General Information
PMS affects between 40% and 60% of American women between the ages of 12 and 50 years of age. PMS tends to worsen with age, but can be a significant problem even in teenage girls.
Causes
The cause of PMS is still disputed in the medical profession. Our work suggests that it is an imbalance between the relationship of the two female hormones, estrogen and progesterone.
Estrogen is manufactured all month long in women, but it increases in amount just before ovulation. At ovulation the woman's ovary begins to manufacture progesterone. PMS only occurs in the two-week period from ovulation to the completion of menstruation.
PMS does not occur in women who do not ovulate. The exceptions are those women who have been placed on synthetic (prescription) estrogens and progesterone, where PMS may occasionally occur.
PMS is not an intrinsic defect. It is actually related to the woman's diet. In virtually all women we have treated, correction of certain dietary deficiencies and excesses will reverse PMS symptoms in as quickly as 30 to 90 days.
PMS is a dietary/nutritional problem with a simple solution. It is an intelligent act of the woman's body, communicating to her that she is eating the wrong diet for her body's needs.
PMS can, in virtually all cases, be eliminated entirely by helping the woman find the exact right dietary adjustment for her individual needs.
Symptoms
While PMS may occur in young women, it generally is first recognized when women are between the ages of 25 and 35 years old.
There have been more than 150 different symptoms attributed to PMS.
PMS varies greatly from woman to woman. This often makes its diagnosis quite difficult. The pattern often varies from woman to woman, but also from month to month, year to year and decade to decade.
The most common symptoms of PMS are: Anxiety, mood swings, irritability, nervous tension, headaches, craving for sweets, increased appetite, pounding or racing of the heart, fatigue, dizziness or fainting, weight gain (often in the week to two weeks prior to the onset of menstruation), swelling of hands, feet or legs, breast tenderness or swelling, abdominal bloating and swelling, depression, forgetfulness, crying confusion and insomnia. PMS may manifest itself as physical, mental, emotional or even spiritual symptoms.
Some of the less obvious symptoms of PMS are: Child abuse, spousal abuse, self-injury or mutilation, alcoholism, illicit drug use and abuse, anxiety or panic attacks, depression, migraine headaches, sexual addiction, personality changes (the Ms. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde Syndrome), asthma, acne, bladder infections, yeast infections, compulsive eating or binging which often leads to bulimia or purging. There are literally dozens more just as important.
The symptoms of PMS in teenage girls are often different from those of an adult woman. One of the most common symptoms is sexually acting out (nymphomania), running away, tantrums, missing school, drug use and extreme rebellion against parents and authority figures. Teenage PMS sufferers not only tend to have sex earlier, but they also tend to become pregnant earlier.
Generally PMS symptoms (except for possibly in the most obvious cases) are frequently missed by medical doctors. Therefore young girls with PMS may grow into their mid-twenties before their symptoms are recognized as related to PMS.
Emotional, Psychological and Social Consequence of PMS
The cost of PMS is staggering. Consider the child who grows up with a PMS mother who periodically loses control, verbally or physically abuses the child and doesn't have the slightest idea why afterward. Consider the child who grows up in a home where mother is erratic, irrational, sick for a good part of the month or becomes an alcoholic or drug user.
PMS tends to diminish self-esteem, ego-strength, self value and individuality in both adults and teens. These girls often seem to change radically shortly after they reach puberty and occasionally even a year or so before they start menstruating.
PMS increases the risk of marital and relationship problems. PMS frequently causes alienation of husband and wife, separation, divorce and family violence.
PMS may be the single leading cause of alcoholism and illicit drug use in teenage girls. Often girls with even mild symptoms (irritability, anxiety, mood swings, depression) may be seen by the parents as having behavioral problems, acting out, erratic, irrational or as out of control. These girls will soon begin to believe that they not only have little or no control over their body, but also over their behavior. They may soon become labeled as "bad" girls or as "unencourageable."
