Pain during your menstrual cycle is not normal!

As a woman, most of us have experienced the all-too familiar and unwelcome painful symptoms that accompany our periods. Cramping, low back pain, headaches/migraines, etc, have become so common that we come to expect them. We are raised with the idea that unless debilitating, these symptoms are “normal” and the only options we are given are to get on hormonal birth control, or live with it. How are these the only options we give to women as young as 13? Why are we not providing more education to young girls about their bodies and doing everything we can to foster good menstrual cycle health? How many of you are even aware that no amount of pain during your period of throughout your cycle is normal? I didn’t even know that until a few years ago, and I didn’t learn about it until AFTER I became a doctor!

Pain is your body’s way of telling you something is up. It’s the smoke detector going off in your house when something is (or is about to be) on fire. Sometimes-like when I burn dinner at home-we know where the smoke is coming from. If I stub my toe, I know why I’m in pain, and I know it’s probably my fault. I’m not alarmed because I can see what happened. When we have pain during our menstrual cycles, however, do we ever know WHY it’s there-besides being told that’s just what happens? If the smoke detector in your home is going off and you have no idea where the smoke is coming from, would you just ignore it? Put a pillow over your head and wait for it to stop? Or better yet-grab a fan to blow the smoke away from the detector so it can’t sense it anymore? This is our current approach to menstrual cycle pain-ignore until we can’t, attempt to suppress until it can’t be suppressed anymore, and if all else fails, take out the battery.

90% of women have been on the pill at at least one point in their lives. It is given to young girls within a couple years of beginning her menstrual cycle in some cases. Most women are on the pill long-term, and struggle with severe physical and emotional symptoms and issues with fertility after coming off of it. The pill adversely affects all systems of the body including the liver and gut, and has been shown to increase inflammation systemically. These risks are not presented to women and parents of young girls looking to get on the pill as a solution to menstrual cycle abnormalities, and therefore informed decisions are not being made. Your menstrual cycle can never be regulated by the pill. Birth control shuts down the communication between the ovaries and the brain. It suppresses ovulation, which is the peak event in your whole cycle. Without ovulation, estrogen and progesterone cannot reach the appropriate levels to have a true period and shed the uterine lining to start over. Contraceptive drugs stimulate the uterine lining to proliferate, but when ovulation doesn’t occur and ovaries are not involved, the bleed that occurs is solely due to taking a break from synthetic hormones. This is why you will hear that it’s “not medically necessary to have a period”. It’s not entirely false; it is not medically necessary to have a period WHILE ON THE PILL, but having a true period is very, very necessary for women’s health. Birth control pills are usually very effective at removing painful symptoms, as it acts as an auto-pilot for your reproductive system and reduces the amount of huge hormonal shifts. This is a short term solution, however, and can never actually fix the underlying hormonal imbalance that is present.

Instead of trying to suppress the beautiful cycle that gives us our super powers as women (hello, we create life!), let’s start taking a deeper look into WHY these symptoms are occurring.

Is there uncontrolled inflammation? Where is the source?

Is she anemic? (there are many different types of anemia, not all associated with iron deficiency)

Is there dysglycemia and/or insulin resistance?

Are there mineral deficiencies?

Is she experiencing histamine responses from certain foods she’s eating?

Does she have enough omega-3’s in her diet?

Is her current toxic load too great for her liver to handle?

If no two people look the same on the outside, then wouldn’t it make sense that no two people are the same on the inside? We cannot expect to have an unwavering set of protocols when it comes to health and knock it out of the park every time. We need to shift our minds from immediately jumping to “how do we stop this” and first ask ourselves “why is this happening”. Without a why, the how is a shot in the dark.