The Health Blog

ENDOMETRIOSIS: MENSTRUAL CRAMPS

Complaints of pain from menstrual cramps were once considered a form of hysteria, not quite as counterfeit a condition as demonic possession, but close enough for disbelievers. The word hysteria is derived from the Greek word hystero, which means uterus. At one time, not long ago, it was common practice to ascribe metaphysical qualities to certain organs of the body, such as the heart representing love, the spleen connoting bad temper, and the uterus suggesting emotional problems.

Freud linked hysteria to sexual repression—a concept still revered by some medical doctors who mistakenly ascribe complaints of pain during a normal biological cycle to a woman’s month)y compulsion to deny her femininity and her sexuality. In fact, women in real pain from menstrual cramps may be assailed by far more than a few days of infirmity a month. They may be suffering from endometriosis and their cries for help arc being answered with outdated theories by physicians who do not understand the severity of their pain.

How do cramps occur and why do some women suffer from them over a lifetime while others never experience a single pang of monthly discomfort?

Physicians once pointed to a tight cervix as the probable and primary cause of menstrual cramps. They felt that this tightness obstructed the natural now of blood out of the body. The treatment for a tight cervix—nearly totally out of use today—was a stretching procedure, a so-called dilation of the cervix. A series of surgical rods of increasing diameters were inserted into the uterus through the cervix. This stretching by larger and larger rods was thought to ease the suffering from severe cramps. Unfortunately, when the stretching procedure was halted, the cervix either healed back to its original size or, as a result of the scar tissue created by the treatment, became even tighter? Clearly, cervical stretching was not the answer for relieving or curing menstrual cramps.

Today we are aware that a tightened cervix may be less a structural problem than a chemical one. Cervical tightening as well as menstrual cramps has been traced definitely to hormone levels, most specifically to a third hormone group involved in menstruation: prostaglandins. There is now an undisputed correlation between menstrual cramping and the presence of high levels of prostaglandins in the female body.

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