Cousin red, bloody buddy, shark week, *insert a long list of other funny menstruation codes*--they all just mean one thing—your period has come. The thought of it just makes every woman roll their eyes 360 degrees because they know that it would again be a struggling week of perpetuating hormones.
Along with the monthly visitor, it comes with a luggage that women despise—PMS.
What is PMS?
Experiencing Pre-menstrual Syndrome or PMS is a tough situation during a menstrual period wherein a wide variety of symptoms from headaches, mood swings, to severe cramps are affecting women for a couple days.
- Swelling/tenderness of the breast
- Constipation/diarrhea
- Low sex drive
There are other symptoms that could manifest. However, the severity and the exact symptoms vary from one woman and factor to another. Nonetheless, no woman wants to experience the discomfort that PMS brings every month.
It is one of the conditions when women get to tell to themselves that womanhood is hard and they would wish that they could spare themselves from experiencing these symptoms by not being female. On the contrary, looking at the bright side, womanhood doesn't seem to be that complicated as far as having a menstrual period is concerned. Thank goodness to research—it discovered that cannabis, to some extent, can manage the symptoms of PMS such as mood swings, menstrual cramps, and headache.
How Cannabis Stabilizes Mood?
During menstrual periods, women tend to become more irritable or crankier. They usually feel like crying or stressed out without any reason at all. One would just be surprised how women suddenly shift to an elated mood in the next couple of hours. Mood swings are only due to hormone imbalances working inside the body. Menstruation causes levels of estrogen to go high and low at varying short periods of time. Because mood swings can be as discomforting as pain, ways on how to stabilize mood have been explored. Fortunately, research shows that THC in cannabis has mood-stabilizing effects by binding to a specific receptor in the brain.
How Does Cannabis Relieve Pain?
Among the symptoms mentioned, the most debilitating is the severe menstrual cramps that cause intolerable pain. Luckily, research claims that women can now say goodbye to menstrual cramps through the help of cannabis’ pain-relieving effects.
Ethan Russo, who has done research on medical properties of marijuana, published a study in British Journal of Pharmacology which revealed that cannabis can act as a muscle relaxant. Thereby, it calms down muscles that cannot seem to relax during periods.
You could try this by applying a topical solution that contains THC to your lower abdomen. If you want, you could also consider vaping or infusing it to a food. Apart from the pain-relieving effects, expect also the psychoactive effects that come with it. If you want to skip the part where you get to feel high, you might want to take small doses of THC or CBD-rich strains as alternatives. Though the latter may help, THC still is a better painkiller.
There are things that only women could experience. Unfortunately, not all of those are something they would thank for. So whenever your monthly visitor comes to strike another week of pain, discomfort, and mood swings, cannabis is your handy dandy remedy to ease PMS. Cannabis won’t allow PMS to get over you; instead, it would help you get over PMS.