Note: Homeopathic Treatment requires strict individualization. Please do not take any medicine without consulting your physician/homeopath.
This condition refers to the pain or discomfort
associated with menstruation. About 80 percent of the time, cramps
are part of the primary dysmenorrhea syndrome. Although not a serious
medical problem, it’s usually meant to describe a woman with
menstrual symptoms severe enough to keep her from functioning for
a day or two each month. Symptoms may begin one to two days before
menses, peak on the first day of flow, and subside during that day
or over several days. The pain is typically described as dull, aching,
cramping and often radiates to the lower back.
DYSMENORRHOEA, Painful Menstruation,
Menstrual Cramps - Treatment & Homeopathic Medicines
#Cimicifuga. [Cimic]
The characteristic indication for this remedy in dysmenorrhoea is
pain flying across the pelvic region from one side to the other.
It is especially useful in rheumatic and nueralgic cases,and in
congestive cases it may also be thought of along with Belladonna
and Veratrum viride. Headache preceding menses; during menses sharp
pains across abdomen, has to double up, labor-like pains, and during
menstrual interval debility and perhaps a scanty flow. The resin
Macrotin is preferred by many practitioners. The pains of Cimicifuga
are not severe and intense nor felt with such acuteness as are those
of Chamomilla.
#Caulophyllum. [Caul]
The dysmenorrhoea of Caulophyllum is essentially spasmodic in character;
the pains are bearing down in character.It produces a continued
spasm of the uterus simulating first stage of labor; the flow is
mostly normal in quantity. The spasmodic intermittent pains which
call for Caulophyllum are in the groins, a useful remedy in these
spasmodic cases if given between the periods. to various part of
the body. Magnesia muriatica is also a remedy which may be studied
in uterine spasm. Gelsemium is similar in many respects to Caulophyllum.
It is very useful remedy in neuralgic and congestive dysmenorrhoea
when there is such bearing down. The pains are spasmodic and labor-like,
with passages of large quantities of pale urine. It is one of the
best given low in hot water. It will surely relieve the pains at
the start.
#Belladonna. [Bell]
The congestive forms of dysmenorrhoea would call for Belladonna.
There is pain preceding the flow and a sensation of heaviness as
if everything would protrude from the vulva, relieved by sitting
up straight. The pains come on suddenly and cease suddenly; the
flow is offensive and clotted. The dysmenorrhoea is intensely painful,
the vagina is hot and dry and the pains are cutting through the
pelvis in a horizontal direction, not around the body, as in Platinum
and Sepia. Veratrum viride has also been used with benefit in congestive
dysmenorrhoea, in plethoric women, accompanied by strangury and
preceded by intense cerebral congestion, also spasmodic dysmenorrhoea
at or near the climacteric.These are conditions in which the old
school knows only Opium, yet these remedies are far superior to
that drug, often curing permanently while Opium is only palliative.
#Viburnum opulus. [Vib]
This remedy produces a sudden pain in the region of the uterus before
menstruation and much backache during menses. In neuralgic and spasmodic
dysmenorrhoea it has achieved considerable reputation. Dr. Hale
considers it specific in this form of painful mensturation. Its
chief indications seem to be in the character of the pains, which
are spasmodic. Spasmodic dysuria in hysterical subjects also calls
for Viburnum. Its keynotes, therefore, are bearing down, aching
in sacral and pubic region, excruciating, cramp, colicky pains in
hypogastrium, much nervousness, and occasional shooting pains in
the ovaries. Like Sepia, Viburnum has pains going around the pelvis
and also the empty, gone feeling in the stomach; but the bearing
down is more violent, culminating in an intense uterine cramp. More
indicated by clinical experience than by its pathogenesis.
#Xanthoxylum. [Xanth]
This remedy has about only one use in homoeopathic medicine, and
that is in dysmenorrhoea and uterine pains. It is useful where the
pains are agonizing, burning, extending down thighs along the crural
nerves with a feeling as if the limbs were paralyzed, the mensturation
is usually profuse and with it agonizing bearing down pains; chiefly
leftsided are the pains of Xanthoxylum, though it also affects the
right ovary. It corresponds closely to the neuralgic form of dysmenorrhoea.
Hale says that the neuralgic element must predominate to have the
remedy efficacious. Some further symptoms may be headache over the
left eye the day before the menses, and it seems to correspond to
women of spare habits and of a delicate, nervous temperament.
#Magnesia phosphorica. [Mag-p]
Perhaps no remedy has achieved a greater clinical reputation in
dysmenorrhoea than has Magnesia phosphorica. The pains calling for
it are neuralgic and crampy preceding the flow, and the great indication
for the use of this remedy is the relief from warmth and the aggravation
from motion. In neuralgia of the uterus Magnesia phosphorica vies
with Cimicifuga. Uterine engorgements with the characteristic crampy
pains will indicate the remedy. It has also been used successfully
in membraneous dysmenorrhoea. We have very few remedies for this
affection. Borax is one, but it is often unsuccessful, there seems
to be no very special characteristic for it , unless it be the fear
of downward motion which might exist in some cases. Hale mentions
Viburnum, Guaiacum and Ustillago, besides Borax, for membraneous
dysmenorrhoea. Their indications are chiefly empirical. Colocynth,
a useful remedy in dysmenorrhoea, may be compared with Magnesia
phosphorica. The symptoms of Colocynth are severe left-sided ovarian
pains, causing patient to double up; pains extend from umbilicus
to genitals.
#Pulsatilla. [Puls]
Dysmenorrhoea calls for Pulsatilla when the menses are dark in color
and delayed; the flow will be fitful and the more severe the pains
are the more chilly the patient will get. The pains gripe and double
the patient up. It is perhaps more useful when given between the
periods, and in congestive dysmenorrhoea, from wetting of the feet,
it may be compared with Aconite, but in Aconite the discharge is
bright red in stead of dark. Chamomilla and Cocculus are two remedies
which run along side by side with Pulsatilla in dysmenorrhoea, and
all need careful individualization. Chamomilla has also a dark flow,
but it has such characteristic mental symptoms of crossness and
incivility that it cannot be mistaken. It will relieve many cases
(12X). Cocculus also has dark flow. It has a pain as if sharp stones
were rubbing against each other in the abdomen from accumulation
of flatus; the pains are worse at night, awaken the the patient
and make her irritable. Menses come too early, sometimes nausea
is an accompaniment. It also is said to be more efficacious given
between the periods. The mental condition of Pulsatilla, if present,
will always indicate the remedy. Further, if the pains shift about
the indications of Pulsatilla are still stronger.
#Cocculus. [Cocc]
A most useful remedy in dysmenorrhoea and scanty, irregular menstruation
. Uterine cramps. Profuse discharge of clotted blood and severe
headache accompanied by nausea; a heaving up and down of the stomach
as in seasickness. It suits cases on the borderland between the
neuralgic and congestive types of dysmenorrhoea. Uterine cramps
with suppressed irregular menstruation and a sero-purulent bloody
discharge were favorite indications of Dr. Conrad Wesselhoeft. Gelsemium
IX has also proved useful in the spasmodic form. Ignatia has dysmenorrhoea
with menstrual colic or bearing-down in the hypogastric region,
hysterical labor-like pains relieved by pressure. |