Consistent with all PMS women, including the young girls, is a diet which is primarily made up of refined and processed foods, high fat foods, caffeine, dairy products, and low in healthy whole foods. Many PMS women and girls live on hamburgers, French fires and colas (or Dr. Pepper), candy cookies, potato chips, macaroni salad, white rice and they tend to miss meals.
One of the most favorite foods of PMS women is chocolate. Many PMS women are addicted to chocolate in all forms. They actually crave it premenstrually.
PMS women tend to diet and binge alternatively. Once PMS during the monthly cycle, starts personality often changes significantly. As many of the PMS women begin to experience swelling of their extremities, breasts or abdomen they begin to feel "fat," hence they stop eating or restrict food. Often they will only drink coffee, colas and smoking cigarettes. As the PMS progresses this pattern may suddenly change and they begin to binge eat. This is often followed by highly restrictive dieting, purging or using laxatives or diet pills or illegal drugs to suppress their appetite.
While these women often feel that they cannot control themselves, they may soon discover that a shot of alcohol (which is pure sugar) can help to calm their nerves. Alcohol will frequently make them feel better, even if this is only a temporary reprieve. While drinking they will "feel" more in control and more like their "old self." The problem is that this effect wears off in a short while so they may need another drink to keep them calm, and then another and then another. Soon they are alcoholics. They may drink all day long to keep themselves even and maintain some control over themselves even if it is tenuous and temporary. The same pattern is seen with drug use.
This pattern may continue into adulthood, go away spontaneously, or worsen significantly. It often leads girls into trouble which may include running away from home, drug use and selling drugs, early pregnancy, prostitution or marriage. While it is likely that there is some genetic predisposition associated with PMS, most of the time it is taught by mother to daughter. This unfortunately, leads a repetition of the cycle from generation to generation. In the worse case scenarios (as demonstrated by the early newspaper stories about of PMS related to court cases) PMS can lead to suicide, arson, criminal behavior even homicide. PMS may be the leading cause of both depression and suicide in teen age girls.
Diagnosis
The diagnosis is made on the basic symptom pattern. That is, any of the symptoms listed above (especially the common symptoms) that occur in the week to two weeks prior to the onset of menstruation and disappear with or shortly after the onset of menstruation.
Many women consider their PMS symptoms as perfectly normal for them. Therefore, it is extremely important to take a good medical and social history and to watch the pattern of symptoms through journaling or keeping track of the symptoms for one to four months. In the largest majority of PMS women the diagnosis can be made readily based on the pattern of their symptoms. In a small number of women the symptoms may be too difficult to access without extremely close observation by a trained observer.
Women with a family history of PMS are more likely to have PMS. They most likely did not learn to eat correctly, they often tend to repeat the same mistakes their mother's made in the foods they choose to eat. However, PMS can, and frequently does, occur where there is no family history of it (or it was never recognized).
The frequency and likelihood of PMS occurring in any woman increases with the number of pregnancies the woman has, especially full term pregnancies.
PMS tends to worsen with advancing age and may even blend into menopausal symptoms in the later years.
Stress not only predisposes to PMS, but it may significantly worsen it. This is one of the reasons that the PMS pattern may change from month to month or why PMS women may be more likely to become addicted to alcohol or drugs. PMS women often also become addicted or dependent on prescription drugs, such as tranquilizers, mood elevators, water pills, sleeping pills, diet pills, antidepressants and pain medications.
Diet and overall nutrition are, as we suggested earlier, the key factors the creation of PMS. They are the most important places to start in diagnosing and treating PMS. Especially, when the intention is not just to cover up the symptoms, but to reverse the underlying process which has caused it to begin with.
Oral contraceptives may either precipitate PMS or they may cover it up. Often women who have mild PMS will feel fine while on oral contraceptives but within months of discontinuing them will find a worsening of their PMS symptoms. Birth control pills (BCP's) are often used to treat PMS since their measured amounts of the female hormones "temporarily fix" the imbalance between estrogen and progesterone. However, in many cases PMS worsens after they are stopped. In some women PMS symptoms are even worsened when they are put on oral contraceptives. The synthetic hormones in the BCP are too strong and create an imbalance in these women causing them to have PMS the entire time they are on BCP's.
