It is relatively common to experience menstrual cramps during periods, menstruation itself isn’t the only reason a lady might have period-like cramps. Painful cramps can take place at any time during menstrual cycle, and remember pain is the body’s reaction to abnormal activities/infections.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!If along with severe cramps a patient experience abnormal bleeding, difficulty breathing, or dizziness, these could be signs of a medical emergency; and If cramps don’t coincide with menstruation, they may not be related to menstrual cycle. See a doctor if you are experiencing cramping as well as vaginal discharge.
Signs of menstrual cramps without a period
Menstrual cramps occur in the lower stomach or pelvis. They usually start during the first or second day of a woman’s period.
Signs of periods
Many women get physical and mood changes about 1 or 2 weeks before they get their period. Hormone changes cause premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptoms like cramping, breast tenderness, acne, fatigue, GI symptoms, mood swings, headaches, anxiety, depression, and low back pain. These symptoms tend to resolve about 3 to 4 days after your period starts.
Signs of no period
A lack of menstrual periods is called amenorrhea. There are many potential causes of a lack of menstruation. Other signs and symptoms that may occur with amenorrhea may include hair loss, vision changes, headaches, acne, pelvic pain, nipple discharge, and excess facial hair.
There are many reasons why you might have menstrual cramps without your period and not be pregnant, ranging from normal and natural to serious medical conditions.
Here are just a few of the reasons a patient might have non-period cramps:
Ovulation
You may be ovulating. This is the simplest and most common reason for cramps outside period. Ovulation happens naturally within 10 to 14 days of period when our ovaries release an unfertilized egg as part of our menstrual cycle. This doesn’t always cause pain, but many women report dull or sharp pains around their lower abdomen during ovulation.
Implantation cramping is abdominal pain that patient get when a fertilized embryo implants itself into her uterine lining. It is less painful than period cramping. Implantation cramps are much less painful than actual period cramps. Implantation bleeding may also occur, which is light spotting. Patient may also have pregnancy-related symptoms, especially spotting, breast tenderness, and nausea (especially in the morning).
Anovulation
Another reason why it feels like our period is coming but it’s not, is anovulation. This condition means that our ovaries do not release an egg. Patient may have all the other symptoms of her period coming, like abdominal cramping, but she doesn’t get her period.
Ovarian cysts
Ovarian cysts can also cause cramping. These cysts can form when the fluid-filled sacs around ovaries either don’t allow an egg to pass through for ovulation or fail to properly close after the egg is released. Either case may lead to cramping.
Endometriosis
Endometriosis develops when the uterine lining starts growing outside our uterus, such as in fallopian tubes, ovaries, or bladder. Several therapies for endometriosis exist, ranging from over-the-counter pain relief medications to hormone therapy.
Interstitial cystitis
Interstitial cystitis (IC) is a condition that affects our bladder. It is often called “painful bladder syndrome.” Painful cramping is one of its characteristic symptoms, along with feeling frequent urges to urinate. In allopathy, there’s no cure for interstitial cystitis, but it is treatable through Homeopathic medication.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
This condition causes abdominal pain and bloating with alternating bouts of diarrhea and constipation. With irritable bowel syndrome, patient might get sudden abdominal cramps that are relieved when she has a bowel movement. The symptoms may also be worse around the time of periods. Patient may also feel abdominal pressure and have gas and other gastritis symptoms.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis cause abdominal cramping, pain, and irritation along the digestive tract. If patient have abdominal cramps along with bloody stools, weight loss, and fatigue, you might have IBD.
There are also many other reasons why you could be having menstrual cramps without a period, including for example:
Diagnosing menstrual cramps
To diagnose the main cause of menstrual cramps a doctor should do the following tests:
- Ultrasound
- Hysteroscopy — uses a hysteroscope, to examine patient’s uterus and cervix directly.
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Allopathic treatments for menstrual cramps
Many of the same pain relievers used to treat strong cramps during period, such as ibuprofen, can also treat menstrual cramps we may feel without periods. In many cases, this medication is all that an allopath has.
If cramps have a deeper underlying cause, such as endometriosis, patient’s allopathic treatment will depend on her age, how severe her symptoms are, and how much the disease has progressed. Most allopathic therapies will be as noninvasive as possible, but surgical intervention may be needed if patient’s symptoms are serious and persistent.
Homeopathic treatment for Menstrual Cramps
Homeopathy has a lot to offer in terms of Homeopathic medicines for menstrual cramps, here are very few proven in my practice since 2001 till now (Dr. Qaisar Ahmed MD, DHMS):
Pulsatilla Pratensis
Amenorrhea. Suppressed menses from nervous debility or chlorosis. Tardy menses. Too late, scanty, thick, dark, clotted, changeable, intermittent. Chilliness, nausea, downward pressure, painful, flow intermits. Leucorrhea acrid, burning, creamy. Pain in back; tired feeling.
