To ask you to talk to me about PMS/PMDD

[PreMenstralMonster]

I know it's personal so apologies but I'm SO sick of this every month and think I'd benefit from knowing I'm not alone. It feels like a physical and mental collapse at the same time every month, around a week before my period.

It all started after having DC2. Prior to that I never experienced any of this.

I rage about anything and everything

I get suspicious/paranoid (which isn't in my usual nature at all!)

Fluctuating mood swings

(Worsening) Anxiety

Depression

I always feel 'ill' as though I have caught something.

Debilitating fatigue

The worst parts for me are the literal rage and feeling extremely under the weather.

Oh and I also have adult acne now, another symptom of my now fucked up hormones.

Does this sound familiar to anybody on here?

Will anything help? Other than antidepressants which I really don't want

for all affected. It’s so shit.

Another one whose PMDD started after having a baby... I won’t bore you with details, but it’s been hell. I pretty much lost my sanity for the first 5 months of DD’s life. Then again when we stopped breastfeeding at 18 months. Periods started 3 months after (a shock as I’d previously only had them very rarely and had needed fertility treatment to conceive). My GP is forever increasing doses, then changing brand of SSRIs/SNRIs. Despite the fact that after 4 years none of them have worked and I have been filling out a diary from Hormone Health that clearly shows it’s hormonal. The panic attacks that start around ovulation, followed by a mental fog and literally feeling glued to my seat (like my brain is telling me to stand up, but my legs just aren’t getting the message) until my period. I find it doubly distressing as not only are the symptoms horrible but then they’re dismissed as being due to depression or that I’m playing the stereotype of the “hysterical women”. I literally spend 2 weeks of every month unable to function (unless it’s to scream at my husband how I want a divorce/to kill myself).

I don’t recognise myself anymore.

I’m contemplating seeing Nick Panay, but don’t know if that’s even possible in covid times or sensible as I live in Devon (so how would prescriptions etc work). Has anyone here been to his clinic?

My GP prescribed me 20mg daily of Fluoxetine (Prozac) for PMDD 6 years ago.

It’s been an absolute game changer. I still get fatigue, but my anxiety is reduced to a manageable level and the paranoia, mood swings and terrible, dark, depressive feelings have gone. I was 37 when I started taking it - I wish to God someone had prescribed it 20 years earlier. It really has been life changing.

I used to spend my periods crying uncontrollably, feeling like I was going mad and contemplating suicide. Since the first month I started on my meds I’ve never felt like that again.

Can anybody relate to feeling genuinely, physically ill during the PMS/PMDD week?

I swear I never feel healthy.

Yep, spend most of the time between ovulation and day 4/5 feeling like I’m fighting off some sort of background virus... nauseous, dizzy, exhausted, headaches, joint pain. I kept thinking it was some sort of postnatal hypothyroidism or other deficiency, but since charting my symptoms I’ve found it starts like clockwork on day 16.

AsMuchUseAsAMarzipanDildo Oh I'm so sorry, you have my total sympathy.. I'm exactly the same.

I'm weary that I'm starting to sound like a hypochondriac because most of the time my family ask how I am my answer is "a bit under the weather.. again"

I was at the GP last year having constant blood tests as I just keep getting "ill"

The results were always normal.

What a nuisance this thing is.

@MillyA it’s rubbish isn’t it. I wish I had something to tell you helps. Been trying magnesium and B6 this month, symptoms seemed slightly shorter lasting and the afternoon fatigue was less. Planning to self-refer to Nick Panay, so will let you know how I get on.