The medical term for painful periods is dysmenorrhea. Primary dysmenorrhea is caused by womb muscle contractions, while secondary dysmenorrhea refers to pain caused by underlying conditions, such as fibroids or polyps, with severe pain often indicating chronic conditions like endometriosis. According to a YouGov survey, women who regularly suffer period pain on a level that affects their ability to work rated the pain of a typical period 6.2 on the 10-point pain scale. The worst period pain for those surveyed averaged 7.9, and wasdescribed as “edging into ‘intense’, or a pain that’s so severe that it’s hard to think about anything else, and talking and listening become difficult”. (Though, the pain estimation method itself has been criticized for gender biases.)
