15/05/2025
🌿 What Do Your Period and Your Gut Have in Common? More Than You Think.
Have you ever noticed that your period affects more than just your uterus? Maybe your digestion goes haywire—constipation, bloating, nausea, or diarrhoea—right before or during your cycle. Maybe you’ve wondered if it’s just you.
It’s not just you.
In fact, it’s extremely common, and the medical world is only beginning to catch up.
🤰 Your Gut, Your Cycle, Your Mood – All Connected
In my research study of over 2,000 women aged 18 to 48, I found strong patterns of overlap between symptoms of menstruation and digestion. Women who had more painful or irregular periods were significantly more likely to report digestive issues like:
Constipation
Diarrhoea
Bloating
IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
Nausea and reflux
And it didn’t stop there. These same women were also more likely to experience:
Fertility struggles
Complications during pregnancy or birth
Postnatal depression
Feelings of grief, anxiety, or sadness
🌀 It's Not “All in Your Head”
Modern medicine often splits the body into compartments: the gut, the womb, the mind—as if they’re separate. But your body doesn’t work like that.
Traditional Chinese Medicine, which informed this research, has long understood that everything is connected. What we see in the clinic every day—gut and womb symptoms showing up together—is now backed by data from a broad community sample.
đź’¬ Women Know Their Bodies. We Just Need to Listen.
One participant told me:
“Labour pain was less severe than my period pain.”
Another said:
“They didn’t believe me. They thought I was drug-seeking. I was just in pain.”
These aren’t isolated cases. They’re part of a broader pattern of women being underdiagnosed, undertreated, and unheard—especially when symptoms don't fit neatly into one box.
❤️ What Can You Do?
Track your symptoms – not just menstrual, but digestive and emotional too. Patterns matter.
Speak up – bring up your gut health when discussing reproductive symptoms, and vice versa.
Support care models that treat the whole person, not just parts.
Share this post – because when women share their stories, we normalize truth.
