Cramps after your period ends aren’t usually menstrual cramps. So if you’re thinking, why am I cramping after my period or is it normal to cramp after your period, you are smart because there is a reason.
7 Causes of Cramping After Period
Spotting and cramping after period may be caused by several different reasons. Here are the top 7 reasons:
1. You got pregnant. When implantation occurs, there may be a sharp pain that comes on quickly and then subsides. The uterine lining may begin to shed; hence the bleeding. If this happens, the bleeding isn’t like a full menstrual period. It’s light and won’t last longer than 48 hours.
2. The birth control method you are using is interfering with your hormone levels, and this is causing menstrual cramps after period or even stomach cramps.
3. Uterine incapacity. Some women have this condition where all the menstrual blood is not expelled by the end of the period. What happens is that the leftover blood is then expelled after the period and this may be accompanied by spotting and cramping. Right now, there’s no known medical reason for uterine incapacity.
4. Hormonal imbalance. If your hormones are irregular, they may fluctuate erratically during your entire menstrual month. With irregular periods, you’ll have spotting and cramping.
5. Uterine cysts. These are cysts that develop inside your uterus. They cause the same type of symptoms as many of the others on this list.
6. Thyroid abnormalities. Your period will be erratic if you have thyroid issues.
7. Cancer of the reproductive organs can also cause spotting and cramping.
Technically, stomach or other abdominal cramps after menstruation is called dyspareunia. It’s described as deep pelvic pains that are anywhere from mild to severe and occur usually during sexual intercourse.
Pain that occurs right when your period starts is called dysmenorrhea. This may be caused by pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis or fibroids in the uterine cavity.
How To Get Rid of Period Cramps the Medical Way
Interestingly, the medical solution for eliminating cramps after period is never that productive. Do you know anyone who ever really benefitted from the methods? Nevertheless, you should know what they are. They’re listed below.
1. Use a heating pad.
2. Do some stretching.
3. Change your sleeping position so you’re more comfortable.
4. Take an aspirin.
It’s surprising that these are medical solutions because they sound more like home remedies. You can try the heating pad yourself, try stretching, change your sleep position and take an aspirin. The aspirin will make your arteries thin and subject to internal hemorrhaging. As you can see, these really aren’t good solutions.
Real Solutions Mean You’ll Have to Invest in Researching Your Own Body
If you want to know how to get rid of period cramps after menstruation, it’s going to take some digging into the whole area of your health. What are you eating and not eating? What medications are you poisoning your body with? How are you disrupting your own body’s hormone levels? Are you willing to believe that there really may be something you are doing during the entire month that is contributing – or do you think it’s all a medical situation?
Time for A Wake-Up Call
Here’s a list of some surprising things that can worsen cramps after periods:
1. Alcohol
2. Processed foods
3. Not getting enough sleep
4. Lack of exercise
You live in a time where every little thing you eat or drink, where you live, what products you use on your body and in the laundry, how you filter your water (or don’t), what type of chemicals you’re exposed to on the job and off, and everything else matters.
If you want health without PMS, cramps after your period, headaches, and other common problems, you’re going to have to go against the grain and start joining more health-oriented groups online or in your community or at least making it a hobby to read and research it out on your own.
The environment you live in is now 100 times more toxic than in your grandparents’ time. This isn’t fair to you – but nevertheless it’s real. The hormone disruptors in the environment will disrupt your hormone levels no matter how good your health habits are. The more toxins accumulate in your body, the greater the chance is for you to have any and all PMS symptoms.
You have to go far beyond what people did for good health long ago if you want to make it in today’s times. What your mother did to maintain good health will not work anymore.
Home Remedies to Stop Cramps After Period
Can you take herbs for menstrual cramps? Sure, but if you’re using them as an aspirin, then really what’s the point? You’re making no massive progress and not addressing all the other aggravating factors listed earlier and you are accumulating greater and greater toxins in your body.
The top three herbal remedies for cramps are ginger (250 mg four times a day), fennel (shown in a Department of Midwifery study out of a medical school in Iran to stop cramps significantly when extracts are used), and raspberry leaf tea. The raspberry leaf tea has been used for centuries by menstruating women to control PMS and regulate hormone levels. Grandmas have passed down the information about raspberry leaf tea to their granddaughters for decades.
Can you take vitamins for menstrual cramps? Sure, and they may help – but if you stop there and neglect the bad habits, you’ll soon convince yourself that they don’t work. Then you’ll be more apt to try medical solutions, which really don’t work. The point here is that you have to take a look at the big picture and do what makes sense.
Can you do yoga for menstrual cramps? Sure you can but how is yoga getting down to the real cause? It’s not. It’s a temporary band-aid with no scientific proof that it works for stopping cramps. There have been no studies on it.
Should you change your diet? Absolutely. You can start here, and this is one of your best home remedies for what causes cramps after menstruation.
What to Eat and What Not To Eat to Prevent Cramps After Period
Here’s a list of diet changes you can start now to help yourself:
1. Increase your vegetable consumption. There’s no way around this. Even if you take fruit and vegetable capsules, you still need to eat them. Strive for 6 servings daily: One dark leafy vegetable, one serving of beans or lentils, one tomato, one serving of onions or garlic, and two additional ones you like such as green beans, asparagus, carrots, or zucchini. What the vegetables do is start the detoxification of the toxins that are accumulating in your body, including in your reproductive tract.
2. Stop eating hydrogenated fats. These fats cause inflammation in the body and interfere with your body’s hormone levels. Start reading labels and eliminate this poison from your life.
3. Take your period vitamin. You need a good multiple vitamin and a period vitamin will provide a starting point of nutrients your body needs as a woman who is menstruating. It’s a one a day type of supplement and contains herbs that regulate female hormones.
4. Eat a diet that has plenty of fiber. This doesn’t mean rush out and buy a fiber supplement. Many of them on the market can end up causing you to get constipated – and constipation increases the concentration of toxins in the entire abdominal region. This means they diffuse out of the intestines to any organs in the vicinity, including your ovaries. By making sure you are never constipated, you can automatically decrease these toxins. Some simple foods to include in your diet are spinach, prunes, oat bran, pears, apples, blackberries, black beans, and lentils. Whole grains don’t offer much fiber compared to these foods.
If you have cramps after period, then certainly it helps to have a medical doctor rule out serious disease. However, the bottom line is always going to be what you do for yourself and how you take care of your body.
The amazing thing you’ll discover is that when you switch to a natural approach and really begin embracing the concepts, a lot of health symptoms and conditions will be relieved with little effort.
Source: Delaram, M., Kheini, S. and Hodjati, M.R. Comparing the Effects of Echinophora-platyloba and Fennel and Placebo on Pre-menstrual Syndrome. J Reprod Infertil 2011 Jul; 12(3): 221-6.
