Treating Dysmenorrhea with Chinese Medicine

What is Dysmenorrhea?
Dysmenorrhea or painful menstruation occurs before, during, and after a woman's menstruation.  The cramping can occurs mainly in the lower abdomen, but can also be experienced in the lower back and even down the legs.  Pain symptoms vary from woman to woman but normally presents as throbbing, sharp pain that often comes and goes, or as constant, dull pain.  Often, in severe cases, there is nausea and vomiting, sometimes lightheadedness.  Roughly half of women have some form of recurring dysmenorrhea, ranging from mild to debilitating symptoms usually for one-to-three days.  Although Western doctors and their patients often take dysmenorrhea to be just a normal part of being a woman, from a Chinese medicine perspective the symptoms point to underlying imbalances that can be easily corrected. 

What Causes Dysmenorrhea?
From a Western medicine perspective, the menstrual cramping is caused by high levels of prostaglandin hormones produced by the uterus triggering abnormal muscle contractions that cut off blood flow in areas of the uterus.  The condition is categorized into the following two types:
  • Primary dysmenorrhea: begins from adolescence, can last through early adulthood, and is related to hormonal imbalances that cause excessive uterine contractions.

  • Secondary dysmenorrhea: commonly occurs in women who are in their thirties and forties and is often accompanied by conditions such as pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis, myomas (benign tumors), and fibroids.
Contraceptive pills are the standard treatment for hormonal imbalances that are accompanied by irregular periods.  If no specific condition is diagnosed as the cause of the dysmenorrhea, then analgesics are usually prescribed.
Using Chinese Medicine to Treat Dysmenorrhea
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), treatment is based not on Western diagnosis, but on Chinese diagnosis. A Chinese diagnosis consists of what we refer to as "Patterns".  A "Pattern" consists of a specific set of symptoms along with a specific tongue and pulse presentation. A person can have more than one pattern occuring in the body at the same time. Common patterns  for dysmenorrrhea include:
  • Qi Stagnation and Blood Stasis: dark-red menses with clots, pain worse with pressure, beginning before or at the first day or two of the period and during period.
  • Qi and Blood Deficiency:  scanty menses, dull pain better with pressure occurring during or after the period.
  • Liver and Kidney-Yin Deficiency: thin, scanty menses, lower abdominal pain.
  • Cold in the Uterus from Yang Deficiency: pale, scanty menses, pain during or after period and better with heat.
  • Low Abdominal Damp-Heat: strong-smelling, yellow or bright-red menses, pelvic inflammation, possibly burning pain during period.
  • Uterine Damp-Cold: dark, scanty menses, low back pain, pain before or during period, relieved with heat but worse with pressure.

TCM Treatment
Once your Chinese diagnosis is established, a treatment plan can be designed. Your plan may include a combination of acupuncture, Chinese herbs, massage therapy, Chinese diet therapy, yoga exercises, stress reduction, and other lifestyle adjustments. The goal in TCM is to treat not only the symptoms of the condition, but to treat the root cause.

How long will it take to get results?
Treatment duration can very from person to person, but on the average it can take three months (three cycles) to establish balance in the body. Ongoing maintenance treatments and herbs may be required to secure the changes.