Polygonum Hydropiperoides
Metrorrhagia and/or Amenorrhea. Varicose; hemorrhoids and rectal pockets. Interior of anus studded with itching eminence. Liquid feces. Painful constriction at neck of bladder. Aching pains in hips and loins. Sensation of weight and tension within pelvis. Shooting pains through breasts. Amenorrhea.
Erigeron canadense
Persistent hemorrhages from the bladder, from the uterus, with painful micturition. Profuse bright-red blood. Pain in ovary and hip. Chronic gonorrhea, with burning micturition; continual dribbling. Dysentery, with soreness and burning in bladder. Tympanites. Metrorrhagia, with violent irritation of rectum and bladder, and prolapsus uteri. Menorrhagia; profuse leucorrhea; bloody lochia returns after least motion, comes in gushes; between periods, leucorrhea with urinary irritation; pregnant women with “weak uterus;” a bloody discharge on slight exertion. Bleeding hemorrhoids; nosebleed instead of menses.
Cimicifuja Racemosa
Amenorrhea. Pain in ovarian region; shoots upward and down anterior surface of thighs. Pain immediately before menses. Manses profuse, dark, coagulated, offensive with backache, nervousness; always irregular. Ovarian neuralgia. Pain across pelvis, from hip to hip. After-pains, with great sensitiveness and intolerance to pain. Infra-mammary pains worse, left side. Facial blemishes.
Belladonna
Sensitive forcing downwards, as if all the viscera would protrude at genitals. Dryness and heat of vagina. Dragging around loins. Pain in sacrum. Manses increased; bright red, too early, too profuse. Hemorrhage hot. Cutting pain from hip to hip. Manses and lochia very offensive and hot. Labor-pains come and go suddenly. Mastitis pain, throbbing, redness, streaks radiate from nipple. Breasts feel heavy; are hard and red. Tumors of breast, pain worse lying down. Badly smelling hemorrhages, hot gushes of blood. Diminished lochia.
Kalium Carbonicum
Manses early, profuse or too late, pale and scanty, with soreness about genitals; pains from back pass down through gluteal muscles, with cutting in abdomen. Pain through left labium, extending through abdomen to chest. Delayed menses in young girls, with chest symptoms or ascites. Difficult, first menses. Complaints after parturition. Uterine hemorrhage; constant oozing after copious flow, with violent backache, relieved by sitting and pressure.
Veratrum Album
Rigid os. Puerperal fever. Suppressed menstruation, with congestion to head. Menstrual colic before the appearance of the discharge with strangury.
Ignetia Amara
Manses black, too early, too profuse, or scanty. During menses great languor, with spasmodic pains in stomach and abdomen. Feminine sexual frigidity. Suppression from grief.
Lilium Tigrinum
Manses early, scanty, dark, clotted, offensive; flow only when moving about. Bearing down sensation with urgent desire for stool, as though all organs would escape. Ceases when resting. Congestion of uterus, prolapse, and anteversion. Constant desire to support parts externally. Pain in ovaries and down thighs. Acrid, brown leucorrhea; smarting in labia. Sexual instinct awakened. Bloated feeling in uterine region. Sub-involution. Pruritus pudenda.
Kreosotum
Corrosive itching within vulva, burning and swelling of labia; violent itching between labia and thighs. During menses, difficult hearing; buzzing and roaring; eruption after. Burning and soreness in external and internal parts. Leucorrhea, yellow, acrid; worse between periods. Hemorrhage after coition. Manses too early, prolonged. Vomiting of pregnancy, with ptyalism. Menstrual flow intermits; ceases on sitting or walking; reappears on lying down. Pain worse after menses. Lochia offensive; intermits.
Nux vomica
Manses too early, lasts too long; always irregular, blood black with faint spells. Prolapsus uteri. Dysmenorrhea, with pain in sacrum, and constant urging to stool. Inefficient labor-pains; extend to rectum, with desire for stool and frequent urination. Desire too strong. Metrorrhagia, with sensation as if bowels wanted to move.
Lachesis Mutus
Climacteric troubles, palpitation, flashes of heat, hemorrhages, vertex headache, fainting spells; worse, pressure of clothes. Manses too short, too feeble; pains all relieved by the flow. Left ovary very painful and swollen, indurated. Mammae inflamed, bluish. Coccyx and sacrum pain, especially on rising from sitting posture. Acts especially well at beginning and close of menstruation.
