I Tried Literally Everything to Stop My Period Cramps—Including Acupuncture and a Vaginal Weed Suppository
Period panties, PMS coaches, flow trackers, menstrual brownies: Cosmo goes on an adventure through the wild wilderness (and still-developing science) of the new period lifestyle.
Once upon a time, I was a spoiled little B who didn’t really know about period cramps, because I never had any. “Cramps? Whatever, you big baby,” I would sneer at other women who were doubled over in pain, grabbing at their bellies. My period lasted all of three days and was practically a treat. But then, shortly after turning 20, everything changed. I got a Paragard IUD (known for causing heavier bleeding and cramps), and while I love it with the entirety of my heart, it effectively ruined my dainty flow and replaced it with one that lasts seven days and feels like a tiny, angry man doing Tae Bo in my uterus every month.
Now, to combat my cramps on The Worst Days, I inhale four regular-strength ibuprofen. Popping it (never on an empty stomach) calms my pain enough that I can work, but I hate the idea of having to take a handful of pills to function for a week out of every month. What I’m saying is that if there’s a solution that doesn’t involve pumping NSAIDs into my body, I would embrace it with open uterus.
So, to seek out a better pain-management solution to a problem most women deal with, I embarked on a noble journalistic mission to find remedies that don’t make me worry about my liver. Over the course of six crampy months, I tested six cures that aren’t ibuprofen. The Pulitzer committee knows where to find me.
If you've been anywhere in public or online in the past year, you've heard of CBD and the myriad ailments it claims to ease, a big one being menstrual cramps. You can get it basically everywhere, but the version I chose is a tonic by Foria, a brand that solves period and sex probs using products made from cannabis and hemp.
The Basics Tonic is made with CBD-rich hemp extract and coconut oil (organic!) and comes in a little blue bottle with an eye-dropper for proper dosing. The packaging suggested I start with 0.5 milliliters, and the messaging on Foria's website promised the stuff wouldn't get me, you know, high. So when cramps kicked in on a Thursday morning at work, I asked a coworker if I really was just supposed to drop this stuff on my tongue, a la Alice in Wonderland, and dropped away.
It tasted, thankfully, like nothing. And, much less thankfully, it did nothing, too. I had so-bad-I'm-dizzy cramps, so maybe the full milliliter of CBD oil I eventually dropped just couldn't combat that kind of muscle tomfoolery. I had to switch to harder stuff (ibuprofen) to get through the workday. I felt a bit ~lighter~ and ~calm~, but it's hard to feel extremely zen when you're on the verge of puking from period pain. I'd consider taking this daily only for the relaxing effect.
My rating:
1.5 stars, because the bottle is so pretty but this shit didn't work for me.
New to the market in April 2016, the Livia is a teeny little thing that cures cramps via mild electricity. As Bari Kaplan, the chief medical adviser behind Livia, told Cosmopolitan earlier that year, the device is like a small version of the electrical stimulation machines typically found in doctor's and physical trainer's offices. It promotes itself as an "off switch for your menstrual cramps" and operates at a set frequency (which the creators won’t reveal) designed to penetrate and soothe muscles that cause pain. It transmits that frequency through two small sticky pads that you’re supposed to stick on your lower belly.
"It blocks any pain sensation message that’s going through the spinal cord," Kaplan says. "Everything else will continue normally, it doesn’t change the flow [of your period]."
In theory, the Livia sounded great to me. It did seem a bit impractical to attach a colorful square device to my waistband and walk around with little sticky pads on my stomach, but since I work in basically an all-female office, hiding signs of menstruation isn’t a huge concern for me. And so on day one of my period-when my cramps are at their worst-I went to the bathroom to stick the pads on my lower stomach, clipped the Livia to my jeans, and waited for that sweet, promised pain relief.
