70% of women menstruate in the 28- day cycle, but some women take slightly longer or slightly less period. The late or early menstruation is due to some defects in the womb, hormonal disturbances, uterine irritation, congestion, inflammation and abnormal contraction (especially menopause). Sometimes, irregularities of menstruation may take place due to endometritis, endocervicitis, cancerous growth in the uterus, or formation of tumour in the muscular wall of the womb, anger, cold wet exposure and repeated mechanical abortion. Due to anemia, anger and cold wet exposure of the body there may be amenorrhoea or dysmenorrhoea; due to endometritis, metritis, infection of the womb or cancerous growth there may be dysmenorrhoea, menorrhagia or metrorrhagia and infection may cause irregular, scanty, tardy, delayed, watery, profuse, protracted flow of menses. 

Menstruation is often delayed beyond the period at which we have reason to expect it in healthy females, or when it does appear, it is frequently preceded by much suffering, and followed by hysterics and other complaints. Complaints attendant on the cessation of the menses are still more serious. These complaints are generally produced by diseases which existed previously, and can only be cured by the continued attendance of a homoeopathic physician. Affections of this class frequently find their origin and support in the mode of living; we can often trace them to insufficiency of clothing, which, especially in a variable climate like ours, is very injurious; many of the attendant complaints arise from other causes, which medicine alone can remove. 

The age at which this function first makes its appearance, in temperate climates, is about the fifteenth year; though in some instances it occurs at a much earlier age, and in others again it is protracted several years later. In warm climates it generally appears as early as the ninth or tenth year, and in cold ones not often earlier than the twentieth. 

The average duration of a menstrual period is about five days; it varies considerably, however, in different individuals, in some continuing for seven or eight days, and in others not more than two or three. It generally returns regularly in healthy females, every twenty-eight days, and usually continues until about the forty-fifth year, when its final cessation takes place, which is usually attended with a good deal of disturbance of the general health, as well as of irregularity of this function; hence this period of life has been called the "critical age," or "change of life."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Retarded menstruation 
The principal remedies are : With the following particular indications : 

Causticum 
The menses are too scanty, flowing only in the day-time; melancholy, gloomy mood, pains in the side before the menses; yellow complexion, abdominal colic and vertigo during the menses. 

Cuprum metallicum 
Abdominal spasms or general convulsions, with cries; congestion of the head; headache at the vertex; face and eyes red, or else pale, with rings around the eyes; frequent nausea with vomiting; palpitation of the heart, and cramps in the chest. 

Dulcamara 
The menstrual blood is pale, and the flow is too short; tetter at the labia; miliaria before the menses. 

Graphites 
Delaying menses, too scant, with abdominal colic, weight in the abdomen and dullness of the head; heaviness of the arms and legs; abdominal cramps, pains in the chest, weakness, discharge of blood from the anus, pains in the limbs, during the menses. 

Kalium carbonicum 
Pressure towards the parts; soreness and redness around the parts and between the thighs; a good deal of heat, with thirst, and restless nights; the menstrual blood is acrid and fetid. 

Lachesis mutus 
Colic in the back, at the commencement of the menses, with abdominal cramps and throbbing headache; scanty flow, with nose-bleed, and distress. 

Magnesium carbonicum 
Delaying menses, with sore throat, canine hunger, pains in the stomach, nausea before the menses, which flow at night. 

Natrium muriaticum 
Menses too late and scanty, with rush of blood to the head; melancholy, anxiety, headache, qualmishness, blood-spitting, before the menses. 

Phosphorus 
Leucorrhoea, frequent urging to urinate, weeping, before the menses; shivering, weariness, fever, stinging headache, and spitting of blood, during the menses; suitable to persons with delicate constitutions and inclining to pulmonary diseases. 

Pulsatilla pratensis 
Menses at times delaying, at others premature, with black blood mixed with mucous, or pale and serious blood; nausea and vomiting, shivering, pale face, stitching colic extending to the parts; semi-lateral headache, with drawing pains extending to the face, ears and teeth; tendency to diarrhoea, leucorrhoea. 

Sepia officinalis 
Delaying menses, with fainting turn, violent colic, shuddering all over, burning in the vulva, soreness and swelling of the parts, leucorrhoea and pressure in the abdomen, before the menses; uterine cramps and rheumatic pains in the limbs during the menses; yellow border across the nose and cheeks. 

Silicea terra 
Delaying menses, with diarrhoea, or painful pressure above the eyes, before the menses; scanty menses; strong smell of the menstrual blood. 

Sulphur 
When the other remedies fail, with headache before, during and after the menses; loss of flesh; heat in the head; weakness after eating. 

Dose 
Of these different medicines give four to six globules dry on the tongue, or one or two drops of attenuated tincture in a teaspoonful of water or on a little sugar, a few days after the menses ceases to flow, and repeat the dose every week until the next menstrual period is about to set in. 
 

Morbid changes in the menstrual blood
The normal menstrual blood is red, liquid, a little sticky, almost resembling arterial blood; according to some authors, it should not coagulate, whereas others look upon the presence of coagula in the menstrual fluid as something quite natural. As a general rule the menstrual blood, as regards color, quantity, intensity of the flow, differs a good deal from one period to the other. It is successively very red, less red, pale like water, black, thick, viscous or fluid. Sometimes those changes can be traced to distinct causes, such as a keen disappointment, after which the flow becomes either more scanty or more copious, or the color of the blood changes; in spasmodic affections the blood is paler; in scrofulous persons it is scanty, paler, less consistent, or else thick and black. Among chlorotic individuals it is almost always watery, pale, causing scarcely a yellow stain. In syphilitic affections it is likewise very often discoloured and pale. In eruptive, scorbutic, typhoid affections, the blood is sometimes blackish and fetid. If the blood is retained in the uterus for some time, it becomes black, thin, inodorous. In cancerous or herpetic affections, the menstrual blood has been known to possess deleterious characters, and to communicate by intercourse non-syphilitic discharges from the urethra. But in most cases it is impossible to account for the changes which take place in the menstrual blood. Hence these changes seem of very little avail in establishing a general diagnosis; but they help to point out the remedy which is most adapted to some peculiar menstrual irregularity.

For online consultation visit my page

Dr. Binoy Vallabhassery BHMS
Vallabhassery Homoeopathy
CSI Complex, Sastri Road,
Kottayam 686001
e mail drbsv@vallabhassery.com