Cyclamen Europaeum
Labor-like pains from back to pubes. Flow less when moving about. Menstrual irregularities with megrim and blindness, or fiery spots before eyes, menses profuse, black, membranous, clotted, too early. Post-partum hemorrhage, with colicky bearing-down pains, with relief after gush of blood. After menses, swelling of breasts, with milky secretion.
Cactus Grandifolia
Someone needing this homeopathic remedy suffers with extremely painful cramps – the cramps feel as though there is a tight, gripping band across the abdomen. In some cases, your patient will actually cry out with pain. The flow tends to be clotted – with pain as each clot is passed. There may also be throbbing pain near the ovary.
Caulophyllum Thalictroides
A best choice for woman’s diseases. Best choice when want of tonicity of the womb, during labor, when the pains are deficient and the patient is exhausted and fretful. Extraordinary rigidity of os. Spasmodic and severe pains, which fly in all directions; shivering, without progress; false pains. Revives labor pains and furthers progress of labor. After pains. Leucorrhea, with moth-spots on forehead. Habitual abortion from uterine debility. Needle-like pains in cervix. Dysmenorrhea, with pains flying to other parts of body. Lochia protracted; great atony. Manses and leucorrhea profuse. Discoloration of skin in women with menstrual and uterine disorder.
Gelsemium
Rigid os. Vaginismus. False labor-pains; pains pass up back. Dysmenorrhea, with scanty flow; menses retarded. Pain extends to back and hips. Sensation as if uterus were squeezed.
Ustilago Maydis
Flabby condition of uterus. Hemorrhage. Congestion to various parts, especially at climacteric. Crosta lacteal. Vicarious menstruation. Ovaries burn, pain, swell. Profuse menses after miscarriage; discharge of blood from slightest provocation; bright red; partly clotted. Menorrhagia at climaxes. Oozing of dark blood, clotted, forming long black strings. Uterus hypertrophied. Cervix bleed easily. Postpartum hemorrhage. Profuse lochia.
Chamomilla
Uterine hemorrhages. Profuse discharge of clotted, dark blood, with labor-like pains. Labor pains spasmodic; press upward. Patient intolerant of pain (; ; Gels; Hyos; ). Nipples inflamed; tender to touch. Yellow acidic leucorrhea.
Hyoscyamus Niger
Before menses, hysterical spasms. Excited sexual desire. During menses, convulsive movements, urinary flux and sweat. Lochia suppressed. Spasms of pregnant women. Puerperal mania.
Colocynth
Boring ovarian pain. Must draw up double, with great restlessness. Round, small cystic tumors in ovaries or broad ligaments. Wants abdomen supported by pressure. Bearing-down cramps, causing her to bend double.
Sepia
Pelvic organs relaxed. Bearing-down sensation, must cross limbs to prevent protrusion, or press against vulva. Leucorrhea yellow, greenish; with much itching. Manses Too late and scanty, irregular; early and profuse; sharp clutching pains. Violent stitches upward in the vagina, from uterus to umbilicus. Prolapse of uterus and vagina. Morning sickness. Vagina painful, especially on coition.
Magnesium Phosphorica
Menstrual colic. Membranous dysmenorrhea. Manses too early, dark, stringy. Swelling of external parts. Ovarian neuralgia. Vaginismus.
Ipecacuanha
Uterine hemorrhage, profuse, bright, gushing, with nausea. Vomiting during pregnancy. Pain from navel to uterus. Manses too early and too profuse.
Sabina
Manses profuse, bright. Uterine pains extend into thighs. Threatened miscarriage. Sexual desire increased. Leucorrhea after menses, corrosive, offensive. Discharge of blood between periods, with sexual excitement. Retained placenta; intense after-pains. Menorrhagia in women who aborted readily. Inflammation of ovaries and uterus after abortion. Promotes expulsion of moles from uterus. Pain from sacrum to pubis, and from below upwards shooting up the vagina. Hemorrhage; partly clotted. Manses from least motion. Atony of uterus.
P. S: This article is only for doctors having good knowledge Homeopathy and allopathy, for learning purpose(s).
For proper consultation and treatment, please visit our clinic.
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None of above-mentioned medicine(s) is/are the full/complete treatment, but just hints for treatment; every patient has his/her own constitutional medicine.
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Dr. Sayyad Qaisar Ahmed (MD {Ukraine}, DHMS), Abdominal Surgeries, Oncological surgeries, Gastroenterologist, Specialist Homeopathic Medicines.
Senior research officer at Dnepropetrovsk state medical academy Ukraine.
Location: Al-Haytham clinic, Umer Farooq Chowk Risalpur Sadder (0923631023, 03119884588), K.P.K, Pakistan.
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