I have been on the pill for non contraceptive reasons for most of my adult life. My periods were painful, but on the advice of the GP I generally took the pill straight through so it ceased to be a problem.
When I came off to have first child I conceived after first period. This time we have been trying for over a year and my periods are just getting to be ridiculously bad. I have a period of about 24 hours where I'm in so much pain I can hardly function, and have had to be off work a couple of times because of it. This month luckily it was at a weekend, but despite it coming on Saturday I still feel crap today and have only managed to eat a slice of rye bread all day. I have been to the doctors and a scan was carried out, I have one majorish cyst and some small ones, but nothing worth operating on apparently.They also gave me some mega painkillers but they don't seem to work and just give me constipation to add to my list of woes.
This month I was really hopeful because I had consulted a nutritionist and got a whole bunch of stuff to take i.e. magnesium, omega 3, evening primrose oil and a truly ghastly multivit thats meant to help with conception and contains agnus castus.
She also recommended cutting out wheat, dairy, caffeine and alcohol to see if any of these were causing the problem. Unfortunately I just couldn't manage all of those butI have made a real effort to cut down on wheat.
I also went for some hands on healing as some people had recommended acupuncture before so I thought this might be helpful.
Its all made no difference and to cap it all my period came at Day 25 rather than the more normal 28. I'm so disappointed because I realise that we are due to go away on holiday about day 26 and last time we were away I ended up having to spend the night on some cushions in the cottage living room because I was in so much agony that I didn't want to keep DH up all night as well.
Has anyone managed to control painful periods through diet changes and alternative medicine, or indeed can recommend a particularly good pain killer ? This goes beyond the taking a hot bath and using a hot water bottle stage though.