Not Tonight Dear, I Have a Mittelschmerz

Imagine your ovaries screaming, 'look out, here comes the egg!' That's mittelschmerz. It's a sometimes sharp, sometimes achy pain that occurs during ovulation. As pains go, it's not acute enough to leave you bed ridden the way "cramps" seem to do even the heartiest of women. It's not agonizing enough for a doctor visit nor even an extra strength pain reliever.

Mittelschmerz is a pain just real enough to let you know it's there. It's annoying, like a tiny hand pinching and twisting your flesh from the inside out. It's your body talking to you. Yes, it's one more feminine burden to carry.

Your Body Speaks German

Mittelschmerz is German for "middle pain," which pretty much explains what it is. It's a mid-cycle pain most woman don't get. I was a teenager when I first noticed it. That was quite a few years ago when the female modesty quotient was far greater than now. Women and girls didn't talk about much of anything below the waist. There were no commercials about mittelschmerz relief.

When I realized the internal twisty-pinching kept returning each month, I found no easy answers. It was a world without the Internet. Information was pretty hard to come by. My little pain remained my personal mystery for years until I noticed an article in a woman's magazine one day. It talked about ovulation pain and gave it a name. It explained the monthly shifting of pain from one side of the lower abdomen to the other as "mittelschmerz." Aha!

Rupturing Follicles

There's a lot more information about mittelschmerz these days. MayoClinic.com calls it a "discomfort" caused when a follicle "ruptures" to release an egg. They say the pain could be due to a stretching ovary. It could be an irritating fluid release. Doctors really don't know why it happens, but 1 in 5 women experience the pain on a monthly basis. Others feel it every once in a while.

About That Pain

Ovulation pain is annoying, yet easily tamed with over the counter remedies. Try explaining it to your husband, though: "Not tonight dear, I have a mittelschmerz." That excuse never went over very well. Try telling your twelve year old daughter who inherited the same annoying condition, "That pain is just mittelschmerz, sweetie. I've had it all my life."

My daughter moaned and cried each month so I took her to a Gynecologist just to be sure that's all it was. The doctor's answer for her was low dose birth control pills. I didn't like the idea of my 12 year old on birth control, but they did take care of her mittelschmerz problem.

Source:
Personal experience
MayoClinic.com