医生终于证实:姨妈痛不亚于心脏病发作

Menstrual cramps are uniquely painful - there's nothing in the world quite like them. Described as an "aching" or a "tightening" on medical channels, sufferers of Dysmenorrhea often have stronger and more eloquent ways of describing cramp.

姨妈痛真的非常痛苦--世界上没有什么痛能和姨妈痛相媲美。医学上将这种痛描述为"疼痛"或"紧缩"，但痛经者却能更强烈、更有说服力的描述这种痛。

Type in "describe menstrual cramps" into Google and a wealth of colourful description will pop up, all of which paint a very, very painful picture. Our personal favourite, Betty goes politely: "Like your uterus has gained actual sentience and is trying to claw itself out of your body for the great escape to freedom."

在谷歌中输入"描述痛经"，就会弹出各式各样的描述，所有的描述都描绘出一幅非常痛苦的画面。我们的个人最爱贝蒂礼貌地说道："就好像你的子宫有了真正的知觉，并试图从你身体中挖出一条路逃跑、获得自由。"

Yes it's easy to laugh and scoff, but now doctors have weighed in on the matter. And, for the uninitiated, period pain can in fact be even more excruciating than many of us realise. It's been ruled as painful as having a heart attack.

是的，尽管大笑、嘲笑吧，但现在医生已经对此事作了评论。对于外行而言，实际上痛经可能比我们大多数人所认为的还要痛苦。医生证实痛经之痛不亚于心脏病发作。

Professor of reproductive health at University College London, John Guillebaud, told Quartz that patients have described the cramping pain as "almost as bad as having a heart attack." While this, erm, "discovery" is vindicating for many of us, it does beg a couple of questions.

伦敦大学学院的生殖健康教授约翰·吉尔伯对《石英》杂志说道，病人将痛经描述成"不亚于一次心脏病。"虽然这一"发现"对于我们很多人来说是一种证明，但也的确回避了一些问题。

Why has it taken so long?

为什么到现在才给出证实？

And why is it a largely ignored issue? Research indicates a worrying discrepancy between how seriously women's pain is taken generally by doctors compared to men's.

为什么这是一个在很大程度上被忽略的问题？研究表明了医生和男性对女性承受的痛经程度认知存在令人担忧的差异。

Men wait an average of 49 minutes before being treated for abdominal pain. For women, the wait is 65 minutes for the same symptoms. It's also a function which is still handled with secrecy among women themselves, and which has "imbalanced" connotations - the word "hysteria" originates from the Greek word for uterus .

男性腹痛的时候，平均等待49分钟能接受治疗。而对于女性而言，同样的症状却得等待65分钟。这也是女性自身秘密处理的一个功能，有着"不平衡的"内涵--"歇斯底里"一词源于希腊词汇子宫。

Still, a lot of women seem to satisfied with the ruling so far. As for what this means in terms of treatment, that remains to be seen.

尽管如此，到目前为止，很多女性似乎对这种证实十分满意。至于这对于痛经治疗意味着什么，那就尚待分晓了。