Herbal Health

There are so many symptoms associated with the second kind of period pain, the aching miseries, or congestive dysmenorrhoea that nowadays doctors tend to lump them all together and call them the pre-menstrual syndrome or pre-menstrual tension, because they all occur in the days immediately before your period begins and clear up as soon as the period is under way.

You could suffer from dragging pain or an aching sensation low down in your abdomen or in your thighs or the lower part of your back; from headaches of various kinds including migraines or pain in your sinuses; from aching legs and feet; from a belly so swollen that you can’t do up your skirt; from sore and swollen breasts. Feeling bloated and putting on several pounds in weight is very common. So is fatigue, depression or inexplicable bad temper. Do you nag your family just before your period?

You could find that you become extremely clumsy all of a sudden or discover that you can’t see as well as usual; or that your sense of smell doesn’t seem to be so acute. Your hair may be greasy and lank and your complexion a ruin. You may grow a nasty crop of styes or boils. You may notice that you develop bruises on your upper arms or the tops of your thighs and just can’t account for them. You may get cravings for sweets or stodgy foods, when you’re normally a sensible eater. You may suddenly feel giddy or faint like some Victorian heroine. More seriously, you may find that if you suffer from hay fever, asthma or epilepsy, your attacks are more frequent in the days before your period.

It’s a long list and some of the things on it seem so far removed from what’s going on in your womb that it’s hard to see that they may be part and parcel of the aching miseries. Some of the symptoms are quite trivial. If the only thing you suffer from is a tendency to develop some odd bruises, you will not have much to worry about because they are not painful and won’t cause you any trouble unless you are wearing a swim suit. But many of the symptoms are serious, and deserve to be taken seriously. It’s just as well we don’t suffer all of them all the time!

Unlike the cramps this second kind of period pain doesn’t get better if you have a baby. Quite the reverse, in fact. It can often start after a pregnancy, particularly if you have had a condition called toxaemia while you were carrying. Once it’s started, it may get worse with each pregnancy. Toxaemia and the bloat are rather alike in some ways. Both of them give you swollen legs and ankles and make you look and feel puffy, with too much fluid in your tissues. Both can reduce you to exhaustion. Toxaemia is a great deal more serious than the bloat because it can affect your kidneys. As your kidneys are the filters that get rid of all the impurities and poisons from your body and from your unborn baby’s, you can see how important it is that they should function properly. The bloat may be unpleasant, but it doesn’t upset your kidneys. It’s just unsightly and uncomfortable.

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