1.gif)
|
Premenstrual Syndrome |
|
|
Premenstrual Syndrome |
Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) is sometimes called Premenstrual Tension (PMT). It is basically a collection of both physical and mental problems that happen just prior to a woman having her period, and end shortly after she starts her period. It is not acknowledged to exist in girls before they begin to have periods, and women after they have gone through the menopause.
It is called a Syndrome because it seems to be a collection
of problems/symptoms and not one clear thing.
Women can suffer from none, one, or lots of the following:
| Mental Problems | Physical Problems |
|---|---|
|
|
Often these symptoms do not appear at the same time, and some people argue that many of the problems are more common during a period. Also, the nature and severity of the symptoms can fluctuate drastically from month to month. For example a woman may feel terribly bloated and irritable one month, and feel fine, or suffer from backache the next.
All PMS symptoms are very specific to the individual woman.
They don't seem to be influenced by where you were born or what race
you belong to. PMS is just as common in Africa, for example,
as it is in Europe or the USA.
Until pretty recently, PMS was not officially recognised as existing by doctors and scientists. Even now, there is no real agreement in the academic world about what it is. This has led to wildly different estimates of how common it is. With some research saying that only 1 in 33 women get it, and other research saying that 97 out of 100 women get it. Even official sources can't narrow it down more than between roughly 1 in 3, and 8 out of 10.
What does seem pretty clear though, is that many women suffer from it in quite a mild form, whereas there are a smaller number that really suffer in a very severe way. It's been estimated that in the USA, about 1 in 12 women are affected to such a degree that they cannot carry on their daily lives in the same way as they would if they didn't suffer from it.
One final problem is that many women say they suffer from PMS
when, in fact, they don't, while others who can suffer greatly from it
either ignore it or put it down to their own personality or some other
problem (e.g. stress). Also Doctors may not pick this up as a problem
and may incorrectly say it is something else.
As you would expect, with the experts not really knowing what it is,
there is no clear agreement about what causes it. However, the fact
that womens' hormones fluctuate a lot during their menstrual cycle, seems
to indicate that they may well play a key role.
There is no one treatment that has been clearly shown to work in all cases of PMS. Many different drugs have been tried, one of these, the contraceptive pill (particularly one containing progesterone), is often reported as being helpful, although academically, to our knowledge, this has not been proven. Other remedies include vitamin supplements, primrose oil, and alternative medicines.
The most successful approach, at the moment, seems to be to target the specific symptoms that a person is suffering from at that time of the month, and treat them (e.g. depression).
Supportive Counselling and Relaxation Techniques are often helpful to women, as they can tackle the factors that can make PMS symptoms worse. Stress, in fact, seems to be pretty clearly related to the worsening of some PMS symptoms, and has been known to delay the onset of a period, thus lengthening the time a woman spends in the premenstrual phase of her cycle. Any treatments that can effectively tackle stress would then seem pretty good choices as ones to help with PMS.
We are creating a SimplePsych factsheet on PMS which goes into more detail while still using easy to understand English. If you would be interested at this service being offered to you please let us know by emailing us Click Here
Thank you.
*** RECOMMENDED BOOKS ***
If you are interested in going into even more depth, the following book(s), sold by Amazon.co.uk, are recommended by us. Each is followed by a rating for ease of reading (1-3).
1=Simple and
Easy to comprehend.
2=More Complex but still a good read.
3=Very Complex, only for
professionals/those studying to degree level.
PMS: Women tell Women how to control Premenstrual Syndrome (Degraff Bender & Kelleher)
RATING SCORE = 2 Very comprehensive, with good sections on treatments.
Premenstrual Syndrome: A Guide for Young Women (Berger)
RATING SCORE = 1 American in style, but still an excellent introduction for young women starting to learn about PMS.
To return to the mainpage click here
OR Click Back on your Browser to return to the Previous Page.
Copyright© SimplePsych 2000