Aching for an Answer

This article from 2011 has been EXPANDED, edited and resources updated in 2020. If you're looking for more on the pelvis, find our overarching movement philosophy and how it relates to pelvic issues, as well as more pelvis and pelvic-floor articles, exercises, and recommendations at “Our Best Healthy Pelvis Resources.”

Back in November, I received an email from a young woman suffering from painful menstruation. I get this type of email often and I responded quickly for two reasons. First, she already had a long-term, structured approach to how she was going to solve a problem with a tool. Second, her note about monthly pain medication quantities gave me a tug. I don't like to see regular pain medication needed for baseline human function. Because many of her questions are similar to many of your questions, I decided to post both our email exchange and her results.

NOTE: The emails are un-doctored (with the exception of some formatting and correction of MY spelling 🙂 and I was given Stephanie's permission to share them.

November 26, 2010

Dear Katy,

I am going to do your five exercises in "Down There For Women" three times a day for three months (basically until Valentine's day) as an experiment to try and get rid of menstrual cramps. I am 24 and have regular cycles, no migraines, but if I didn't take triple doses of painkillers, I would be debilitated for four days. I also switched the way that I sit and drive by tilting my pelvis forward and sitting squarly on the bones instead of tilting back on the tailbone.

What I want to know is, first, I saw on your blog {find the blog she is referring to here} that you had zero menstrual cramps after lots of hiking. Do you know any other success stories of people with zero menstrual cramps?

Also, do I have to do these five exercises three times a day for the rest of my life or, could I eventually maintain flexibility and strength by doing them once a day?

Thanks so much.
-Stephanie

November 27, 2010

Hi Stephanie,

Thanks for your email. We have had many people reduce or eliminate their cramps by doing their exercises, especially those like yourself who are young. Severe cramps are usually caused by extremely tight posterior leg muscles (everything from the hamstrings down to the soles of the feet). I personally took myself from a two-day monthly debilitation to needing nothing but one hot bath the day I started. One year later I have taken no medications at all, and I used to be a 2-5 Tylenol a month girl.

I think the barefoot hiking finally got into the tight lower leg issue I was having. The DVD is a great place to start, and you should notice a difference your first cycle. Please keep me posted!

The exercises are fairly simple. The bigger issue is WHY your muscles are tight. If you change the way you sit and stand (by thinking about what you learn on the DVD and applying it to "all the time"), you won't have such a chronic issue. The exercises to really learn to love are the single and double calf stretch. Those are going to be your new best friends and I do them 2-3 times a day (just a few minutes) because sitting and driving and shoe wearing just tighten everything back up again...

Hope this helps!  Good luck...

Katy

February 19, 2011

Hi Katy,

You were right, the stretches for eliminating menstrual cramps really work!  I tried a 3-month experiment. I did notice a difference my first cycle: instead of taking a triple dose of pain killers for 4 days, I only took pain meds for 30 hours.  Second cycle: 15 hours.  Third and most recent cycle, I never felt any pain at all.  I took 1 narproxen the first day and the second day just because I was out and about and couldn't believe how successful this was - I thought it was too good to be true. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much for making that information available, I am so grateful!

-Stephanie

Why is this email so great? A dependency on painkillers to get through a day without pain is not a long-term solution. Regular use of pain medications are not without a cost and when we need to take these medications for anything other than the irregular, acute issue, the body is sending us a message— SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT. Most of the time, however, that SOMETHING is a slow accumulation of  damage when we don't move well, whether at the joint (big) or cellular (small) level.

Do you want to know the super-cool, amazing, wonderful thing no one is telling you? It is easy to start moving your body more. You can even start with the bigger muscles because not only do they move the big joints around, they also get the microscopic stuff to move around as well.

If you are having painful menstrual issues, you (like Stephanie) can optimize the mechanics of your natural pelvic functions with a handful of targeted exercises (find many of these, and more, on Our Best Healthy-Pelvis Resources page).

Why/how does movement work? Tight leg muscle and fascial systems can keep the pelvis from moving much, including the muscles in the pelvis and uterus. We're trying to get this area moving more so that your menstrual movements are more dynamic. The exercises are very simple yet most people will struggle because they highlight areas prone to lots of tension in our mostly-sitting, heeled-shoe-wearing environments. You'll find exercises to increase the movements of your calves, hamstrings, inner and outer thighs. Open your tissues, open your biological functions!

Find more on menstruation in How Your Period Works, Move Your DNA podcast Episode 50: Movement, Period, and Menstruation is a Movement. Find free healthy pelvis exercises on Our Best "Healthy Pelvis" Resources.