Reactions of dysmenorrheic and nondysmenorrheic women to experimentally induced pain throughout the menstrual cycle

Abstract

It has been proposed that dysmenorrheic women have a heightened pain sensitivity compared to nondysmenorrheic women, although previous studies investigating this hypothesis have yielded conflicting results. This study investigated the pain sensitivity of nondysmenorrheic women and of women suffering from spasmodic, congestive, and combined dysmenorrhea, across three phases of the menstrual cycle: premenstrual, menstrual, and intermenstrual. No interaction between type of dysmenorrhea and menstrual phase was found for either pain threshold or pain tolerance, using three procedures of experimentally induced pain. On a self-report measure of pain, however, the congestive and combined dysmenorrheics reported the highest degree of pain and distress, especially during the premenstrual and menstrual phases; nonsufferers reported the lowest degree and were stable across phases.