casually in the next app. You don’t need to fill in any messy symptoms. Just record the time of each menstrual period, whether it hurts, when it will worsen, and what methods can relieve it. I recorded it for three months and found that drinking iced coffee for three days in a row before each menstruation would 100% cause chest bloating and stomach pain. After that, I would switch to drinking hot soy milk as soon as the day was approaching. It was much more comfortable, and it was more effective than reading 100 health posts.

By the way, don’t believe in the nonsense about “menstrual detoxification”. Menstrual bleeding is the periodic shedding of the endometrium and has nothing to do with “detoxification”. Those “menstrual detoxification pills” and “warm palace detoxification patches” that sell for hundreds of dollars a box are all IQ taxes. If your menstrual flow is light and dark, go directly to the hospital to check your hormones and do an ultrasound. Don’t drag a small problem into a big problem by taking health care products blindly. There are also painkillers that everyone is afraid of. As long as you have no contraindications such as gastric ulcers and asthma, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, if taken two or three days a month and according to the dosage instructions, will not cause dependence at all and will not affect fertility. They are much less harmful to the body than if you force yourself to vomit or faint. Of course, if you believe more in the conditioning ideas of traditional Chinese medicine, it would also be good if you stay up less late at night, eat less ice, and if you insist on it for three to five months, the dysmenorrhea is indeed relieved. There is no difference between the two methods, and the one that suits you is the best. Of course, there is an exception to mention: if you have never had pain before and suddenly start having dysmenorrhea, and the pain is getting worse every time, don’t just take painkillers and go to the hospital for a checkup first to rule out the possibility of secondary dysmenorrhea such as endometriosis and adenomyosis, so as not to delay the condition.

I carry three things in my bag all year round: an ibuprofen, an individually packaged thermal patch, and two sterile-grade sanitary napkins. Sometimes when my period suddenly comes, or when my colleagues break into cold sweats due to pain, taking them out can help. In fact, menstrual health management never requires you to be a "good student" who strictly abides by all taboos. It just means learning to talk to your body. When it gets angry, you can coax it. If it feels comfortable, you don't have to restrain yourself. After all, you have the final say about your body.