Ladies: Any good tips for beating the bloat when it is that time of the month?

Epsom Salts will help get rid of excess water weight. Take a soak before you go.

Why on Earth was this in my inbox? Fluther fail.

:-( Sorry, @boots. I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear!

cucumbers get rid of excess water…...make a nice salad…put one in a vinagrette

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@chyna : I already stocked up on that. ;-)

Eat less salt (but not too extreme, don’t drastically change your salt intake), and drink tea, which is a dieuretic, it will help you get rid of water. A week before maybe get a little strict on your diet, to lose a pound or two to counteract the period weight.

I feel for you. I took three vacations Dec-May, and each one I had my period at least part of the time. Pissed me off.

@tinyfaery : Cool. That’s an easy one to try. Thanks for the idea!
@JLeslie : Great tips, thanks! I know. The unfortunate thing is, I actually have a back-up dress in case I feel so gross I can’t wear the other one. Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman.

@Les How much weight do you usually gain from the bloat? Is it more than two pounds? Also, I recommend you wear tapons if you usually don’t. It will help you feel less like you have our period.

@JLeslie : I don’t know how much, but it feels like more than two. Though, in reality it probably isn’t all that much. And I do wear tampons. Can’t live without that invention.

@Les LOL. I know, I consider them in my top threee for inventions. Hahaha. My girlfriend got TSS from a contraceptive sponge and so she was advised to never use tampons again. Can you imagine? She cheats every now and again. Drives her crazy.

@JLeslie : Ugh, poor thing! That is terrible. Periods suck.

@Les You said you would be on day two. End of day two or early day three I pee and pee and pee. Getting rid of all of the water I was retaining I guess. I was on a plane about six months ago when it started, and I was not in the aisle row, and I got up 5 flippin’ times during a 3 hour flight. Any other time of the month I can go for hours without having to go to the bathroom. Ugh, that poor guy next to me. He must have thought I was ill.

The thing that makes me crazy is my period is never “on time”. It is always flipping dates around. So, of course, May and June, I get it on precisely the same day. Grr….

Maybe I should just wear a potato sack. With cute shoes. :-(

Figures.

Take a warm bath before you go.

I’m just guessing, since I’ve always been spared cramps, bloating, & such. It just seems like it would work.

And what’s the deal with tampons?! I can’t stand the thought of having something shoved up there all day! Ugh!

I had a friend in HS who would get water pills occasionally from her OBGYN. You may be able to call and ask if there is something they could give you to help reduce bloating this one time.

@Draconess25 If you put in the tampon correctly, which means deep enough, you feel nothing. Nothing, and your are not bleeding. It is essentially not having your period when you have it.

I find pamprin extra strength really helps also drinking a lot of water before hand. You’ll automatically pee so much that after a while you won’t retain as much water since your body is well hydrated.
Oh take the pamprin a 3 days before you start your cycle. If your like me you will start bloating a few days before your actual cycle starts only it gets worse at the start and middle.
I’m not always diligent about the drinking of water but it does work. You only have to start a few weeks ahead for it to really take.

@JLeslie Still, it just seems absolutely disgusting.

@Draconess25 Having a bloody napkin/pad in your underwear is less disgusting? Have you tried tampons?

Aspirin can help. But that’s pretty much what pamprin is, isn’t it? Trying to get rid of excess water before the bloating starts is a good plan. You could take a few saunas before hand too. Saunas will also make your skin glow. Coffee is a good diuretic. Tea does the opposite.

@cazzie No, pamprin does have a pain killer, but it also has a dieuretic and antihistamine I think.

@JLeslie I remember the days when the best thing in pill form was aspirin and caffeine. We don’t get lots of these types of pills here in Norway. Saunas are great. Don’t drink diet soda. Don’t eat salty food.

@cazzie Aspirin thins blood, so I would think it might be contraindicated during periods?? Well, for most people I am sure nothing bad happens, but I would have guessed years ago tylenol (aceitamenophine) was preferable, and honestly most people find ibuprofen to be the magic drug for cramps. I would never take Pamprin.

@JLeslie You’re not ‘bleeding’ when you have your period. It’s the lining of your uterus shedding. It’s a build up of cells and blood that occur over the month with the wonders that are our hormones that create an environment for any fertilised egg to embed into. If you’re not allergic to Aspirin and over the age of 12(?) it’s fine to take. But Ibuprofen has anti inflammatory properties that aspirin doesn’t have. The one thing that aspirin will do though, is help move the lymph fluids just under the surface of the skin. Models use it to get rid of ‘puffiness’ in their face. I thought it might help with tummy puffiness too.

Oh, and one more thought. A good pair of support pantihose to pull in the tummy is hard to beat.

@cazzie Aspirin is antiinflammatory also. Ibuprofen is also a muscle relaxer and an antiinflammatory, and both work for pain. Yes, I know we are shedding the lining of our uteris, I was not sure if aspirin affected that bood flow.

@Les Another thought, if your bloat is all around the belly, be sure to eat foods that will keep you regular. Some raisins a few days leading up to the wedding maybe. Constipation can add an inch to my waist I swear.

