New treatment for menstrual pain

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 14

New treatment for menstrual pain

NZPA-AP Atlanta The painful menstrual cramps suffered by perhaps half of all women particularly in their tccn-agc years and twenties can be remedied by several common anti-arthritis drugs, scientists have found.

The discovery is bringing a small revolution in the way doctors treat menstrual pain, which was once dismissed as mostly psychosomatic. Dr W. Y.'Chan. of Cornell University Medical College in New York, said recently.

Dysmenorrhea, or painful menstruation, afflicts an estimated 50 per cent of women at one time or another. It is especially common in women who are young, or childless. “If you talk to some of the patients, they describe the pain as almost like labour.” Dr Chan told a news conference here.

In the past, most women who suffered dysmenorrhea did not seek treatment because word had been passed down from mother and grandmother that there was not much doctors could do for it.

“Now we know dysmenorrhea has a physical cause and we can proceed to treatment,” he said. Dr Chan and Andrea Powell, of Cornell, as well as other researchers, have found that medicines of a class known as “non-steroi-dal anti-inflammatory” drugs are extremely effective treatment.

The drugs were developed to treat arthritis by inhibiting the body’s production of hormone-like chemicals known as prostaglandins, which are involved in inflammation, pain, fever, and labour.