A Study on Abdominal Temperature of Dysmenorrhea Patients

Dysmenorrhea is one of the common gynecologic disorders of menstruation women. Primary dysmenorrhea is menstrual pain without pelvic pathology. whereas secondary one is painful mestruation with underlying pathology. The cause of primary dysmenorrhea is increased endometrial prostaglandin. The mechanisims underlying secondary dysmenorrhea are not eluciated. There are many blood vessels under the skin and they play a very important role in the thermal control of peripheral part. The control of blood circulation is mainly controlled by autonomic nervous system and it is known that D.I.T.I. (digital infra-red thermographic imaging) is an objective method showing the body temperature. I observed the abdominal themerature of 49 patients complaning of dysmenorrhea who visited the gynecologic department of Pundang Oriental Medical Hospital during 1997. In order to rule out thermal abnormality due to obesity. the causes whose obesity index were above I. were excluded in this study. The mean temperature of lower abdomen of the dysmenorrhea group was $35.22{\pm}1.33^{\circ}C$ and control group was $36.01{\pm}0.74^{\circ}C$.