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God, PMS is awful. I turn into a sobbing, raging lunatic. Luckily I'm on BC, so it's marked on the calendar and DH stocks the house with chocolate and junk food a few days before. Good man.
When I was younger I had no issues at all...
I swear I hit 45 and turned into a raging C-unit or a blithering bawling spaz for a couple of days or both!...I mean to the point where my poor husband cannot breathe properly or he is mean to me cause he said 'hi' in THAT way......he doesn't know what he should do for those couple of days cause it's anyones guess what will set me off!!! Sometimes I offer up the nookie...I think he says yes out of fear
cramping and whatever starts when Flo shows up...it's the emotions that throw me for a loop...
Birth control always threw me for a worse loop. I never really had PMS, still don't get the mood swings, but I was a total wreck when I was on BC. On Depo (the shot) I was fine, the pill I would forget to take, so I was on Nuva Ring. I didn't know anything was wrong until I listened to my husband and stopped taking it. Then after 2 months I could see how horrible I was to him and others.
"There was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently." William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (how very apt a title).
There are hormonal changes that take place over a menstrual cycle that may -- and this is debatable -- be affecting a woman's moods. One reason why this is "debatable" is that there are other contributing factors. For one, there are the cramps, bloating, backache and headache associated with the beginning of one's menses. The symptoms range from mild discomfort to honest-to-goodness feeling sick; but the woman must still go about her day as if nothing is wrong. Anybody, male or female, would be irritable under those circumstances. Hygiene is another obvious issue; "that time of the month", particularly in warm climates, is when a woman must be especially fastidious and schedule her day around bathroom breaks, which, needless to say, adds to the stress. Another issue is weight gain due to water retention. It's not a lot, but if a particular woman gets on the scale every single morning, she'll see her weight inching up (and clothes feel tighter because of the bloating), so that's yet another source of stress.
For the most part, however, the effects of PMS are vastly overblown in the popular imagination. According to clinical studies (not available online, so feel free not to believe me), although over 80% of menstruating women experience some symptoms, only 2%-5% have symptoms significant enough to interfere with at least one aspect of everyday life (like, for example, interactions with one's SO). And so PMS is mostly exaggerated, by both men and women. When men do it, it's so they don't have to take women seriously (I once witnessed an argument in which a female lawyer in court was accused of being "on a red patch", even though she was obviously in her seventies and therefore post-menopausal); and when women do it, it's in order to have an excuse to act out. Either way, we are all subject to a myriad irritants every day. This is just one.
Thanks for the visual
It's funny- I have 6 sisters and none of them go through the PMS thing. They've told me they don't. So since it wasn't a thing at home, this is all new to me.
I hear so much about it, so I have to assume that it is real. But I have never ever experienced it, thankfully!
As a woman who just got her period late late Wednesday night, let me just say, it is real....all of the symptoms mentioned by other posters, I had...now some months, it will sneak up on me and I won't even know I'm about to get imy period..and other months, the symptoms are so severe especially on the mental/emotional front that I think I'm gonna go crazy.
The other day I said if I wake up one more day feeling like this, I'm going to have to check myself into the hospital. Then my period came and it started to subside, but I already had a prior case of depression going that was exacerbated by the PMS. I lost 12 pounds in 3 weeks, had to bite my tongue when I was out in public/at work to stop myself from crying for no reason, had severe insomnia, intrusive thoughts, anorexia (which is a medical term for loss of appetite, not anorexia nervosa), nausea, diarrhea, headaches, and literally chest pain.... I wouldn't wish they way I felt on my worst enemy. I don't hate the weight loss, but this isn't the way I want to go about it. Thank God I finally turned the corner or I would be a patient in my own hospital right now!!
As far as the percentages posted by a previous poster and things being greatly exaggerated go, maybe that's the case and I'm just one of the unlucky ones but believe me, I wish it was just overblown BS. I hated feeling that way, but I couldn't get away from myself!!
If I find myself being irritable and cranky, I will check myself briefly just to give enough warning to the behavior about to come, I tell my husband that it is no way his fault I am moody and I apologize if I feel I am getting to over worked. Then I run a hot bath, pour a stiff drink and soak with a good book, to "relax" a bit. Not sure if it is the bath that helps or the drink. But I do not want to discontinue either one, just in case LOL
And by the way, there is a condition called PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder), which I'm sure I have, which is a more severe form of PMS and is actually catergorized as a mood disorder, for which one can be treated with a birth control pill that has a mild amount of antidepressant added for the 2 weeks prior to menstruation that I once started to take but I didn't follow through...I may have to consider going back to it.
I think it's...Seasonale if I remember correctly...
Or maybe, Belinda, I'll just take up drinking when it's on its way!!!
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Thank God I finally turned the corner or I would be a patient in my own hospital right now!!
