Can Vitamin C Induce Your Period or Reduce Menstrual Cramps?

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to control your menstrual period? While this is not entirely realistic, there are certain vitamins we can take to change our menstrual cycles and the way we experience them.

Every month many women face painful symptoms of their menstrual periods that make their daily lives difficult and uncomfortable. These clinical signs and symptoms may range from backaches to fatigue; these symptoms may lead to depression and painful menstrual cramps.

Maybe you have special plans coming up and don’t want your period ruining it, or maybe you need to find a way to lessen those excruciating menstrual cramps that happen every month. Some women experience irregular cycles and want an option to control when their period comes. Other women suffer from debilitating menstrual cramps that can make daily activities a struggle.

Vitamin C is a vitamin commonly known for boosting our immune systems and helping to prevent us from getting sick. But Vitamin C has many other benefits in improving our health, including many benefits for our menstrual cycle.

What are menstrual cramps

In medical terminology, menstrual cramps are known as dysmenorrhea. Menstruation is a natural process happens to women every month who are medically fit and not pregnant during that month. This condition may be painful for some females however it is quite normal that other women do not feel any pain or discomfort.

Types of menstrual cramps

Menstrual cramps or dysmenorrhea has two major categories.

Primary dysmenorrhea

Primary dysmenorrhea is that type of menstrual pain that arises from the lower abdominal region before or during the start of menstruation cycle. Primary dysmenorrhea is the menstrual cramps that occur in the absence of any other female reproductive health disease such as endometriosis.

Secondary dysmenorrhea

Secondary dysmenorrhea is the advanced form of primary dysmenorrhea. The physician uses this term after diagnosing the disorder in the reproductive organ which is causing severe menstrual cramps. Secondary dysmenorrhea is common in females who had regular periods, but later on, menstrual cramps started due to reproductive problems. Such as endometriosis or uterine fibroids.

Causes of menstrual cramps

There are various possible causes of menstrual cramps. Some women at more risk of experiencing menstrual cramps depending upon different risk factors which are given below:

• Female with age below than 20 years
• The family history of painful menstruation
• Smoking and alcohol consumption
• Hormonal imbalance or irregularity in periods
• Reaching puberty very early (below 11 years)

Mechanism of Action

Vitamin C works as a mild anti-inflammatory agent which is very useful in reducing menstrual pain. The mode of action is that vitamin C can relieve the menstrual cramps by regulating hormones and prostaglandins their levels are elevated during the periods.

The health care professionals and dietitians recommend a dose of vitamin C from 500 mg to 1000 mg to relieve menstrual cramps depending upon the condition of the patient.

Inducing Your Period

For most women, their menstrual periods are regulated to come every month, surrounding a 28-day cycle on average. Some women deal with irregular periods that cause the onset of the side effects at random, making it difficult to gain control over their menstrual cycles.

Maybe you have an event coming up around the time your period is scheduled to arrive. You don’t want the woes of your menstrual cycle to ruin it, so you try to induce your period to get it over with beforehand.

Vitamin C can be used, in fact, to induce menstruation. This is because higher doses of Vitamin C can reduce the amount of progesterone in the uterus. This allows the endometrial lining to shed, and helps relax the cervix in order to expel the menstrual materials out of the body.

The production of progesterone is also needed for fetus development. Vitamin C naturally increases your estrogen levels, which increases uterine contractions and the growth of the uterine lining.

You can also use Vitamin C to regulate your cycle as well.

There are different ways you can take Vitamin C to induce your period. Parsley tea, cranberry juice, guava, citrus fruits, Vitamin C-rich vegetables, and animal livers all contain high concentrations of Vitamin C. Parsley is thought to be the most effective way for inducing a period, and you can drink it as tea two to three times a day. You can incorporate these home remedies into your daily diet to hopefully gain some control over your period. You can also take Vitamin C supplements to add the vitamin to your diet if you’re not getting it naturally.

Consuming higher doses of Vitamin C can cause your period to come within two to three days if done effectively.

Reducing Menstrual Cramps

Unpleasant side effects come along with our menstrual periods. Among the bloating, back pain, headaches, and mood swings, we experience painful menstrual cramps that can be debilitating and severe.

Pre-menstrual syndrome can cause menstrual cramps to occur right before you get your period, and the symptoms can persist while you are on your period as well. Most people take Advil or Midol to help reduce the pain, but sometimes menstrual cramps can be too excruciating to be remedied by pain medication. In this case, Vitamin C is a natural remedy for reducing your pain.

Vitamin C is often used to relieve these menstrual pains. The vitamin works as a mild anti-inflammatory that can reduce the severity of menstrual cramps when taken regularly. Menstrual cramps occur when the production of prostaglandins increase, causing severe uterine contractions and resulting in those pesky pains.

Vitamin C helps reduce the intensity of these cramps by regulating the hormones and prostaglandins that increase during the menstrual cycle. The vitamin can also reduce the other symptoms of your period, such as breast tenderness and swelling, excess fatigue, and other side effects.

Vitamin C can also reduce heavy bleeding.

You can get a healthy intake of Vitamin C by eating Vitamin C-rich foods, such as papaya, citrus fruits, and vegetables such as kale, broccoli and bell peppers.
While Vitamin C promotes your body’s health, there are some side effects to an increased intake of the vitamin. High doses of Vitamin C can cause severe diarrhea and kidney stones, along with fatigue and nausea.

Drinking lots of water and pure cranberry juice can help prevent these side effects. Before taking large doses of Vitamin C, it is important to check with your doctor to make sure there is no reason you shouldn’t take it.

References:

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