Evidence first. Honesty always.
Relief makes drug-free tools for period pain. That's a category crowded with vague claims and near-identical gadgets, so before you trust us with a rupee, here's exactly how we decide what to build, what we'll promise, and — just as important — what we won't.
Period pain deserves better than a pill or a prayer.
NSAIDs work, and they're first-line for a reason. But they fail for about a fifth of people, and leaning on them every single cycle can wear on your stomach. The drug-free alternatives are real and well-studied — and yet the market for them is mostly the same cheap heating belt sold under forty different names: a hot spot in the middle, a battery that dies in an hour, no idea what temperature it's even running at.
We started Relief to close that gap. Not to invent a miracle, but to take the methods that already hold up in trials and build them properly — at the temperature and frequency the studies actually used, and sold without the usual sales pitch.
Every product page says what it can't do.
Our tools ease everyday period pain. They are wellness devices — they don't diagnose, treat, or cure anything, and they don't replace a doctor. We'll never tell you a belt fixes endometriosis, or that a patch is a substitute for care you actually need. If your pain is severe, new, or simply different from your normal, that's a conversation for a doctor, not another purchase from us.
Saying this out loud costs us some sales. We think a brand in women's health that isn't willing to name its own limits hasn't earned the trust to sell you anything.
The temperature and frequency aren't marketing — they're the whole point.
Two numbers decide whether a drug-free tool works or just feels like it might. We build to them, and we print them on the box.
Heat at 40–48°C
Continuous low-level heat at around 40°C matched ibuprofen for period pain in the trials that started the category. Hotter isn't better here — past ~48°C you're buying a burn risk, not more relief. So that's exactly where Relief · Warmth stays.
Akin et al., Obstetrics & Gynecology, 2001 & 2004
TENS at 80–100Hz
High-frequency TENS beat placebo in the Cochrane review with an odds ratio of 7.2. The low-frequency setting — the one many cheap devices quietly default to — did no better than nothing. When Pulse arrives, it will run high, and say so plainly.
Proctor et al., Cochrane, 2002 / 2009
The problem was never the technology. It's the basics.
Dozens of near-identical heating belts sell online, and premium wearable TENS runs into the thousands. Neither gap is a science gap. The cheap ones heat a coin-sized circle, run flat in an hour, and hide their contraindications; the expensive ones lock you into a membership to keep using what you already bought. Their own customer reviews say all of this, over and over.
So our job isn't to out-clever anyone. It's to do the unglamorous things properly: even heat across the whole lower belly, a battery that outlasts the pain, honest running costs, and every safety note on the page instead of buried in a manual.
Some of the best things for period pain aren't products.
A network meta-analysis of 29 trials found that gentle movement — walking, stretching, yoga — meaningfully reduces period pain within a few weeks. NSAIDs remain a sensible first-line option for a lot of people. We don't sell exercise, and we don't sell painkillers. We're telling you anyway, because it's true, and because a shop that only ever points at its own shelf isn't really trying to help you.
BMC Sports Science, Medicine & Rehabilitation, 2024
What we ask before anything earns a place in the range
Does the evidence hold up?
We rank methods by trial strength, not by what's easiest to put in a box. Heat and high-frequency TENS clear the bar. If something only has a nice story behind it, it stays off the shelf.
Are we building the dose that worked?
It's not enough to gesture at "heat" or "TENS." If the trial used 40°C or 80–100Hz, that's what we build — otherwise we're selling the word, not the effect.
Would we hand it to someone we love?
Even, not a hot spot. A battery that lasts. Costs stated up front. If we'd be annoyed giving it to a sister or a friend, it isn't ready.
Have we said what it can't do?
Every product ships with its ceiling written down — who it isn't for, and when to see a doctor instead. If we can't state the limit clearly, we're not ready to sell it.
What Relief is, and what it isn't.
Relief is a small family of drug-free tools — a warming belt, stick-on heat patches, and a TENS device in the works — built to the temperatures and frequencies the research actually used, and sold with the safety notes in plain sight.
Relief isn't a cure, a medicine, or a replacement for a doctor. It won't fix an underlying condition, and it won't out-promise your body. It's comfort you can actually wear on the days it hurts — no more, and no less.