Newsgroups: alt.folklore.herbs
From: ayermish@leland.Stanford.EDU (Aimee Yermish)
Subject: menstrual cramps
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 23:21:29 GMT

For the person whose girlfriend is having trouble with menstrual
cramps...

I haven't had that much trouble myself -- ibuprofen, lying down curled
up with a heating pad seems to do the trick.

However, all the sources I've found concur on:

Dong quai (Angelica sinensis), or its American relative Angelica
atropurpurea.  Root tea or powdered in capsules.  Only dosage info was
very high -- 2-6 grams/day.  Try starting lower (a 0 capsule holds
about half a gram) and working up if you can't get better info.

Cramp bark (Viburnum opulis), or its relatives V. prunifolium
(blackhaw) or V. nudum (possomhaw).  Bark tea or powdered in capsules.
Couldn't find any dosage on that.  Berries of Viburnum species are
poisonous, by the way.

Those are pretty specific uterine antispasmodics.  You could also use
more general antispasmodics, such as valerian and Passiflora (passion
flower), but they might put you to sleep -- not a good thing if you
have to work.  More gentle general antispasmodics, like camomile,
raspberry leaves, are perhaps more useful.

Also, one source suggested using ginger.  In an oriental sense, it
adds heat -- you can take that any way you want.  It also cuts nausea,
and that's a western-proven fact.  I've had problems with nausea when
taking herbs (especially garlic), so I use ginger liberally -- it's
cheap and it works.

Another source suggested that calcium supplementation can help, but
didn't explain why.

I haven't heard anything useful on whether teas or straight
herbs-in-capsules are better -- I know that if the tea tastes bad, I
just plain won't drink it, so I use capsules by default.  The act of
drinking tea is very relaxing to a lot of people, myself included, so
you might try that.

Good luck...

--Aimee