[Kok! Health] 99% Experience Menstrual Disorders... Visit Hospital to Find the Cause

May 28, yesterday, was 'World Menstruation Day.' Although 99% of women in their 20s to 40s in Korea experience abnormal symptoms related to menstruation, proper symptom management is not being adequately carried out. Experts recommend that if abnormal menstrual symptoms appear, women should actively visit hospitals for treatment.

[Image source=Pixabay]

According to Bayer Korea's Women's Health Division on the 29th, a recent survey conducted on 1,000 Korean women in their 20s to 40s in observance of World Menstruation Day found that 99.4% of participants experienced one or more abnormal menstrual symptoms.

This survey was conducted based on the keyword 'MVPT' presented by Bayer to assess women's menstrual health. MVPT stands for ▲Mood changes related to menstruation ▲Volume of menstruation ▲Pain during menstruation ▲Term or cycle of menstruation. Each category included various and specific symptoms: ▲Mood and behavior changes such as appetite changes, fatigue, depression; ▲Volume including frequent replacement of menstrual products due to excessive bleeding, menstruation lasting more than 7 days; ▲Pain including abdominal pain, breast pain, headaches, and other systemic pains; ▲Cycle abnormalities such as menstrual cycles outside the normal range of 21 to 35 days. Among Korean women in their 20s to 40s, 99% experienced at least one of these symptoms.

Abnormal menstrual symptoms were also found to significantly affect daily life. The responses indicating discomfort in daily life due to abnormal menstrual symptoms were highest in the order of ▲mood and behavior changes (95.6%) ▲menstrual volume (93.4%) ▲pain (92.9%) ▲cycle (80.6%). Notably, the highest percentage of respondents reporting severe discomfort in daily life was for excessive menstrual volume (12.5%).

Looking at each category, 97.6% of respondents experienced mood and behavior changes, the highest among all categories. Major symptoms included appetite changes, fatigue, insomnia or excessive sleep, rapid mood swings, or feelings of depression, with younger age groups experiencing more mood and behavior changes.

[Photo by Bayer Korea]

There is also a need to raise awareness about menorrhagia symptoms. In the menstrual volume-related questions, 67.1% responded that they did not consider themselves to have menorrhagia, but among them, 67.2% had experienced menorrhagia symptoms in the past year, 12% experienced symptoms more than once every two months, and 6% always experienced symptoms. The main symptoms experienced were clotted blood during menstruation (61.6%), fatigue, weakness, or shortness of breath during menstruation (41.7%), and menstruation lasting more than 7 days (20.8%).

Among women who reported experiencing dysmenorrhea (974 women), 30% experienced pain severe enough to require painkillers. Of these women, 23.2% described the pain as 'unbearable,' and 43.4% said they mostly needed painkillers. Additionally, women experienced an average of more than 3.4 types of combined pain, including lower back pain, abdominal pain, breast pain, and headaches during menstruation.

Furthermore, 71.6% of all respondents said their menstrual cycle was normal, but self-assessment revealed that 44.3% of them had warning signs in their menstrual cycle. 30.4% experienced frequent menstruation with cycles shorter than 3 weeks, 17% experienced oligomenorrhea (menstrual cycles longer than 5 weeks), and 4.7% experienced amenorrhea (no menstruation for 3 to 6 months or more).

[Photo by Bayer Korea]

However, behaviors for coping with abnormal menstrual symptoms still need improvement. Among those who experienced abnormal menstrual symptoms, only 42% reported visiting a gynecologist, and among them, only 59.3% received professional treatment. Among women who received professional treatment, 70.7% reported symptom improvement, whereas only 10.1% of women who took no action reported natural symptom improvement.

29.8% of symptom experiencers said they would not seek gynecological treatment even if symptoms appeared in the future. The main reasons were ▲not feeling the need for treatment (66.4%), ▲discomfort with gynecological exams such as physical exposure (25.6%), ▲lack of time (17.6%), and ▲economic burden (13.5%).

Professor Hyuntae Park of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Korea University Anam Hospital stated, “The mood, behavioral, and physical changes women experience every month from menarche to menopause during menstruation can, if severe, affect quality of life as menstrual-related disorders and sometimes indicate uterine or ovarian diseases. I hope women do not take abnormal menstrual symptoms or discomfort for granted or endure them but actively visit gynecologists to identify causes and receive professional treatment.”