Because I wanna whine about it.

[agoodwinsmith]

Cut for the squeamish because it's

da da da dahhhhhhhh!

Is this inside the cut?  Hola, it appears to be inside the cut.  I started menstruating when I was 12, and my Grandmother called it The Curse.  Capital letters important.  Male medical advice still said that cramps were not possible because there were no nerve endings in the uterus, so all of us who felt them were psychosomatic hysterics.  Yay.  God, they were/are horrible.  Truly the pain is in waves from knees to cheeks (face cheeks), and the general internal sensation is that any sudden movement, such as a sneeze, will cause everything inside from the esophogus down to fall out in a big squishy sploosh, and the nausea is complicated by changing the taste of everything so that tea is the vilest thing you've ever tasted in your life.  Aspirin has never worked on me for anything, and the only relief was heat applied directly to the small of the back.  Relief isn't what I would call it, but it was better than nothing.  I was thirty, and taking muscle relaxants for occasional knee pain, when my by-then female doctor told me the same pills could be used to relieve cramps.  My god - she was right.  It was like a light switch - take the pills, feel no pain.  Wow.  So, I was a little steamed then that I hadn't been told about this until I was 30, but at least I'd been told.  Well, now I am 54, and I've been able to buy ibuprophen over the counter for years, and have stifled menstral cramps as soon as they appear and for as long as they last (when the ibuprophen wears off, there they are, just waiting).  Every now and then I think it can't be as bad as I remember it, and I am late in consuming the ibuprophen.  Argh.  If I miss that early window, like yesterday, it can be a couple of hours before it settles down.  I'm here to tell you, they haven't gotten any milder or any more phantom.  And didn't somebody promise me menopause by now? Eh eh eh?  Sheesh.   Is this still inside the cut?