Menstrual health management

There has never been a standardized list of menstrual health management that applies to everyone. There is only one core guideline - first eliminate the risk of organic disease, then adjust your lifestyle based on personal feelings, and find a pattern that suits your own cycle. There is no need to forcefully benchmark others' "health standards".

To be honest, I have met too many girls who are bound by the "menstrual taboos" on the Internet. They dare not touch a sip of iced milk tea when the temperature is over 30 degrees in summer. They must drink brown sugar ginger tea when visiting the aunt. They are afraid of hurting their bodies even if they take two steps quickly. As a result, the more they pay attention to it, the more anxious they become. Take the most controversial question of "can you drink ice during menstruation?". Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the pelvic cavity is congested during menstruation, and cold stimulation will cause vasoconstriction, which may aggravate dysmenorrhea and reduce menstrual flow. Many girls with cold bodies will indeed experience pain and break out in cold sweats after drinking ice milk tea. ； However, the view of modern Western medicine is that after the ice drink enters the digestive system, it will be held close to body temperature by the intestines and stomach. As long as the intestines and stomach can tolerate it and there is no discomfort after drinking it, there is no need to eat it. There is a girl around me who grew up eating ice cream. She has never had any pain from eating ice cream during her menstrual period. On the contrary, forcing her to drink hot ginger tea will cause oral ulcers. In the final analysis, your body feeling is more reference than any school of thought.

Not only diet, but also the debate about whether exercise can be done during menstruation has been going on for several years. Some people say that you must stay in bed during menstruation. Running and jumping can cause uterine prolapse and increase menstrual flow. ； Some fitness bloggers also say that menstruation is the "golden fat-burning period" and that more exercise can relieve the feeling of bloating. Both of these statements are correct, but they only apply to some people: My colleague has suffered from primary dysmenorrhea for many years. Before, he had to lie at home for 2 days every time he came to visit his aunt. Later, he followed a rehabilitation coach to do yin yoga for three menstrual periods. Now the pain time is directly shortened to half a day, and daily commuting and walking are no longer burdensome. ； But another friend has heavy menstrual flow. Last time I heard someone said that fat burning is faster during menstruation, so she ran for 2 kilometers. She felt dizzy and was sent to the hospital that day. The doctor said that she had iron deficiency anemia and lost 10g of hemoglobin. So there is no absolute right or wrong. If you feel comfortable after moving, just move. If you feel tired after moving, just lie down. There is no need to compete with yourself.

Many people think menstrual management is troublesome. In fact, as long as you know your own rhythm, most discomforts can be avoided in advance. There are really many girls around me who have lived for more than 20 years, and they can’t even figure out whether their cycle is 28 days or 35 days. Every time my aunt comes, it’s like opening a blind box, and she rushes to find painkillers when her stomach hurts. In fact, you don’t need to buy any fancy recording APP. Just jot down a few notes on your mobile phone: what day it came, how much it was, whether there was breast swelling, whether you would have diarrhea, whether you suddenly wanted to quarrel with your boyfriend the week before, what you ate that hurt... After two or three months of recording, your own body patterns will be clearer than any doctor. For example, I discovered before that if I stayed up late and drank coffee every day for a week before I came here, my breasts would most likely be so swollen that I couldn't even touch them. Later that week, I took the initiative to replace the coffee with hot milk and slept half an hour more every day. This discomfort basically never happened again. Oh, by the way, don’t think that taking painkillers will cause side effects. It has been clinically proven that taking ibuprofen during menstruation will not cause dependence. Taking one or two pills a month will cause much less harm to the body than rolling on the floor in pain or being unable to eat and sleep. Of course, if you have a bad stomach or are allergic to painkillers, you can use warm patches or rub Sanyinjiao. You can feel comfortable however you want.

Of course, not all discomforts can be solved by adjusting your lifestyle. Some signals really cannot be ignored. I once had a reader who suffered from pain for 3 years and relied on taking ibuprofen every time to cope with it. Later, when the pain became so severe that even taking medicine did not help, he went to the hospital and was found to have endometriosis, which delayed the best time for intervention. If you have any of the following situations, don’t hesitate to go directly to the gynecology department to register: the cycle is shorter than 21 days or longer than 45 days for three consecutive months, the menstrual flow is so heavy that it can soak through a daily sanitary napkin in half an hour, the pain is so painful that even taking painkillers can’t relieve it, and irregular bleeding occurs during non-menstrual periods. These are likely to be signs of organic disease, which cannot be solved by drinking brown sugar ginger tea and soaking in hot water. It is not too late to check for problems such as polycystic cysts, ovarian cysts, and endometriosis, and then discuss treatment.

There is another pitfall that many people have stepped on: they think that they need to take a lot of supplements during menstruation, so they eat angelica, donkey hide gelatin, and brown sugar in one meal. As a result, the menstrual period is delayed to ten days and a half. In fact, menstruation is a process of excretion of blood. If you eat too many things that promote blood circulation, it will only aggravate the bleeding. If you really need to replenish it, wait until a week after it is clean before replenishing it. At that time, absorption is the best. My best friend has been through this trap before. She ate donkey hide gelatin cakes given by her mother every day during her period. As a result, she used 4 packs of sanitary napkins that month and almost became anemic. She went to the hospital and was scolded by the doctor. After she stopped, she became normal in the second month.

To put it bluntly, menstrual management has never meant for you to check off an online list one by one. If you take an extra bite of ice, you will become extremely anxious. If you delay it for two days, you will check everywhere to see if you are seriously ill. Your body is more honest than any popular science article. As long as your cycle is stable and you feel comfortable, you are in a healthy state. You don’t need to compare with others whose cycle is more standard, and you don’t need to force yourself to conform to some perfect health template. After all, you have the final say about your body.