Can reflexology help you with period pain?
It is claimed that up to 50% of women of reproductive age suffer from period pain. For many years from my mid-teens until my late twenties I suffered from dysmenorrhea (period pain). To avoid it interfering with my O Levels I went on the pill but discovered that didn’t suit me. In my mid-twenties I tried reflexology and I felt it helped but I never knew if it was just as a I got older my periods were less painful. Recently I came across some research that supports my experience.
A clinical trial in Iran compared the effectiveness of reflexology and ibuprofen in reducing period pain intensity and duration. 68 students with period pain were randomly divided into a reflexology group, receiving 10 reflexology sessions (40 minutes each) during two consecutive menses cycles or an ibuprofen group, receiving 400mg of ibuprofen every eight hours for three days during three consecutive menses cycles.
The study results indicated that reflexology was superior to ibuprofen in reducing period pain and the effects off treatment continued even after discontinuing the intervention in the third mense cycle.
Reference
Valiani M, Babaei E, Heshmat R and Zare Z, Comparing the effects of reflexology methods and ibuprofen administration on dysmenorrhea in female students of Isfahan University Medical Sciences. Iran Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research. December 2010; 15 (S1): 371 – 378
Related Posts
What can help period pain? – Part 2
In part 1, I introduced the topic of period pain. In this blog post, I want to explore the topic from the perspective of functional medicine practitioners who believe that period pains are caused by certain nutritional deficiencies particularly vitamin B, magnesium and essential fatty acids. There is evidence that magnesium can reduce the sensitivity to pain. In one study 21 out of 25 women treated with magnesium for six months saw a reduction in the period pain. In one scientific study over 500 women aged between 12 to 21 with moderate to severe period pain took vitamin B1. 87% were completely cured after 3 months. Just 5% saw no effect at all, while 8% saw their pain reduced. There is also scientific evidence that vitamin B6 may be useful too. Finally, there is scientific evidence that Acupuncture can be a safe and effective treatment for period pain. References Magnesium reference see >> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27978803, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11687013, Vitamin B reference see >> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8935744, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1459624/ Acupuncture references see >> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29879061 and https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2017/1791258/abs/
A type of bread IBS sufferers can tolerate
We all know that fibre is an essential part of everyone's diet, but for IBS sufferers it can be a challenge to get enough fibre into their diet. Researchers from the University of Helsinki gave two types of Rye bread - the standard loaf and a rye loaf that was low in FODMAPs (fermentable olgi-, di and monosaccharides and polyols) to 87 IBS suferers for four weeks. Then after a break of four weeks, switched the two breads for another period of four weeks. As expected the standard Rye bread caused all the usual symptoms assocaited with IBS:
- abdominal pain
- diarrhoea
- constipation
