Period pain help please

[bendmeoverbackwards]

Poor dd is having the period from hell. She is 15 and recently took period delay tablets, now she is having much worse pain than usual.

She's had 2 Nurofen period pain tablets which usually do the trick but she's still in a lot of pain. Can I give her paracetamol too? She took the Nurofen around 3pm.

@bendmeoverbackwards yes you can piggy back ibuprofen and then 2 hours later paracetamol or the other way round so that they are hopefully as pain free as possible if doses for both meds are 4 hours apart. I realise at this point you may have already given this to her.

Try the usual hot water bottle, warm bath or try yoga positions, try child's pose, google for an image, easier to see it than describe it.

You can give paracetamol and ibuprofen at the same time if needed.

She can definitely have both.

Split it up, but make sure to watch the maximum dose for each medicine - I think you can have more ibuprofen/24h than paracetamol.

I know it's warm, but a hot water bottle always helps me, as well as a warm drink of tea or hot chocolate.

Thanks have given her one paracetamol for now. It’s eased slightly.

Hot bath usually helps too, and don’t ease up on the painkillers - you need to keep taking them regularly to stop the pain breaking through (GP advice to me once).

I suffered terribly when I was young.

For me the "secret" was to take paracetamol at the very first sign of a niggle and then keep it topped up. If I did that, paracetamol was sufficient, but if I let the pain get a grip, nothing would shift it and I'd end up pacing about like a caged tiger.

Yes, it’s much easier to keep on top of pain if you can than deal with it when it’s gone too far. Ibuprofen and paracetamol, heat and one of those bouncy birth balls if you have one.

Thank you, that’s really helpful, I will tell dd.

All great advice, when mine are bad too I usually find 10m of light yoga helps - YouTube period yoga

I also suffered terribly.

This won’t help for this period, but ibuprofen taken in the two days before a period really helps. Something to do with stopping the release of the prostaglandins that cause the monster cramps. Paracetamol doesn’t work as well with actual cramps, although it can be piggy backed with ibuprofen for extra pain relief and I think it may work well on other types of menstrual pain.

Hot water bottle. Or if she's out and about and can't have a hot water bottle, try a Deep Heat patch stuck over the abdomen like a plaster to ease the cramps. (Currently have one on my tummy and another on my back 😁)

@DetailMouse

I suffered terribly when I was young.

For me the "secret" was to take paracetamol at the very first sign of a niggle and then keep it topped up. If I did that, paracetamol was sufficient, but if I let the pain get a grip, nothing would shift it and I'd end up pacing about like a caged tiger.

This and it’s still the case but really women shouldn’t have to put up with this so I vote see the gp and look for a long term solution - 30 years for me

The only thing that works for me is combined ibuprofen and codeine tablets (Boots do their own, you have to ask for them). You can only take 2 every 6 hours as they're quite strong, and don't take them on top of anything else. Hope she feels better soon, it's miserable

I have had terrible period pain my whole life. Honestly it is very close to the pain experienced in labour. Had a mirena coil fitted a few years ago and honestly it is the best thing I ever did. I wish someone had suggested it when I was in my teens.