menstrual health

The core criterion for judging menstrual health has never been the perfect template of "28-day cycle, 3-5 days menstrual period, no blood clots, no menstrual cramps" circulated on the Internet, but "the deviation from your own long-term physiological baseline, and whether the uncomfortable symptoms affect normal life" - As long as the cycle fluctuates within 7 days, the amount of bleeding does not increase or decrease sharply compared to usual, and there is no unbearable pain or abnormal non-menstrual bleeding, even if it is different from the so-called "standard value", it is basically in the category of health, and there is no need to force yourself to be anxious by a unified standard.

Not long ago, a 26-year-old internet operator girl came to my clinic. She handed her mobile phone with red eyes when she walked in. On the screen was a "Menstrual Health Checklist" listed in a popular science post. She stared at her stable 33-day cycle and insisted that she had premature ovarian failure and even wanted to postpone her pregnancy plan. I prescribed six hormone tests and pelvic B-ultrasound for her, and the results were all normal. Her follicular reserve was better than that of many 25-year-old girls. I was just scaring myself.

Don't tell me, the menstrual period standards are so rigidly stuck on the Internet now that many people think that one day off is a disease. In fact, according to the clinical standards of evidence-based medicine, as long as the interval between menstruation is within the range of 21-35 days, even if it is fixed at 35 days, or occasionally fluctuates by 3 or 5 days, it is considered completely normal. Some people are born with seasonal menstruation, which occurs once every two to three months or even every six months. As long as ovulation is regular and hormone levels are normal, pregnancy will not be affected, and it is not unhealthy at all. Of course, there are also many practitioners who adhere to traditional conditioning ideas and will pay more attention to the absolute law of cycles. They believe that longer cycles are often related to insufficient qi and blood and weak transportation of organs. If you are also suffering from fatigue and cold hands and feet, it does not hurt to adjust your work, rest and diet appropriately. The two views are not conflicting. The core is to see whether you have uncomfortable symptoms.

Let’s talk about the amount of bleeding that everyone is concerned about. The medical standard range is 20-60ml, but to be honest, few people will actually measure the ml of menstrual blood and convert it into the familiar amount of sanitary napkins. As long as your entire menstrual period is equal to your average amount. The habits are not much different at that time - for example, if you usually use about 10 tablets for daily use and 2 tablets for night use, and suddenly you only use 3 tablets at one time, you will be clean, or if you have one tablet full of blood within two hours for two or three days in a row, or even a big blood clot flowing down your leg, then you need to be vigilant. Oh, by the way, many people panic and say they have uterine cold when they see small blood clots in their menstrual blood. In fact, when there is a lot of bleeding, the body's anticoagulant substances do not have time to work, and the blood clots. As long as the sanitary napkin is not filled with blood clots larger than a 1 yuan coin, it is nothing to take seriously. Of course, if you have a lot of blood clots every time, accompanied by abdominal pain and cold sensitivity, according to Chinese medicine, it is qi stagnation and blood stasis, which can be relieved by eating less ice and soaking your feet more. There is no need to insist that "uterine cold is a false concept", as long as it works.

The most controversial one is dysmenorrhea. Nowadays, many popular sciences will say that "primary dysmenorrhea is not a disease, just take ibuprofen." This is true. If you take an ibuprofen when you have pain, you can go to work and go to school normally, there is no problem at all. But there is another school of thought: If you have vomiting and diarrhea every time and cannot get out of bed, even if no organic problems are found (such as endometriosis, adenomyosis and other causes of secondary dysmenorrhea), it means that your pelvic blood circulation is poor and prostaglandin secretion is too strong. If you leave it alone for a long time, it may also affect your quality of life. My best friend suffers from typical primary dysmenorrhea. She used to have to lie down at home on the first day of each period and took two pills of ibuprofen to suppress it. Later, she followed a rehabilitation practitioner and did pelvic floor relaxation exercises for three months. She refused to drink iced coffee or iced milk tea in the week before her period. Now she has a slight bloating in her lower abdomen during menstruation, and she doesn’t even need to take medicine. You see, both solutions are effective. If you are willing to take painkillers, take them. If you are willing to spend time on conditioning, there is no problem. There is no need to compete.

In the five years I have been doing women's health science, the most regrettable case I have seen is a 22-year-old girl. In order to adjust her 30-day cycle to a "perfect 28 days", she randomly took the so-called "menstruation pills" and "ovarian maintenance hormone" sold in Internet celebrity stores. After taking it for three months, she suffered from irregular bleeding and her hormone levels were in a mess. It took more than half a year to adjust them back. It’s really not necessary. Your body is not an industrial product, and it doesn’t have to stick to uniform parameters.

To put it bluntly, there is no perfect answer to menstrual health. You are most familiar with your own body. If your menstruation is unusual this time, the pain is unbearable, the amount of bleeding is wrong, or it has been delayed for more than ten days, go directly to the hospital and call a gynecologist to check. It is much better than searching for ten or eight popular science articles on the Internet for self-diagnosis. After all, it’s up to you to decide whether you’re healthy or comfortable.