Women who have a significant weight gain or weight loss, or alternative weight gain and then loss, or loss and then gain of more than 20 to 30 pounds have a higher risk of experiencing PMS. If they are already suffering from PMS, it worsens their symptoms. This clearly relates to poor diet/nutrition and food choices when gaining weight, and starvation or dietary/nutritional deficiencies created when losing weight.
Any surgery, trauma or illness (again causing stress to the body along with increasing the body's nutritive needs) may trigger PMS or cause a worsening of PMS symptoms.
Myths About PMS
Because of inappropriate press coverage over the years many women have come to believe that PMS is a sign that they are either crazy, emotionally unsound or that it is normal to experience PMS symptoms each month.
Many people have heard stories from the early days (when PMS was first identified) about PMS as a legal defense for killing a husband or child. While these are extremely rare occurrences they can and have happened. When they do occur, they often capture the headlines for a while.
Many women have the mistaken belief that PMS is a normal occurrence in women (remember PMS does occur in some areas in as much as 60% of the women). Many women also believe that if they have PMS, they just have to live with it. Many women believe that nothing can be done for PMS except drugs and medications. This is not true. PMS can be completely eliminated. PMS is not normal it is an aberration caused by dietary/nutritional imbalances which can be corrected easily.
Many women believe that "just eating a healthy diet" should keep them from having PMS, or they may believe that since they "eat a healthy diet" and have PMS that it is not a dietary problem. The catch here is how we define a healthy diet and what this means to the individual woman. We have often seen women who believe that what they are eating is "healthy" when in fact nothing could be farther from the truth. The truth is, the diet they eat, must be the exact right diet for their bodily needs. Not what society, their mother or father or even their doctor tells them is "a healthy diet."
Why Is Identifying and Correctly Treating PMS So Important?
Besides the effects we described above and those on the PMS woman's emotional state and her family relationships, there are a series of other health problems that appear to be associated with PMS. We believe that the same dietary/nutritional problems that cause PMS, also increase the risk for a number of other medical and health problems such as: Endometriosis (where cells from the lining of the uterus implant outside of the uterus in the body), infertility, toxemia of pregnancy, post partum depression, irregular menstruation, fibrocystic disease of the breasts, fibroid tumors, increased risk for hysterectomy, menopausal problems, osteoporosis and even possibly increased risk of certain genital cancer's specifically uterine cancer and possibly an increased risk of certain types of breast cancer. The same defect in diet and overall nutrition can lead to heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke.
If the entire family eats a similar diet, which is not unusual, the risk of atherosclerosis heart disease, heart attack and stroke is increased in the husband and children of the PMS woman.
Summary
The single most important factor appears to be the way the PMS woman lives her life. Her diet, the stresses that affect her, whether she skips meals, diets excessively, overeats, eats excessive junk foods, eats a diet high in refined or processed foods, high in fat, simple carbohydrates or sugary foods, and caffeine. Alcohol use will also ultimately worsen symptoms. Diet and nutrition are key factors and PMS appears to be an intelligent communication from the body to the woman telling her that she must change her diet and eat more whole foods as well as eliminate foods which either cause or potentiate PMS.
To read Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS), click here.
To read PMS - An Introduction, click here.
To get your PMS Self Evaluation Questionnaire (PEQ), click here.
To read PMS and Your Diet, click here.
To read PMS and the Family, click here.
To read PMS and Emotions, click here.
To read PMS and Pregnancy, click here
To read PMS and Fibrocystic Breast Disease, click here.
To read PMS and Birth Control Pills, click here.
To get your book A Guide to Symptoms Relief, click here.
To purchase 30-Days to No More PMS, click here.
To read Personal PMS Diary, click here.
To read PMS Management Form click here.
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