A critical review of complementary and alternative medicine use by women with cyclic perimenstrual pain and discomfort: a focus upon prevalence, patterns and applications of use and users' motivations, information seeking and self‐perceived efficacy

Fisher, Carole; Sibbritt, David; Hickman, Louise; Adams, Jon

doi:10.1111/aogs.12921

Cited by 21 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…We have recently read the paper by Fisher et al (1) evaluating the complementary and alternative medicine use by women with cyclic perimenstrual pain and discomfort.…”

Section: Sirmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local heat application for perimenstrual pain and related syndromes

Karaşahin

Fidan

Kinci

et al. 2016

Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand

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Sir,We have recently read the paper by Fisher et al.(1) evaluating the complementary and alternative medicine use by women with cyclic perimenstrual pain and discomfort.In their review, the authors have reported that cyclic perimenstrual pain and discomfort was widely experienced by women across cultures, and that the papers they reviewed clearly showed women used complementary and alternative medicine to treat a wide range of cyclic perimenstrual pain and discomfort.We were surprised to see that although they have mentioned almost all of the popular complementary and alternative medical approaches througout the world, such as vitamin/mineral supplements, evening primrose oil, herbal teas, acupuncture, massage, mind body therapies, yoga and meditation, they have not mentioned local heat applications as a remedy for especially cyclic perimenstrual pain.Hosono et al.(2) mentioned that warming the abdomen/ lumbar region is a well-known non-pharmacological remedy for dysmenorrhea which often has been recommended by mothers to their daughters, and hot baths and heating pads for pain relief have been used widely by teenagers, as much as 75 and 50%, respectively.Similarly, Potur and K€ om€ urc€ u (3) reported that the use of heat in different forms, for example as a hot bag, a towel or in a bottle, traditionally has been used to ease menstrual pain in many cultures, and has had a long history in common use and folklore. They concluded that local low-dose heat application would be an easy to apply noninvasive method that could be recommended to relieve menstrual pain, and since it did not require any special equipment or an expert's application in a clinical setting, would also be economic and time efficient.Newsweek magazine, in their issue of 29 April 2016 (4), shows a picture of a young woman holding a heat bag over her pelvic region for its topic on menstruation, showing the wide acceptance of the method all over the world.We believe, since the authors have already a large amount of data in their hands, that they may like to consider adding a search on the use of heat applications as a form of complementary/alternative medicine. Clearly, a large population of women all over the world are motivated to use local heat applications in many forms during their menstrual period.On the other hand, they might have deliberately omitted to include heat applications for perimenstrual pain, in which case it would have been informative for readers if they had mentioned their reasons in their manuscript. References 1. Fisher C, Sibbritt D, Hickman L, Adams J. A critical review of complementary and alternative medicine use by women with cyclic perimenstrual pain and discomfort: a focus upon prevalence, patterns and applications of use and users' motivations, information seeking and selfperceived efficacy. Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand. 2016;95:861-71. 2. Hosono T, Takashima Y, Morita Y, Nishimura Y, Sugita Y, Isami C, et al. Effects of a heat-and steam-generating sheet on relieving symptoms of primary dysmenorrhea in young women. J Obst...

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“…We have recently read the paper by Fisher et al (1) evaluating the complementary and alternative medicine use by women with cyclic perimenstrual pain and discomfort.…”

Section: Sirmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local heat application for perimenstrual pain and related syndromes

Karaşahin

Fidan

Kinci

et al. 2016

Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand

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“…20 There is emerging evidence of the use of naturopathy in the management of acute and chronic diseases, 3 including female reproductive conditions such as pregnancy, 21 menopause, 22 and polycystic ovarian syndrome. 23 While recent evidence suggests that naturopathy is used by women with these and other reproductive conditions, 7,16,24 there is limited evidence on the naturopathic treatments used in clinical practice. Identifying the level of engagement from traditional and contemporary evidence in practice is important to understand current naturopathic practice and to provide a foundational base for assessing naturopathic treatment ef-fectiveness and safety.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Naturopathic Medicine for the Management of Endometriosis, Dysmenorrhea, and Menorrhagia: A Content Analysis

Reid

Steel

Wardle

et al. 2019

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine

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Objectives: To explore the recommendations of naturopathic medicine for the management of endometriosis, dysmenorrhea, and menorrhagia, drawing on traditional and contemporary sources. Design: Content analysis. Setting: Australia, Canada, and the United States of America (USA). Subjects: Contemporary sources were identified from reviewing naturopathic higher education institutions' recommended texts, while traditional sources were identified from libraries which hold collections of naturopathic sources. Sources were included if they were published from 1800 to 2016, were in English, published in Australia, Canada, or the USA, and reported on the topic. Included sources were as follows: 37 traditional texts; 47 contemporary texts; and 83 articles from naturopathic periodicals. Results: Across included sources, the most reported disciplines were herbal medicine, clinical nutrition, mineral medicines, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, and chemical-based medicines. Herbal medicines were extensively reported from all sources for the management of endometriosis, dysmenorrhea, and menorrhagia. Clinical nutrition was only recommended from contemporary sources for all three conditions. Mineral medicines were mentioned in both traditional and contemporary sources, but were only recommended for dysmenorrhea and menorrhagia. There were limited recommendations for homeopathy and hydrotherapy treatments in all conditions across all sources. Chemical-based medicines were only mentioned for dysmenorrhea and menorrhagia, and recommendations ceased after 1922. Recommendations for endometriosis were not present in any of the traditional sources, across all reported disciplines. Conclusions: The findings of this article provide insights into the documented historical and contemporary treatments within naturopathic medicine for endometriosis, dysmenorrhea, and menorrhagia. While philosophical principles remain the core of naturopathic practice, the therapeutic armamentarium appears to have changed over time, and a number of the original naturopathic treatments appear to have been retained as key elements of treatment for these conditions. Such insights into naturopathic treatments will be of particular interest to clinicians providing care to women, educators designing and delivering naturopathic training, and researchers conducting clinical and health service naturopathic research.

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“…Cyclic premenstrual pain and discomfort (CPDD) which causes symptoms that recur in the premenstrual or luteal phase of the premenstrual cycle is called premenstrual syndrome (PMS) 1 . It has emerged as a twentieth century phenomenon 2 ; many women are punctuated with distressing premenstrual symptoms that can disrupt their quality of life and relationships It has been calculated that affected women experience almost 3000 days of severe symptoms during the reproductive years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The management of Premenstrual syndrome: A review

Malik¹,

Bhat

2018

Bangladesh J Med Sci

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Premenstrual Syndrome is a set of physical, emotional and behavioural symptoms that start during the week preceding menstruation and are alleviated when the menstrual flow begins. Epidemiological surveys have estimated that the frequency of PMS symptoms is about 80-90% with impairment of functioning. Women with severe PMS should be managed by a multi disciplinary team, which might comprise a hospital or community gynaecologist, psychiatrist or psychologist, dietician and counselor. Where there is multidisciplinary provision of care, this is of benefit both from the diagnostic and therapeutic point of view, giving the ability to offer a broad range of interventions from lifestyle interventions and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to gynaecological interventions.

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A critical review of complementary and alternative medicine use by women with cyclic perimenstrual pain and discomfort: a focus upon prevalence, patterns and applications of use and users' motivations, information seeking and self‐perceived efficacy

Cited by 21 publications

References 55 publications

Local heat application for perimenstrual pain and related syndromes

Local heat application for perimenstrual pain and related syndromes

Naturopathic Medicine for the Management of Endometriosis, Dysmenorrhea, and Menorrhagia: A Content Analysis

The management of Premenstrual syndrome: A review

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