I want to thank Hyacinthe for her pain description
 

You wrote this in the thread with the poster complaining he only gets sex 2 or 3 times a week

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...ml#post2577988

I've bolded the part important to me. Just last nite this happened to me, it doesnt happen all the time, but its more common than rare and last nights were so bad I couldnt keep it from Dave and was trying to explain it and he got all worried. I told him it had to have something to do with my period because when it does happen, it happens right before I start. I've never mentioned it to a soul (and I know nothing is wrong with my women parts, Im very good about my check ups). It makes me feel so much better to see someone else describe that pain (I always thought of it as severe gas pain in my vagina), I know now Im not crazy and the next time it happens I will feel just a little better. *hugs*

I tried to describe it to E. once as having a hot knife carving your insides, genitals, and upper thighs apart. That's how it feels for me. I've always had really bad menstrual pain, though at least with birth control it's now mostly manageable. I still have bad days once every couple of months, but that's an incredible improvement over what I had to deal with during my teen years, when nothing but prescription medications would work, and I didn't get those until I was 16. I missed 1-2 days of school a month on a regular basis before that.

Shani, I had a doctor when I was younger who didn't take my levels of pain seriously at first because she herself had never experienced menstrual cramps. She seemed surprised when I came back after she had prescribed me naproxen for the pain and it didn't work. But at least she was willing to admit that she had never had cramps and couldn't relate, and we were able to work from there.

And Hyacinthe, I agree with Shani--you captured it well. It's a hard thing to communicate.

Oh how I remember the days of the cramps so bad I'd upchuck my breakfast. Its the one thing I am grateful to bc for...no cramps or at least very very mild ones.

I feel for all the woman that still have those horrendous, someones rearranging my anatomy and using my lower back and tail bone as a support base pains. Oh and I had all but forgotten the feeling as though someone was doing acupuncture on labia and clit.

*hugs to you all*

"Severe gas pain in my vagina.....""

Shanifaye-What a perfect description!

Yes! Hyacinthe wrote a wonderful description. I must agree. It's difficult to describe the sensation, and hard to explain why sometimes the pain leaves me in bed for a couple of days while other months I'm unphased.

How unfair is it that women have to guess at every detail of their menstrual cycle, and then deal with doctors assuming you're a wuss when you say you're in pain? Extremely unfair.

Cheers to Hyacinthe for putting into words what I thought had no possible explanation.

I'm lucky, my menstrual cycle has always been set like clockwork, and rarely do I have periods where I bleed heavier, or have cramps.

What is guaranteed every month those first few days, is a terrible pain in my spine that never ends. It almost feels like someone is sucking fluid up my spine, because the pain pulls upward. The fetus position is the only remotely comfy position when that happens, and ibuprofen helps a bit.

A couple times I've gotten that sharp stabbing pain before. Usually its so bad I double over, gritting my teeth and wincing. I can't even source the pain when it happens, I just know it is completely random, and it doesn't matter what part of my cycle is occurring at the time.

I got that pain once when I was at my university's science library. I was with a friend,and I explained it to her. It wasn't passing (stuck around for 10-15 minutes), but I was relieved to hear it wasn't uncommon.

Hear, hear.
The only way I used to be able to describe it to other people was to refer back to the scene in Aliens but from the abdomen, not the chest wall. We started refering to my cramps as "birthing the alien baby" for about a year. My SO believed me most of the time because he would hold me when it was too bad, but the doctors didn't.
Try explaining, "It feels like someone is sticking hot pokers in my labia... or using a hot knife to cut them off, slowly". They would scoff at that. I never really had a good way to describe it, and since it wasn't every cycle, I often wasn't believed either. Nice call to everyone who has given me a better way to describe this mess.

oh my gosh, so many with the same pain....thank god lol (not that you guys hurt but that Im not alone) I appreciate some of the other descriptions too, maybe that explains why this month I felt like I'd been kicked in my tailbone and it hurt to sit for days, that was def a new one for me lol

The worst of my cramping and that knife thru the vagina was in my mid 30's, Shani, so it's possible things are changing for you. And even though you get your regular check-ups, etc., it is quite possible you have endometriosis, which can only be found with ultrasound and/or laproscopic surgery. I'd suffered for a decade, went to different doctors and it was only found because of my fertility treatments-first as a "mass" that kept getting larger each time I had an ultrasound. By the time I had surgery to see what the mass was, it had taken over my entire abdomen and was still present at the birth of my twins-even after laser removal and drug treatments.

I am so sorry you all have to endure this. I have never had cramps even after I got my IUD. I hope all of you have some way to ease the pain.

Dawg, I do get ultrasounds, because my mother had it bad and had to have a full hysterectomy, and my sis did too (she was 29 when she had hers) so I have a pelvic u/s every year, so far so good, no signs of endo at all.

I got menopause :D

Thanks for the description, Hyacinthe. I think it's hard to imagine when someone hasn't experienced it.

Before my IUD with hormones, it was like the stabbing pain some of you described. Like I sat on a two foot long, six inch wide hot sword, and someone was twisting it. I have heard (from a man) that an orgasm helps relieve the cramps. But when it hurts more to be touched, I just don't see getting into it enough to cross that finish line.

I've never had very severe cramps but I do get some menstrual symptoms and sometimes I just want the world to go away. I'm sorry you guys are going through this kind of pain! And yes, a lot of time men, and sometimes other women, are very unsympathetic and don't understand how debilitating this "supposedly normal occurrence" can be. I find clever comments about a woman's "time of the month" quite offensive, even if I'm not that affected myself.

Thanks Girls / Ladies :shy::shy:

I've always had period cramps so badly that I usually can barely bring myself to even walk (that's assuming I can) I generally lose conciousness and the whole lot - scares the SO to heck and back.

I've explained it to guys before by getting them to imagine that someone has just placed a G clamp on their testicles and is gradually tightening it so that it remains at that sickening level of pain that they get when they get kicked in the groin - then having that pain for a few days.

Anyways I am glad my little comment made so many of you feel better (well kinda)

Hyacinthe, my sister had pains similar to yours. She had endometreosis. I say "had" because she recently had a hysterectomy, on Christmas Eve. I think you have it worse than I did before hormone therapy.

Interesting.