Many young women, and some older ones, get a lot of pain when their period starts. This pain (called dysmenorrhoea) comes from the muscles in the uterus contracting (tightening). This is sometimes called 'cramps'.
v If
the pain is not too bad, simple things like a hot water bottle on your tummy,
some exercise, and perhaps medicine for pain (such as paracetamol or ibuprofen)
could help.
v If
you are having a lot of pain, see a doctor, because there are some safe
medicines which can make a lot of difference.
v It
will be useful to mark when your periods are coming on a calendar, because some
of the medicines work best if they are taken just before the period pain
starts.
v Sometimes
the doctor will recommend that you start taking a contraceptive pill (The
Pill), but there are other treatments which can help a lot too.
v Painful
periods are a common reason why young women need to take time off
school or work, but almost always there is a treatment which can reduce the
pain a lot so that you don’t have to take that time off.
v Recent
research shows that young women who smoke are more at risk of having
premenstrual tension and heavy painful periods. The symptoms increased with the
number of cigarettes smoked.
When your periods stop!
For normal periods to occur, many parts
of your body need to be working well, including your ovaries, uterus, pituitary
gland (part of the brain) and hypothalamus (another part of your brain). There
are lots of (rare) ways for something to go wrong, but the three common causes
for periods to stop are:
- getting pregnant (this only happens if you have sex)
- losing too much weight
- exercising too much.
What is menstruation?
Menstruation
(men-STRAY-shuhn) is a woman's monthly bleeding. When you menstruate, your body
sheds the lining of the uterus (womb). Menstrual blood flows from the uterus
through the small opening in the cervix and passes out of the body through the vagina
Most menstrual periods last from 3 to 5 days.
What is the menstrual cycle?
When periods
(menstruations) come regularly, this is called the menstrual cycle. Having
regular menstrual cycles is a sign that important parts of your body are
working normally. The menstrual cycle provides important body chemicals, called
hormones, to keep you healthy. It also prepares your body for pregnancy each
month. A cycle is counted from the first day of 1 period to the first day of
the next period. The average menstrual cycle is 28 days long. Cycles can range
anywhere from 21 to 35 days in adults and from 21 to 45 days in young teens.
The rise and fall of
levels of hormones during the month control the menstrual cycle.
What happens during the menstrual cycle?
In the first half of
the cycle, levels of estrogen (the “female hormone”) start to rise. Estrogen
plays an important role in keeping you healthy, especially by helping you to
build strong bones and to help keep them strong as you get older. Estrogen also
makes the lining of the uterus (womb) grow and thicken. This lining of the womb
is a place that will nourish the embryo if a pregnancy occurs. At the same time
the lining of the womb is growing, an egg, or ovum, in one of the ovaries
starts to mature. At about day 14 of an average 28-day cycle, the egg leaves
the ovary. This is called ovulation.
After the egg has
left the ovary, it travels through the fallopian tube to the uterus. Hormone
levels rise and help prepare the uterine lining for pregnancy. A woman is most
likely to get pregnant during the 3 days before or on the day of ovulation.
Keep in mind, women with cycles that are shorter or longer than average may
ovulate before or after day 14.
A woman becomes
pregnant if the egg is fertilized by a man’s sperm cell and attaches to the
uterine wall. If the egg is not fertilized, it will break apart. Then, hormone
levels drop, and the thickened lining of the uterus is shed during the
menstrual period.
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