Getting flu leave alone having period is something many women don’t like. A period flu can make you very uncomfortable and feeling sick. It is likely that many women have had period flu but they don’t know what it was. You could be used to having menstrual cramps, headaches, and mood swings that often accompany a period, but the period flu is something more discomforting. It isn’t the typical flu, it presents with flu-like symptoms such as chills, weakness, feeling tired than usual, nausea, muscle aches, and vomiting. If you have been experiencing these kinds of symptoms and feelings when you are about to get your period, you need to understand what period flu is and how you can manage it.
What Causes Flu like symptoms Before Period
If you are asking what exactly period flu is, then you may want to know that it is not the influenza that people pass around, it is something that occurs because of how the body behaves in time of period. According to the feminine hygiene products brand UbyKotex, those flu-like symptoms that women get before their period are associated with their body and the way a group of lipids known as prostaglandins are released prior to having period. The time before period is the time before a woman’s uterine lining dislodges from the uterus wall that sheds in form of period.
According to Dr. Nieca Goldberg who is the medical director serving at the NYU Langone Medical Center’s Joan H. Tisch Center for Women’s Health, hormonal changes occurring before a woman has her period may cause various symptoms that range from abdominal cramping, fatigue, bloating, back pains as well as other aches.
Dr. Goldberg says that these symptoms could be due to changes in hormones that happen around this time for example, lower estrogen levels. Estrogen levels decline during the week preceding a woman’s period. During this time, there are knock-off impacts on other hormones, for example the ones that regulate a woman’s sleep. So, it is likely that a woman will have sleep deprivation and fatigue.
Dr. Molly O’Shea, an award winning pediatrician and founder of Birmingham Pediatrics and Wellness Center gives her point of view concerning this flu-like symptoms in times of period. Molly says the culprit may be prostaglandins. She explains that prostaglandins can bring about intestinal cramps, nausea, diarrhea, feeling like you’re being flushed, vomiting, and general achiness. Prostaglandins also impact the temperature of an individual, so they may be responsible for those flu-like fluctuations from chilly to warm. The temperature fluctuations can make a woman feel like they have fever. The good thing with period flu is that is much easier to treat when compared to the real flu.
Prostaglandins and Period Flu
When the premenstrual syndrome symptoms become worse, it may feel as though one is actually sick. Prostaglandins are produced before having a period to start the process of dislodging the lining of the uterine from the uterus wall so that a woman has period flow. When prostaglandins work locally on the uterus, a woman would only have symptoms like cramps. However, when the hormones find that way into the woman’s bloodstream and other structures nearby for example, the intestines, they can cause trouble there. Prostaglandins can result in symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and intestinal cramps or even general achiness.
How to Treat Period Flu
Although period flu and influenza may have overlapping symptoms, they aren’t same thing. Sometimes it could be the real flu, so a woman needs to rule out that. Timing is very important when you want to determine whether it is a case of period flu or real flu. If it’s your first time to experience this, and Aunt Flo is about to come, then you want to be careful because it may not be period flu. However, if a woman tracks her cycle and she experiences the flu-like symptoms on days before her period, it is most likely that it’s period flu, as Siena Dixon, founder BootsyChuchu explains.
To treat the flu-like symptoms and ensure that prostaglandins don’t do you the dirt, you can take ibuprofen about three times in a day for a couple of days before you have your period. Remember that taking ibuprofen won’t stop the period, but it is going to soften the cramping and other symptoms that feel like flu.
If the symptoms persist for several days, you want to visit a physician for examination. If it’s during the season when influenza tends to hit many people, you want to watch your symptoms and listen to the body and get medical attention in case you suspect that you could have contracted flu.
If you are experiencing miserable periods, it is crucial that you speak to a doctor to find long terms ways that can help you feel better, for example, having birth control measures that alleviate the symptoms.
