Evaluating Shirazi (Thymus vulgaris) on menstrual pain using verbal multidimensional scoring system (VMS)

Abstract

Although there are many studies evaluating different medications on the pain of menstrual cycle, however, they show conflicting results. The explanation of such variation could be due to small sample sizes or different scoring of pain throughout the evaluation of menstrual cycle phases such as dysmenorrhea phase; and, in most studies such evaluation have not even been verified by performing a reliable case-control study using some new herbal therapy. The current study was designed to overcome such limitation using Shirazi (Thymus vulgaris) as a new pain therapy compared to standard medication Ibuprofen. Participants included 120 students who currently are studying at Ilam University of Medical Sciences, allocated in a randomized clinical trial study design. The inclusion criteria were singleness at the time of study, age between 18 to 25 years, accommodation at University campus and having primary dysmenorrhea prior to enrolment into the study. The participants were randomly divided into two groups; one received Shirazi (T. vulgaris) and the other Ibuprofen. Shirazi (T. vulgaris) was administered orally (5 ml for four times a day), while the control group received Ibuprofen orally three times a day. A verbal multidimensional scoring system (VMS) was used to record pain grade. Both medications cured the pain with similar score and similar duration at the first and the second month of trial. The current herbal medication cured the menstruation pain probably due to its antispasmodic effects, and so it can be evaluated for the pain therapy using different pain scoring methods. Key words: Menstrual pain, pain score, Shirazi (Thymus vulgaris), verbal multidimensional scoring (VMS) system.