Only the relief never came. I jacked up the intensity of that little device as high as I could stand it, thinking maybe I just wasn’t going hard enough, but that didn’t help. I kept the thing on for maybe 20 minutes before ripping off the sticky pads in frustration. I felt worse than before I’d put it on-borderline nauseous. When it was on, the Livia tickled my skin on my lower abdomen, only drawing more attention to a part of my body I really was trying to forget about. I haven't touched the Livia since. I hate it. I hate it so much!
My rating:
Half a star, only because this was slightly fun to play with.
The "Bitch Massage," offered at a spa called Haven in downtown Manhattan, is designed to help treat PMS symptoms, one of which is cramps. "The idea was basically that, as women, we all have the same experience of not feeling happy with ourselves at times,” says creator Lara Katzman. And, well, yes, that’s true. But also, a $140-an-hour massage called the "bitch massage" that promotes a relaxing way to kiss PMS goodbye surely sells like hotcakes at a spa in Soho.
The Bitch technique, as Katzman says, combines a few treatment “modalities”-Katzman uses traditional massage as well as pressure points borrowed from Chinese medicine. She compares utilizing these pressure points to locating "small windows in your body" that allow external pressure to communicate with your cramping, upset insides. During my massage, I noticed she spent time rubbing my belly (a truly new experience for me) and then parts of my legs and feet, which she later explained are pressure points for abdominal pain.
The experience was lovely, as could be expected of any spa visit. I was covered by a heated blanket the whole time and felt like a warm infant. Katzman spent time on my shoulders, which felt incredible because I sit at a desk and my shoulders are pretty much always hovering directly next to my earlobes. She also pressed on parts of my face near my forehead, as well as points near my collarbone, which felt the most “soothing” to me.
It might have been the combination of being in a quiet room, lying down on a comfy table, and being covered in a blanket that felt like hot bread, but something about the Bitch Massage experience worked for me. I came in with level-four cramps; I left feeling remarkably human. I didn’t take any ibuprofen that evening, not even after I got home and rinsed off the massage oil in the shower.
My rating:
Three stars, because while this made me feel like a Fancy Pampered Lady, it's also expensive and only available in NYC.
Disclaimer: I live in New York City. While marijuana is kinda sorta decriminalized in the state of New York, it’s still not legal. This, however, did not stop me from procuring a tin of Foria’s Relief suppositories to shove up my vagina in the name of the journalistic process. I may not work for Spotlight, but I remain steadfast in my quest to uncover period cramp truths, even at the risk of a possible $100 fine.
According to a report from CNN, pain management is the most commonly prescribed use for medical marijuana in the United States. Foria's website says their little butter-encased suppository works to "directly impact the immune system and the nerve endings of the uterus, cervix, ovaries and surrounding smooth muscle tissues." Or in other words, it targets all the parts of you that hurt while you're on your period and tries to relax them.
Inside my Foria tin was a plastic row of tiny, bullet-shaped butter suppositories. They’re infused with THC, or the active chemical in weed that makes you feel high (so not actual weed, but pretty close). The instructions were simultaneously comforting and daunting, commanding me to create a relaxing environment for myself and to use Foria only after eating something (the directions didn't explain why, but maybe because I'd feel high?). So I lit a couple candles and ate a chocolate chip cookie. The packaging also warned me that the butter might, um, melt once inside my warm little body, so, you know, prepare for that reality however you want.
The best instruction, though, was the one that said I should lie down for a while and relax. After cultivating my ideal vagina-weed environment, I messaged my editor, “OK, it’s weed time,” and shoved in the suppository with the help of a tampon applicator.
The accompanying instructions told me I wouldn’t necessarily feel high. But let me tell you...I felt high. Not like, I-can’t-perform-my-job-anymore-today, but definitely things-are-funny!!!! high. I ate my cookie, followed by approximately 45 Annie’s white cheddar bunnies. And then I ordered a sandwich. But! I totally felt no pain. My cramps, which had been firing away at full blast, subsided as the weed butter melted in my vagina.
In short, I loved these little THC butter bullets. Not quite enough to move to California (I don’t trust a state with that much sunshine), but definitely enough to hoard my remaining three for days when my cramps are truly awful.
