Agony FROM THE Monthly Curse NOBODY Talks About
Agony of the regular curse nobody talks about: Never mind PMT. Like most women, Once a month Sandra Hastings encounters uncomfortable tummy pain. She gets is and irritable quick to anger, leaving her family in no doubt it’s time to be careful around Mum again. Yet Sandra, 39, doesn’t have PMT: instead she suffers an acute agony during ovulation. The mystical and agonising condition, called Mittelschmerz by doctors, affects around one in five women and can leave sufferers incapacitated. The severe symptoms have a profound influence on their relationships and working lives also, with some women reporting personality changes alongside the pain. Despite being relatively common, ovulation pain is little known.
And, intriguingly for a medical phenomenon that blights the entire lives of women all around the globe, the cause is not found. Sandra, who lives in Newcastle with her partner James, 44, and children Hannah, 11, and Matthew, ten, says: ‘My family bear the brunt. That’s because it’s so painful, I’ve a much lower tolerance level, towards my children particularly.
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Share ‘I also find myself snapping at James for reasons uknown and, bizarrely, I have to clean the homely house much more. I don’t know if that’s because I’m less tolerant, but throughout a bout I’m always picking things up and putting them away. ‘I know I’m being irrational but I just can’t make it. Ovulation pain usually continues for up to 48 hours and, although it’s not yet determined why some women have it while others don’t, experts believe it may be to genetics down.
One theory is that during ovulation, the ovarian wall ruptures, leading to bruising. Bini Ajay, specialist gynaecologist and obstetrician at St Anthony’s Hospital, Surrey, says: ‘The name Mittelschmerz comes from the German term for “middle pain” this means pain occurring in the middle of the month. day of the routine ‘It differs from period pain for the reason that it usually occurs on the 14th, rather than through the times of bleeding. Around 20 per cent of women – or one in five – can have ovulation pain, which may appear regularly every month or intermittently.
‘Some experts believe the condition may be credited to discomfort of the stomach lining at the time of ovulation, by bloodstream or other fluid that is released from the ruptured egg follicle. A lot of women suffer for a long time without a analysis, and the condition is often recognised incorrectly as appendicitis – as Sandra uncovered when she first experienced ovulation pain at the age of ten and was rushed to medical center.
‘Two weeks earlier I’d got my first period, and I woke up in the night with a razor-sharp stabbing sensation in my aspect,’ she says. ‘Mum required me straight to medical center, where I had a raft of lab tests and the doctors prepped me for surgery to remove my appendix. But within the entire hour the pain had opted so the surgery was terminated. ‘They experienced no basic idea what had happened.
I had bloodstream tests and inner exams. There have been all sorts of diagnoses, from tummy ulcers to bowel spasms. In common with other sufferers, Sandra agrees the pain is worse than normal menstrual cramps significantly. ‘It’s as though someone has taken the tip of the hot knife and poked it into my side,’ she says.
‘The longest it’s ever lasted is about an hour. ‘It’s usually on my right-hand aspect – which is most likely why it was recognised incorrectly as appendicitis – but it could be on both edges. ‘The strength is breathtaking. I’ll have to avoid what I’m doing and flex over Often, securing to a desk or seat, and I’ll press my fingertips in to the pain to ease it. Sandra, who works together with people who have dementia, says: ‘Doctors explained it was something I would need to get used to.