Help for Painful Periods

Getting your monthly period is never fun, but it doesn’t need to be torture every month. Thankfully there are a lot of tools that can help reduce the discomfort. Here's a few quick tips for some of the most common symptoms.

Low Back Pain:

• A great go-to is the double-knee to chest stretch. Lay on your back, and gently hug your knees to your chest, anywhere that feels good. Take nice deep breaths, eyes closed to help your muscles let go.

• A classic easing tool is using a hot pack for your low back or low abdomen

• Adding in the weird – I find treating my feet well can sometimes help my low back feel better. Grab a trusty tennis ball and roll your feet over it for a few minutes.

Pubic bone/vaginal/vulvar pain

• This is my least favorite ache to get during my period. And I skip right past the heat and get out my trusty ice pack, and lay down with it draped over the achy area! It pairs great with laying on your back with your legs elevated. No ice pack? Grab a bag of frozen peas. Low cost, and they conform to your body shape really well. Ice for 10-15 minutes at a time, then remove the ice for a while to let your blood flow return

Heaviness or Bloating Pain, or just whole-body Blah

• Offload – lay on your back with your legs elevated à up the wall, resting on a stability ball, or laying on the floor with your feet on the couch

• Popping a cushion under your hips can make it feel even better

• Can be combined with using a hot pack or ice as mentioned above!

• When I’m using the couch or a stability ball for my support, I love to add a Lower Trunk rotation – knees bent, just rock your legs side to side like a set of windshield wipers. Keep it gentle and pleasant; don’t force it.

• Sometimes movement can help those achy muscles relax, get that positive blood flow and lift our spirits. These are my favorite movements:

  • Cat/camel: get on your hands and knees. On an exhale, arch your back up like the hump of a camel. On the inhale, relax and curve your back the opposite way, like a cat stretching.

  • Lower Trunk Rotation: Lay on your back, knees bent and feet on the floor. Rock your knees side-to-side gently like a set of windshield wipers

  • Figure 4 Stretch: Starting laying on your back, knees bent with feet on the floor. Cross one ankle over the knee of the opposite leg, then gently bring that knee towards you, supporting it with your hands and you feel a comfortable stretch in your booty. Hold for 30-60 seconds, breathing comfortably.

  • Low-intensity/gentle cobra pose: The trick with this classic Yoga pose is not to see how high you can go, it's to lift gently, well-supported by your arms, until you feel a soft pulling in your abdomen. Hold and breathe for 30 seconds.

    

What do Pelvic Health Physical Therapists Do for Painful Periods?

The quick answer: After we talk about your lifestyle, body, and assess your movement, I use manual techniques to help ease your pain. This can include massaging out cramping muscles, such as the glutes or low back, or using cupping and fascial mobility techniques, or teaching you ways to self-treat your abdomen so you can keep reducing the pain when you can’t pop in and see me. I customize exercises to your specific symptoms, same with any lifestyle suggestions. I can also work directly on your cramping pelvic floor muscles, helping them relax and better support you. At the end of the day, I consider pelvic PT to be successful when you tell me you had a great night of sleep, or you were able to participate in life without worrying about your period.

Period pain can be managed – even in the face of endometriosis, adenomyosis, and PCOS!

And speaking of endometriosis, how do you know if your period pain is something more? These conditions are known to make period pain more unbearable, and they’re also really hard to diagnose. Here are a few clues you might be experiencing something more:

Generally, while your period can be uncomfortable and crampy, most of your discomfort should be able to managed by basic over-the-counter pain management and using some basic tools and exercises, such as the suggestions above. When these tools don’t seem to touch your pain, it’s time to get additional support. Other signs of intense pain being something more can be when you feel very limited in your options on menstrual products because they’re too painful to use, such as inserting a tampon. It can be regularly having a lot of pain with bowel movements. Going poop shouldn’t hurt. It should be a relief and satisfying. When you have symptoms like these it’s a good time to check in with a pelvic health physical therapist and/or your primary care physician or OB/Gyn as they can be signs of things needing a little bit more care. We’re getting better and better at treating these conditions too – no longer are they hiding behind whispers and Midol; we now have more tools, from movement and better manual therapy techniques, to acupuncture, to better medications, and more.

If you’re not sure, let’s chat! We now offer 15-minute discovery calls to help get you started on the right track. E-mail lesley@protea-therapy.com or text (909) 265-3584 to schedule yours.