My rating:
Four stars, because I truly was in awe of this weed butter vagina experience.
As evidenced by my extreme reliance on NSAIDs, I was skeptical about acupuncture as a cramp cure. But it didn't take me long to find an acupuncturist in New York who specializes in women’s health and fertility, and book my first-ever appointment on the first day of yet another period.
As Susan Wallmeyer, my acupuncturist, explained, the process isn’t usually just a one-time visit sort of thing. With most patients who aren’t just looking for a quick fix (like I was), she develops a highly individualized treatment plan that involves more than just being poked with needles.
During the needle part of my appointment, which lasted about 30 minutes, Wallmeyer had a heat lamp pointed at my lower abdomen. This felt incredible on its own. The needles didn’t hurt at all, which is what everyone always says about acupuncture because, hey, it’s true. I had tiny needles sticking out sort of all over-most notably, in my stomach, feet, hands, and ears. When I asked, “Excuse me, but why the ear?” Wallmeyer explained that our ears are like tiny maps to the rest of our bodies, and the ear is especially effective at pain treatment in acupuncture.
Wallmeyer warned me I might not feel any relief from just a single session, and so maybe it was all psychosomatic, but I did feel better by the time I left her office. It could be that lying down in a quiet room under a heat lamp like a lizard in a tank is simply very relaxing, but my cramps were nearly gone when I stepped back out onto the loud, Midtown street. Wallmeyer offered an explanation. “While the acupuncture needles are in, we know that endorphins and enkephalins-your body’s natural painkillers-are being released,” she says. “The traditional Chinese medicine view is that acupuncture needles are unblocking any pain-producing areas of stuck energy, as well as correcting imbalances in other body systems.”
Look, I’m not so sure about “stuck energy,” but I felt what I felt. And what I felt was a relieving absence of cramps that had been plaguing me all morning that day.
My rating:
Three stars, because having needles stuck in my ear was wild but seemed to work pretty well.
Any time I’ve Googled “help please period cramps possibly death soon,” the internet tells me to slap a heating pad on my belly. And every single time, I scroll past that suggestion, roll my eyes, and laugh maniacally at the thought that the thing that might help me most is a household item that’s been around, in various iterations, for centuries. “Have you tried a heating pad?” feels the same to me as suggesting someone who’s just sliced off their finger to “put a Band-aid on it.” Like, I’m dealing with extreme cramps here-not a tummy ache from eating too many white cheddar bunnies.
I only included the humble heating pad as a courtesy to all those other internet lists that suggest it. I set out to debunk its powers, which I was sure were total bullshit. But I cannot, in good conscience, smear its good reputation. Of all the things I tried-needles in my ear, weed butter in my vagina, electrodes on my stomach-it by far was the best solution to my ceaseless cramps.
The only catch: It doesn’t work right away. Like watching the night sky to see a shooting star, if you're not patient, you might never witness the magic of the heating pad. Wait long enough, however, and true, drug-free bliss awaits you on the other side.
I found the best way to use the heating pad to “cure” my cramps was to slap that puppy on my stomach at the first sign of discomfort and then wait for it to work its wonders. My cramps were totally gone within 30 minutes and didn’t seem to come back when I took off the pad. The way it works is so simple and intuitive, I felt dumb not trusting it from the very beginning. Heat helps relax the muscles in your lower abdomen and uterus that are contracting and causing the pain we know as HORRIBLE CRAMPS. The only real downside to the device is that most of them have to be plugged in, and it’s a little awkward to sit around in public with this thing resting just above your vagina.
I feel like a true idiot for not giving the heating pad a try before all this. But now that I’ve found it, I’m much less afraid of all the period cramps I’m due to experience throughout the rest of my life. I can’t wait to sing its praises to any and all menstruating individuals. Not to sound like the entire rest of the internet and also your grandmother, but EVERYONE PLEASE JUST TRY IT. It is truly the period cramp remedy of my dreams, and it could also be the period cramp remedy of your dreams too.
My rating:
Five stars, because this was the most obvious and most effective method of them all.
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