Premenstrual Syndrome - Symptoms, Diagnosis, & Treatment
Once a month, you feel irritable, bloated, moody and plagued by headaches and abdominal cramps. These feelings are part of a normal phenomenon known as premenstrual syndrome, better known simply as PMS. It remains the subject of wisecracks among comics and ordinary people, but the condition continues on as an unbearable dilemma for women. Millions of women experience these miserable symptoms a few days before their periods.
Symptoms of PMS
PMS can involve a number of different symptoms that range from physical, psychological and emotional. A woman who is going through this particular time of the month may cry for seemingly no reason; snap at anyone and everyone around her; curl up into a ball in a fetal position in bed and feel tired, depressed and extra sensitive.
Other annoying PMS symptoms that can make you want to call out sick from work are cramps, diarrhea, tenderness of the breasts and anxiety. You experience weight changes due to water retention and over-eating, while insomnia and tension plague your sleep.
3 out of 4 women get PMS, and the syndrome is most likely to strike women between the ages of the late 20s and early 40s. Generally, premenstrual syndrome tends to repeat itself in a pattern that is easy to predict. Of course, there may be some fluctuations in women that vary from month to month. For example, you may experience a migraine headache the day before you get your period one month, but the next you may not have a headache at all. Sometimes, cramps are very noticeable a few days before your period comes, but other times, there may be none.
Natural Solutions
There are plenty of natural solutions for relieving PMS symptoms. These tend to be far more effective, healthier and longer lasting than relying on over the counter medications. Taking magnesium can help to ease the pain and discomfort of cramps, water retention and bloating. While vitamin B complex can eliminate anxiety, and herbs such as safflower, passion flower, wild yam, dong quai, white peony, vitex and bupleurum can alleviate all of these symptoms in addition to the emotional ups and downs that you experience during PMS.
When you take all of these or a combination of these remedies regularly, you will no longer be plagued by misery once per month before your menstrual period.