Cramps Demystified

[sunnysusan12.livejournal.com]

I posted this earlier this month to my personal journal and thought I'd share here. (So yeah, it's cross-posted to my personal journal.)

Cramps. They suck. We all know this, even those of you who are womb-impaired know this. But what /is/ all the fuss about? I present the following for all those of you of the male gender in the crowd and submit for comment and/or addition from the females in the crowd who wish to add their own torturous details.

Imagine yourself sitting serenely in an easy chair. Life is good. You have a friend over and you've popped your favorite movie in, which he/she has never seen before. You're both enjoying a special beverage and some nummy treats of your choosing.

As the movie progresses, imagine yourself more and more acutely aware of each of the fat molecules in your abdomen and perhaps even along your lower back. (For those of you who are of the buff or super-slender variety, muscle cells will have to do.) These molecules/cells seem to be puffing up of their own accord, each one growing fuller and fuller until they ache almost to the point of bursting.

Now granted, this phenomenon in and of itself would be enough to cause only minor discomfort...and a strange sensation to boot. But this is certainly something you could live with. Perhaps a pill would dispell it. But this is not the end of your journey, oh no.

As your movie reaches it midpoint, you begin to feel little achy twinges all along these molecules/cells, like some malicious vandal had come along and strung tiny barbed wire all around each of them, just tight enough that the barbed ends squeezed inward and pained the already-to-bursting aching cells inside you.

Okay, so this is becoming unpleasant...and thoughts of getting up to take a pill are in your mind, but as it happens you have your friend over who has never seen this flick and it is, after all at your favorite spot - perhaps the discomfort will pass...

Now imagine as your movie is winding down, the sensation that some sadistic twit has come along and somehow managed to slip a steel rod down your spine, woven through the various strands of barbed wire that pass around your abdomen and with some maniacal glee is apparently turning the rod from side to side - sometimes more, sometimes less violently, so that the edges of those tiny barbed wire dig into all those molecules/cells around your lower torso.

You're just at the moment of conflict and resolution you've been waiting for - the climax of the movie you've wanted to share with your friend so much but, just before it happens, that malicious pixie - the vandal betraying your body - wrenches that steel rod, turning it as if trying to burst all those cells in your abdomen, causing you to double over and lope your way to bed, miserable and just wanting the world to go away, acutely aware of every fat cell that now exists in your body - whether or not it's being wrenched by barbed wire.

The next time your best girlfriend, SO or wife seems a little on edge due to cramps or feels fatter than usual, perhaps a little understanding could go a long way...

In the interests of staying fairly non-graphic and not wanting to provoke wretching, I won't even get into how it feels to pass a blood clot...

Yeah. Cramps suck.

April 15, 2005 Update: Just found the following link in one of the comments to misia's journal. It's an article on what life would be like If Men Could Menstruate. Thought it was interesting/funny. No offense intended at all - the penii part of the population include some of my favorite peoples!