Absolutely awful PMS - any help?

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I’m fairly desperate for help with what is just increasingly awful PMS- mainly around abject exhaustion more than anything else. Feel quite tearful about it currently :/

So - mid 30s, slightly higher than normal BMI but very comfortably in size 10/12 clothing. Exercise 3-4 days a week super early morning, work FT, two small kids - reception year and another one 17 months old - life is full on, career is full on. Diet is healthy as I love cooking and have largely automated food via multi cooker etc.

Cycles last 26 days like clockwork. Fairly painful but that is not what’s awful. It’s the 7 days before. I feel like I’m being physically drained out of energy with a machine and have had to stop driving and park up to just collapse in car this month as couldn’t muster energy to complete drive to Tesco’s. All is fine once period starts. This is getting ridiculous. The tearfulness, the emotions I can just about bear but the exhaustion is impossible. I just can’t cope.

I’ve never been on hormonal contraception so no experience of that at all. Family menopause appears to be early - around 42-48. Mum was 43. In case anyone thinks this is peri menopause… could be maybe?

Also have low iron and low vitamin D which GP is addressing with supplements but I just can’t manage this 1 week every month where I am needing to pull up by the road or collapse sobbing out of fatigue.

Any supplements to try? Any herbs? Anything?

I had this. I would literally ruin my life for 5 days every month.

Things that helped....all the usual of sleep, exercise (not too vigorous thought, if training for an event I’d cut back when in the ‘zone’), AND although you eat healthily there is a bit of hacking that I found helpful. For the 3 normal weeks, I used to do fasting and very low carb, then add in healthy carbs for the shit week (sweet potato, apples, that sort of thing). Things definitely improved but the only thing that eliminated it was HRT.

I was peri from 43ish. Got HRT at 45

Just the last few days I have been googling this loads due to currently having pmt, my main symptoms being lethargy and the rage/awful mood
I try to keep low carb usually, I'm trying to lose weight for summer so I cut out starch like bread, potato, pasta rice etc. Yesterday I was so hungry it was like a craving but I didn't know what for. I came across a few articles about trying high carbs for pmt, so I thought I'd give it a try, I had veggie pizza for tea last night, low sugar granola this morning and jacket with beans this afternoon and yes, I really am feeling much better! I'll be having some sort of curry with brown rice for tea to keep it up. I'm still a few days away from my period, so I'll see how it goes. I figure I will continue the low carb the rest of the month if this works.

I have been severely anaemic in the past and that's also no joke. The consultant I saw was adamant it was to do with periods and blood loss and told me in no uncertain terms to eat as much red meat as possible. I also supplemented with iron tablets for 5 months, then after the GP signed me off as normal bloods (I fet fantastic BTW it was like a lightbulb had been switched on) I continued to supplement with spatone sachets which are much easier on your gut.

It's something to do with the carbs helping you to synthesise serotonin. Interestingly fruit augers aren't useful, just the starchy stuff

Fruit sugars

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-antidepressant-diet/201909/natural-help-pms-carbohydrates?amp

I am on lowing carbs currently so maybe worth a try to add some. No convincing needed as I love carbs unfortunately - not gluten though. Could demolish rice and potatoes with ease….

Will keep up the iron which only started yesterday

I get this as well. If it wasn’t so awful it would be comical how exhausted I get. I’m only 29 so hoping it’s not a peri menopause thing, it’s definitely worse since my periods came back a year ago, after having DD.
I wish I had useful advice as that would mean I’d found something that helped!

Hello OP. I get this terribly. I'm 37 and it's really ramped up over the past few years. Interestingly I've been taking a pre-conception supplement for the past 4 months and I've found that it's massively helped - I'm no longer an exhausted ball of fury in the week before my period, so even if I do/don't get pregnant I'm gonna carry on with the supplement. The one I take is by Wild Nutrition. It's pricey but I imagine other female health supplements could also help?

If you find the answer I'd love to know as I absolutely have this too. Getting worse every month. I'm 34.

@countrypunk, which do you take?

Following because this is happening to me too...am 38

have you tried things like agnus castus. Vit b6 and evening primrose/starlower oil?

I take this one: www.wildnutrition.com/products/food-grown-fertility

I didn't do this but you can have a consultation call with someone from Wild Nutrition and they'll recommend things for you (which could end up being extremely expensive). The supplement I'm taking is to support fertility and although I'm not pregnant yet it's helped my PMT, without a doubt. I also take an extra vitamin D supplement, just because my levels were very low. That's extremely common though and everyone in the UK should take a vitamin D supplement, at least over the winter.

So yeah - the things that have helped me are a supplement specifically made for women's bodies, and running. The latter I'm not doing nearly enough of at the moment!

Also most people have a magnesium deficiency just because our soil is so poor these days

It’s well worth getting a good magnesium citrate supplement - not the crap magnesium oxide ones in the supermarket.

I do think that helps with lethargy associated with pms

Dr Mandy Peltz
Tracey Sims

They both claim to help women’s hormones through diet and exercise. Worth a look, slightly different approaches but people seem to get results from them

*stacy sims

I am on lowing carbs currently so maybe worth a try to add some. No convincing needed as I love carbs unfortunately - not gluten though. Could demolish rice and potatoes with ease….

Will keep up the iron which only started yesterday