To ask for your period pain tips

[MingoMingo]

I’ve always suffered quite badly with period pains... first period after baby and I’d forgotten how awful it is. I’m dosed up on paracetamol and ibuprofen lysine. I’ve got a hot water bottle and nothing is touching it.

What am I missing? What can I do?

Can your partner massage the bottom of your back for you? Hope you feel better soon and congratulations on your baby xx

Are you taking the max of painkillers? Eg 4 lots of 2 per day of each?

Bath?

Biscuits?

Massage your tummy a bit?

It's shit, isn't it.

Codeine? Can you add that in as well?

This is weird but I get much less pain if I have a full stomach! Chocolate and crap doesn’t really do it. Something decent and filling helps the most (jacket potato and tuna?) - sympathies though, I haven’t had my first since baby and dreading it. Will keep breastfeeding till he’s 10 to avoid it!

Don’t use tampons (no idea why this works, they’re fine when I’m not in pain) and try a square of a Yorkie bar. No other chocolate as good. Oh, and ibuprofen.

My doctor told me to start inuprofen and paracetomal the Day before i start my period, then i take 1300mg paracetomal instead of 1000mg.

I also find, using the toilet when the pain gets extreme helps to clear things out a little. (The clots)

I also find it great to sleep of the worst pain if possible. Other wise walking sometimes helps me to be distracted from it. But nothing really takes that awful pain away when it’s at its worst. I once had an ibuprofen shot at the doctors that worked wonders fast!

*off

Codeine

Yoga (child’s pose is nice)

And frankly, wine - although I think that’s just me anaesthetising myself

Ponstan is the only thing that works for me and even at that I am bed ridden for at least a half a day (but it was two days pre Ponstan). And a hot water bottle. Mine make me sick so I can't even chocolate ☹. I'm hopefully getting a Mirena Coil to help with this so I sympathise OP, there is no hell like bad period pain. Sympathy helps!

A tens machine. I suffer with endometriosis and this helps my pain so very much.

They aren’t exactly cheap (around £30) but I guess you’d spend that over the course of a year on painkillers anyway.

Too much information, but I find a DIY orgasm or two usually helps a lot

I got an OvaPlus tens machine last year and it helped (the reviews were really good), but only used it once as I ended up on ranitidine for an unrelated health issue and the period pain went away enough that I've not needed the tens machine since. I did a bit of research and there are histamine receptors in the smooth muscle in the uterus so it does seem that it's not just a fluke that the ranitidine seems to help me!

But I would definitely recommend the tens machine - not suggesting you self medicate with antihistamines!

Frozen bag of peas works better than heat. Stops my sister from passing out with pain most of the time.

I'm in the same boat as you. Ovulation and periods are incredibly painful.. even more so since I gave birth. I never had cramps before and now I fantasize about ripping my uterus out.

Mefenamic Acid (trade name Ponstan) available as Prescription Only Medicine from my GP - absolutely works.

Top tip: a small glass of brandy shifts stomach cramps like nothing on earth within a few minutes. It has to be brandy, nothing else.

I wish I hadn’t only discovered this in my 40s.

TENS machine here too helps take edge of cramps. Have to keep playing around best place to put them. Never found any painkillers that actual do v much. Difficult as I know pain means I’m losing a lot and going flood so have that to deal with as well.

Oohhhh I remember them all too well. Yoga used to help mine, although it took me ages to build myself up do it as it was the last thing I wanted to do but during and after felt much better

eating chocolate never helped the pain but helped me feel better in General, and take any pain meds available at the time.
I use to get sick off them, I used tampons as I used to have really heavy period and just don't know how I could have used anything else ( TMI but I used to feel like I could feel it coming out of me with towels or anything else and it used to knock me sick,)

I went in the implant before I got my post baby period and my flow is now nearly nothing and no pain.

It's just brutal. Hope you feel better soon

Feminax and one of those heated wheat bag things, they're more flexible than hot water bottles. My sympathies, I'm peri-menopausal now and don't have such a bad time but my periods were always both heavy and so painful. I used to get appalling ovulation pains as well which was fun.

Hope you feel better soon

I discovered co-codamol after miscarriage and it has been a game-changer for me.

Take the painkiller at the earliest possible moment. I find that once the serious pain starts nothing can touch it. I’ve also found that switching to period pants so no tampons or mooncups or anything, makes a difference. It’s so awful. Really feel for you.

Tens machine. Paracetamol and ibruprofen can each be bought with codeine. Bath. Massage. Gin.

Feminax doesn't work for me. Paracetamol and codeine is good. Hot baths. If I get it at night, I usually take a Nytol to go back to sleep otherwise I'll be awake all night.

Oh and moving around. Sometimes I find lying/sitting just makes it feel worse. And sitting on the toilet seems to help 🙈

Take gentle iron supplements like spatone - not the horrible constipation inducing tablets - and drink plenty of water in the run up to your period. This really helps me to have a better and lighter period for some reason!

I echo the mefanamic acid and get a Mirena fitted. I was sick of sitting in a boiling bath with a hot water bottle, in agony. Tampons definitely exacerbated symptoms for me.

Don't use tampons. I changed to a mooncup and co-codamol. Sorted, they're not anywhere near as grim.

I was told years ago that most pain women think is period pain is from the bowel which gets irritated by the uterus and all its inflammatory chemicals so you are better to take meds for IBS. Peppermint oil worked amazingly for me and a friend I told this theory to finds Buscopan works better for her. We had both tried every painkiller known to mankind without effect before