If you are taking a birth control pill (which I suspect that you are sense you are confident about when your period will start) I recommend that start a new pack of active pills without taking the blank pills first. After the event then you can start taking the blank pills and then the rest of the new pack. That way your period wont start until after the event!

@JLeslie Aspirin doesn’t effect that blood flow because it’s not an open wound. Aspirin doesn’t effect blood thinning that much anyway, and Ibuprofen is ALSO as much a blood thinner, if you really want to know. You’d have to take an AWFUL lot to notice longer bleeding times. Omega (fish) Oils will reduce clotting more noticeably. Ibuprofen would never be considered a ‘muscle relaxant’ either, but we probably relax in a normal way when our pain is relieved.

@Rememberme the ‘take more pill pills’ approach will delay the period, but she may still feel bloated, as the cell lining has already built up through the month, and the hormones have been doing their thing with all the other parts of the body.

Eat sensibly, avoid salt, and diet drinks, take some exercise and a sauna or two. Wear some tummy support pantihose and relax. We’re women. We have round bits. You’ll look great.

Thanks everyone! These are all great ideas… I’m going to give a few of them a try. You know, a good scientist would only try one at a time, to be able to pinpoint the one that works the best. I don’t have that time. ;-)

@JLeslie : I’m a fiber fanatic, so that is already covered.. the drinking of lots of water seems to be the consensus, I’ll make sure I am getting enough.

@cazzie : Saunas, huh? That sounds like a good idea, but I don’t think I’ll be able to find one… plus, the wedding is in Chicago in July… humidity central. That is another cause for bloat. The universe is aligning against me on this one.

@Rememberme : Not on the pill, interestingly enough. I was shocked at how regular my period is. It makes no sense.

@JLeslie My mom made me when I was 12. Eventually, I just told her to shove it up her own. She said they were “cheaper”.

@Draconess25 That is odd. Your mom made you. I was glad when my mom actually informed me of the option. Well, certainly you should use whatever you are most comfortable with, I’m not trying to talk you into anything.

@JLeslie @Draconess25 Ha! My mom didn’t even talk about it. If she didn’t tell me about it, then it wouldn’t happen was her thought on the subject.

@JLeslie I know, I just don’t see the appeal. It makes me think of wiping your bum & having the TP stick. Both of my girlfriends use them, & I think they’re odd for it.
@chyna My mom always talked about it. I don’t get those commercials where kids want their parents to talk to them about sex. Hearing stuff like that come out of my mom’s mouth gave me way too many bad images!

@Draconess25 Periods and sex I think are two different things. My mom only talked about sex when I asked her a question, but she always answered my questions. With the period I think she was trying to help me out, it may have been summer, maybe I wanted to go swimming. I swam and did ballet, both you want a tampon.

@JLeslie I got so sick of my mom talking about it, that I pretended to be asexual throughout high school. Just to shut her up. It didn’t help that she was much more homophobic than she is now. To me, sex & periods are just 2 things that I don’t want to think about my mom having.

@Draconess25 You mean your mom was talking about her own period and her sex life? I find it interesting that she knew you were homosexual and talked about sex a lot. If my daughter was gay, it would be a relief in the sex arena for me.

@JLeslie Not necessarily about her own sex life, but I couldn’t help but imagine whenever she said things like “oh, it happens to everyone”. By the way, I’m bi. She didn’t know, either. That’s probably why it got to me even more. She spoke of everything in the terms of “it’s okay to feel that way about boys”, but never girls.So I just pretended I wasn’t interested in sex, by saying things like “that’s icky”.

@Draconess25 Makes sense.

@JLeslie Heh, to me it doesn’t! Mom “accepts” that I’m bi now, yet she still uses homophobic slurs for other people. Go figure.

@Draconess25 I mean makes sense why it made you uncomfortable. Does she use slurs in front of you because she doesn’t really believe you are bi? Or, because she thinks you “know” what she means, and that she is not being hateful. Although, if it bothers you I think she should stop. Like when my gay friends call a friend a real Queen, or a Jewish person who can tell a Jewish Joke. Some people just aren’t very sensitive or easily insulted and take it all with a grain of salt as long as everyone knows that everyone in the room is not prejudiced or bigoted.

@JLeslie I think she does it out of habit. It doesn’t bother me, though. It probably should, but it doesn’t.

@Draconess25 Habit and slurs can be a shortcut. I am not defending it at all, but what I mean is if someone tells me someone is gay, it is kind of a nothing to me, what do I care if someone is gay? I don’t have a prejudgement of what gay people are like, how they look, what they wear, the job they have, in my mind it could be anything, like anyone else. If someone says that someone is a Queen, I kind of have in my mind that he is flamboyant, hard to please, and needs attention. So using the one word has that whole sentence full of descriptive words wrapped up in one word. Again, I am not saying it is ok.

@JLeslie Kind of like with labels: Emo, Goth, Prep, Geek….everyone is unique, but labels simplify it. It’s a lot easier than listing all the adjectives that describe someone.

@Draconess25 Exactly. You gave good examples.

@JLeslie Thank you!^^

@Draconess25 Still, better not to use them, better to just treat each person as an individual and not group them together like that.

@JLeslie Yeah, I hate it when people call me goth or emo. Sure, some aspects apply to me, but I’m a person, not a can of soup.