Triphala and PMS Symptoms

I got cramps this afternoon. And even though the triphala I took this morning seemed to help, I was a bit weary of taking too much, so I refrained from my second dose for a while.

Well, I got really bad menstrual cramps. And part of it might have been due to the raw chocolate syrup I had earlier. Because, as medicinal as I'd read it was, caffeine still seems to be bad for PMS symptoms.

And because I didn't know how Motrin would react with it, I tried to stay off that too, even though past experiences had told me that taking 2 dosages of Motrin on the first day could help me stay cramp-free the rest of the week.

So I got out my collection of herbs and tried them one at a time. Evening primrose oil. Milk thistle. Vitex. Flax seed oil. Honey. Cinnamon. Hot water. Nothing seemed to be helping and my cramps seemed to only be getting worse.

So then I tried some cranberry/raspberry juice. I'd had some this morning on impulse, and I'd read that raspberry was actually a good reliever of cramps.

It did seem to work a little bit, but not that much.

So I decided since I tried everything, I'd take my second dosage of triphala.

And actually, it's working quite well. I still have a minor pang of cramps (which might just indicate that I need to eat something), but they are 90% better than where they were before. (And by "eat something," I just mean a light dish of whole grain toast spread with ordinary Kraft peanut butter and Wildflower honey. It tastes delicious and the honey really does seem to help relieve the rest of my cramps.)

Thinking on this, I noticed that Gillian McKeith recommends hefty doses of Vitamin A as one of the things to remedy PMS symptoms in her "You Are What You Eat" book. So it does make sense that Triphala helps me with it, seeing as its specialized mixture of 3 Indian fruits has a high content of Vitamin A.

I am soo glad it worked. I was starting to think I wouldn't have to buy another bottle, thinking just being vegetarian would carry me through. But on days like today, I am really thankful to have it. I think I will always want to keep a bottle of it in my medicine cabinet, just like they do in India.