what do you do to relieve cramps?

ILOVECHOCOLATEFOREVER

I kind of feel like a badass today because usually I 1.) *** 2.) walk/roll/lay around holding my stomach/back 3.) cry while holding onto my heating pad like it is my 1st child. BUT TODAY. I am going to work out and karate chop my cramps in the face YES. So, what helps you?

louloudi87

Exercise. Or at the very least doing something active. 

Oh and I drink water. 

HoneyBee973

Drinking plenty of water and try to do something active.  

PremierMot

have an orgasm

scottydont

I have to catch them when they're first starting, like hours before my actual period starts.  I'll take two Pamprin.  If I wake up to my period starting and take two Pamprin, it's absolutely worthless for at least at hour and I'm dying.  I've cried in the shower, I've rocked back and forth hunched over on the floor, etc.  They've only gotten this bad in the last couple of years.

Mamasaurus

My doctor gave me an RX for really strong ibuprofen. That's good if you can get it. Before I was on hormonal BC (and every once in a while even while taking it), they were often debilitating and would make my back muscles spasm, so the oft-heard advice to "just go for a walk" was not going to work for me. Hot water bottle, epsom salt bath to relax the muscles, and good hydration/nutrition would often help enough for me to not be hobbling.

I hope you feel better soon.

tiki_life

Lots of Advil. Being on birth control pills also nixed the awful wanted-to-die cramps for me.

RobotLegs

IEATALOTOFCHOCOLATE

DCAnnie

omg, there is no way i could be active during some of my cramps. movement does not help. i got out of the bed to go pee the other night and swore to my h that i was about to have a baby. or that knives were about to come tearing out of my abdomen. 

i have a heating pad that helps and h will sometimes score me some rx pain meds. i lay flat on my back on the bed w/ heating pad over my abdomen and put pressure on the area.  

annieu613

If I have to be at work then I take ibuprofen and drink lots of water. 

NatSnow

Heating pad, ibuprofen, water

cbwm

So, I get cramps akin to contractions (not exaggerating) every few months. I do a combo of Advil, a Vicodin, and the heating pad as hot as I can stand it. And I don't move when they're at their worst. I just lay super still and almost meditate a bit/focus on breathing. Unless, of course, they're SO bad that I writhe around in pain. Which has happened more than once. lol

ricksang

I have to take a lortab. Sometime running helps.

EB777888

PremierMot:

have an orgasm

me too.

it's the all natural pain reliever. 

Tambcat

Advil.

When I used to get them really bad, all I could do was hold my stomach and rock on the floor of the bathroom in between puking and pooping. Once I tried "gently massaging the lower abdomen" as suggested by teen magazine and nearly projectile vomited all over the bathroom.

Sometimes warm baths helped.

srgw

Tylenol

Heating pad

Chocolate

Debating whether or not ripping my uterus out would be less painful than the cramps themselves.

Some months my cramps on practically nonexistent and other months I want to curl up in a ball and die. I never know what to expect.

I've heard that eating/drinking dairy help but they don't really help me.

sonrisa

Mild opiates and caffeine.

sonrisa

EB777888:

PremierMot:

have an orgasm

me too.

it's the all natural pain reliever. 

Or it makes things *much* worse. 

PixieChinchilla

Tylenol (it's my cure-all), heating packs, and warm baths.

Moving around and/or sex make mine worse, so I just curl up on the couch or hobble through work until they pass. And take a lot of Tylenol.

LeahMelanieNJ

I always liked those sticky heating pads that you can buy at the drugstore -Thermacare, I think they're called. That and a regular heating pad at night. Also 800mg ibuprofen every 4 hours.

 

 

EB777888

sonrisa:

EB777888:

PremierMot:

have an orgasm

me too.

it's the all natural pain reliever. 

Or it makes things *much* worse. 

Really? That sucks. It always works for me. 

cndycne2005

I envy the ladies who can simply treat their cramps with water and activity.  If only it were that easy for me.  There is nothing else I can do except catch them when I first start to feel them and then karate-chop them with full-strengh ibuprofen.  I have debilitating cramps. If I don't knock them out when I first feel them, then pain-killers do practically nothing. Heat pads help a *bit*, and normally I don't like taking drugs for anything but those are the only times where I absolutey don't care.