What do period cramps feel like?
- Someone tying a knot in the muscles at the bottom of your stomach and kicking your lower back at the same time :)
- I once described it as a severe upset stomach/stomach big, where you get huge cramps before going to the toilet and the pain often goes once you have been. Except going to the toilet doesn't stop the period pain or give a single bit of relief. And the pain is much worse.
- Like you're about to have diarrhoea, but constantly.
- Low dull aching pain, wrenching, like something is coming apart inside.
- A very intense stomach pain.
- A tight, deep feeling that can sometimes bring nausea, dizziness, headaches and muscle fatigue but in their own right are often painful. - - Like someone standing on your toes with increasing weight and pressure until you can’t ignore it anymore.
- Like someone has put hot coals in my ovaries and cervix and my flesh is just smouldering away.
- Like someone is constantly punching or electrocuting you.
- For me, it’s like being stabbed from the inside or waves of tightness in my lower body.
- Twisting muscle, constant ache, worse pain level than a stomach ache – like an overworked muscle.
- Depends – sometimes it’s just a dull ache in my lower back, like it needs to be cracked but no amount of twisting or stretching helps. And other times it’s a deep, strong pain right in the lower gut, and only curling up in a ball can make it dissipate ever so slightly. It’s comparable to when you have cramps from food poisoning while you’re sitting on the loo.
- Like someone is wringing out your insides.
- A bad stomach ache, maybe.
- AGONY recently.
- Awful.
- The closest thing is when you have diarrhoea and you get that stabbing, twisting pain in your stomach. They come in waves often, sometimes they're so bad you have to stop what you're doing and double over, it's hard to concentrate on anything else.
- Like my insides are being wrung out like a wet towel.
- A very strange unique kind of dull pain.
- A dagger being rotated inside me.
- I don't get them.
- Sometimes the pain radiates through the back all the way down to legs. Sharp pain through your vagina, pain through your anus. That pain can make you nauseous, sweaty. You don't want to be on a train or bus commuting when that kicks in, but most of the time we have no choice. I had to lie down on the floor on a busy train until someone realised I was in agony and offered a seat. I couldn't even move by then, my lips were blue, my skin pale. I managed to get off at the next stop and after about 15 minutes on a bench, I started to feel like I could keep going again.
- A long, dull ache with occasional sharp, shooting pains.
- Like when you have food poisoning cramps.
- It varies, mostly sharp, tight pressure in the lower abdomen, like your insides are being squeezed very tight. Sometimes sharp stabbing sensation on the left or right hand side (I'm guessing ovaries).
- I always imagine hands on the inside of my uterus clawing – trying to get out.
- As if you’ve done a massive abs workout, or someone bigger than you punched you in the gut.
- Feels like someone is burrowing out the insides of your uterus.
- Depends, sometimes sharp pain radiating from your belly through to your knees, other times like someone is grabbing one of your muscles and pulling on it or punching it. Sometimes a dull ache, sometimes a flutter of discomfort.
- Unpleasant, but not awful or completely unbearable for me.
- Like your kidneys are malfunctioning at the same time as someone tries to pull your uterus out of your body.
- Like waves of pain (not too dissimilar to cramp in your foot for example, but the pain is usually less concentrated) that come and go in intensity. However, I want to stress that for me personally it is the nausea (and vomiting) that have always been much harder to deal with than cramps.
- Like you are seriously ill – the worst headache you ever had plus Covid tiredness symptoms.
- It hurts to move your body.
- Hideous. It’s hard to pinpoint as it courses throughout my whole body and kind of takes your breath away as it waves around. Cramps are like a red hot poker stabbing at your uterus from different angles and from different points of your body (like through your spine, bum, vagina, heart).
- A really intense and full ache in my stomach or back.
- Like a blender in your lower torso.
- Your worst case scenario of a tummy bug. General deep tummy ache followed by spasms of intense pain that mean this is all you can focus on.
- Horrible. They can vary, at worst I would say like a sharp knife gouging, a burn and severe cramp and a punch all at the same time I also get pain down my legs and across my back too. Hard to fully describe, it’s quite a unique kind of pain.
- Achey.
- Like someone is squeezing and pulling your uterus.
- Sometimes like stabbing or shooting, other times like a deep, hot spreading pain that you can’t pinpoint.
- If you've ever had a random painful muscle spasm, sometimes called a cramp or charley horse, it’s like that but deep in your pelvis. And at the same time you might feel bloated to the point of pain, like if you absolutely stuffed yourself with food and had a lot of gas building up. Also you could feel faint or nauseous too.
- Like there are tiny people in my lower abdomen punching from the inside out – delightful.
- Consistent pain on your lower back – can vary person-to-person.
- Terrible, painful and intense. It's like being squeezed or pinched from the inside. It's a pain unlike any other. They are like contractions but less. Maybe it's like when a man's testicles get squeezed hard, but then from the inside?
- Childbirth contractions. The pain sometimes is so much I cry.
- Taser, stabs, or like being super swollen, if that makes sense to people with allergies.
- Imagine someone attached a thread to your pelvic floor and pulled upwards slowly and continuously.
- HELL ON EARTH! It's quite difficult to explain – it feels like you have an extreme weight in your abdomen, like a consistent throbbing. This can also migrate to your back and thighs which makes everything extremely uncomfortable. Sometimes, when the pain goes away for a few seconds, you literally feel euphoric and you have a breathing moment to realise how much pain you're actually in.
- Bad cramps are like an agonising pain in your stomach that can spread down your legs and up your back! It feels like you need to curl up into a specific position and not move.
- A bit like cramps can feel when you need a poo, a dragging heaviness in the muscles in your pelvis.
- Someone is squeezing and wringing your insides.
- So hard to describe. Awful, just awful.
- Deep pain in my stomach and back. It’s real pain though. I think it’s one of the most painful things I’ve experienced. Surgery on my hip was far, far less painful.
- I either get shooting pains in my anus which are AWFUL, or my legs will feel like they’re disconnected from my body, my vagina will feel particularly sensitive, and I’ll feel like all of my organs are being crudely rearranged. Sometimes headaches too.
- A painful muscle cramp, mine can spread to the lower back but not alway and can also sometimes be a mild cramp.
- Being sat on while you hold in a resistant fart, but in the front.
- For me, it’s a slight tearing feeling but I don’t think they are strong enough to qualify as cramps.
- Mine can be breathtakingly painful, starting with a sharp-ish pain in one side, and ending up with an intense, dull ache across my tummy.
- Someone twisting a knife in your guts :•)