Menstrual health knowledge

The criteria for judging a normal menstrual period are cycle 21-35 days, bleeding duration 3-7 days, and menstrual volume 20-60ml. As long as it falls within this range, there is no need to be overly anxious.； The "don't wash your hair/drink ice/exercise" things that are said online are not absolute taboos and should be based on your actual feelings. ； If you experience abnormal non-menstrual bleeding, severe menstrual cramps that are ineffective with conventional analgesics, or menstrual flow exceeding 80ml (about the amount required to fully soak 4 daily sanitary napkins), you must seek medical attention as soon as possible.

I have been in the gynecology clinic for almost 6 years, and I have seen too many girls frighten themselves due to the fragmented popular science on the Internet. Last month, there was a girl in her junior year who was delayed by 3 days because of two consecutive menstrual periods. She drank brown sugar ginger tea at home for a week and soaked mugwort feet every day. She was so panicked that she didn’t review well for the final exam. She came here to check the six hormones and the gynecological B-ultrasound, which were all normal. She stayed up until 2 o’clock every day during that time, and her hormones were just fluctuating. After adjusting her schedule, she was fine in the second month. Really, don’t stick to the so-called “standard cycle of 28 days”. A one-week difference is really normal. Emotions, stress, work and rest, and even changes in living environment may affect the timing of menstruation. An occasional abnormality is not considered a disease at all. If it is wrong for two or three consecutive cycles, it is not too late to check again.

The most quarrelsome one is "Can you touch ice during menstruation?" In fact, there is no need to argue about right and wrong. The theory of traditional Chinese medicine is that qi and blood leak out during menstruation, and cold evil can easily sneak in, which will aggravate qi and blood stasis and lead to dysmenorrhea and menstrual blood clumping. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid raw cold ； Western medicine currently has no clear research evidence proving that ice drinking will directly cause irregular menstruation or dysmenorrhea. It mainly depends on individual tolerance. I’ve seen girls who grew up in the Northeast come to visit their aunt and nibble on popsicles without any problems. I’ve also seen girls from the south of the Yangtze River get numbness from the cold water in the winter, and even a sip of room-temperature milk tea during menstruation makes them break out in cold sweats. To put it bluntly, there is no unified standard for this matter. Eat what feels good to you, and don’t touch it if it hurts. Don’t be kidnapped by extreme arguments like “eating ice is anti-PUA” or “exposure to cold will make you infertile.” Your body’s feelings are more accurate than anything else. Oh, and there’s also brown sugar ginger tea. Don’t expect it to cure menstrual cramps. It’s essentially sugar with a little bit of gingerol. It can at most add some energy to make you feel better. If you’re really rolling in pain, it’s better to take a piece of ibuprofen.

When it comes to ibuprofen, many people are afraid of "getting addicted" or "stomach damage" if they eat too much. There is no need to panic too much. Commonly used non-steroidal analgesics themselves are not addictive. If you take them two or three days a month, you will not feel any burden at all if you take them according to the dosage. Of course, if you have old problems with gastric ulcers or duodenal ulcers, you must be cautious. You can switch to acetaminophen, or consult a doctor to use analgesic suppositories, which will have much fewer side effects. If you are in pain so much that you can’t suppress it even after taking two tablets of ibuprofen, and the pain continues to get worse for several months, don’t hold on and wait until you get married and have a baby. It is most likely to be endometriosis, adenomyosis or ovary cyst. Early diagnosis and early intervention are better than anything else. I have seen too many girls who have endured it for five or six years. In the end, the ovary was found to be almost 5cm, and they suffered a lot of sins for no reason.

There is also not so much emphasis on health care. Don't believe that "large-capacity sanitary napkins can be changed every 4 hours." It is best to change them every 2 hours in summer or when the volume is heavy. If the vulva is kept in a humid and hot environment for a long time, it is easy to develop vulvitis. The recently popular tampons and moon cups are really easy to use. As long as you wash your hands before operation, girls who are not sexually active can use them with confidence. The hymen itself has holes, and the diameter of the tampon will not hurt it at all, so there is no need to feel any psychological burden. But if you try it several times and still find it painful and uncomfortable, don’t force yourself to follow the trend. It’s fine to use ordinary sanitary napkins. There is no chain of contempt that “use tampons to be a refined woman”.

As for whether you can exercise during menstruation, it also depends on your condition. If your back is so sore that you can't straighten up, and your belly is so heavy that you can't even walk, of course don't insist on running 800 meters or training with heavy weights. No one will say you are lazy if you lie down for two days. But if you only have a slight feeling of bloating and no other discomfort, walking slowly, doing stretching yoga, or even low-intensity aerobics is no problem. On the contrary, it can promote blood circulation in the pelvic cavity and relieve the feeling of soreness and swelling. I have a friend who is a fitness coach. Except for not doing core exercises and weight-bearing exercises, my aunt does other low-intensity training normally and has never experienced any pain. Of course, if she is in poor condition one day, she will just lie at home and order takeout for the whole day, without competing with herself at all.

Oh, by the way, many people ask whether sex is allowed during menstruation. Let me be honest here: Western medicine believes that as long as both parties are clean, wear condoms throughout the process, and you don't feel any discomfort, it is not an absolute taboo, but the risk is indeed higher than usual - the cervix is ​​open during menstruation, and bacteria are more likely to ascend to infection, and the probability of pelvic inflammatory disease and endometriosis will be higher. Chinese medicine generally clearly opposes sexual intercourse during menstruation, believing that it will damage qi and blood. On the whole, it is recommended to avoid it as much as possible. After all, if you are infected, you will be the one who suffers, so there is no need to gamble on that probability.

In fact, when it comes down to it, menstrual health really does not have so many different rules and regulations. The core is "don't be anxious and don't bear it." Don't set a bunch of messy taboos for yourself, and don't take abnormal signals seriously. Pay more attention to your own body feelings, which is more useful than reading 100 pieces of fragmented science.