Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)

PMS can be relieved by some natural remedies, as they are most attuned to the women’s nature since the dawn of history. Nevertheless, some of them are not thoroughly studied and might have side effects. Below is a short list of the natural remedies:

1. Chaste Tree Berry

The berry of chaste tree (also known as Vitex agnus-castus) has been one of the popular herbs helping fight PMS for a long time in Europe. The British Medical Journal published the results of a study involving two hundred women having PMS. They found out that chaste tree berry can considerably reduce premenstrual syndrome as soon as over 3 menstrual cycles. Those women who took chaste tree showed big improvements in depression, breast tenderness and headaches.

However, the chaste tree berry might have some side effects, the most common of which are headache, nausea, menstrual disorders and itching. Pregnant or nursing women shouldn’t take it, and its safety in children and people having liver or kidney diseases has not been established. Chaste tree berry may also theoretically affect the pituitary gland.

2. Calcium
There has been a study carried out to discover that women with PMS have low level of calcium and its supplementation can help reduce the symptoms severity. The research was looking at a thousand women with PMS and two thousand women without. The results showed that women, taking the greatest amount of calcium from natural sources experienced the least PMS symptoms. It also proved that taking calcium carbonate in the amount of 300 mg 4 times per day can considerably reduce pain, depression, bloating, mood changes and food cravings.

3. Magnesium
Magnesium is the mineral that can be found both in supplements and in natural food, which shows great preliminary results regarding relieving PMS. The study, examining the impact of magnesium in thirty women having PMS, revealed that 360 mg of magnesium taken 3 times per day, from 15th day to the start of the menstrual period, can considerably improve mood swings during PMS. One more study showed that 200 mg of magnesium used for 2 menstrual cycles can significantly lower the abdominal bloating, weight gain and breast tenderness.

Diarrhea and upset stomach might come as side effects of excess magnesium, as well as low blood pressure, nausea, slowed heart rate, confusion, coma, and even death. Magnesium shouldn’t be taken by people having kidney or heart disease without permission of their doctor. Magnesium can only be taken under medical supervision if together with antibiotics, diabetic medications, digoxin, blood pressure medications, tiludronate and levothyroxine, as it can interact with them.

4. Acupuncture
Acupuncture, alongside with breathing exercises, is recommended by Chinese practitioners as a good way to ease liver stagnation, although there is no scientific evidence behind it. Traditional Chinese medicine considers liver as the part of a body which is particularly affected by stress or frustration. Such PMS symptoms as bloating, cramping and breast tenderness may be the result of liver energy (“qi”) stagnation, resulted from spicy and fatty foods or alcohol.

5. Relaxation
Yoga, aromatherapy, breathing exercises and meditation are natural methods to get rid of stress and gain relaxation. Most women are more attuned to their needs weeks before menstruation, which can be used at a profit by spending your time to relax, meeting all your needs.

6. Evening Primrose Oil
This is natural plant oil, containing gamma-linolenic acid, which is considered to be an omega-six essential fatty acid. It is engaged into metabolism of prostaglandins (the hormone-like substances) regulating inflammation and pain in the human body.
However, the 2 most well-designed out of 7 studies on this remedy for premenstrual syndrome didn’t show any effects.

7. Exercise
Regular exercise like swimming, cycling, brisk walking or jogging will most likely ease PMS symptoms. The study revealed the impact of not the intensity but frequency of exercise on a relieved PMS symptoms.

8. Diet
Some suggestions related to diet might be helpful for PMS as well. Reducing caffeine, alcohol, fatty foods, red meat, salt and sugar intake will relieve depression, bloating, dizziness and breast tenderness. Eat more fish, beans, fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables (especially broccoli) as they are rich in potassium and vital vitamins. Try to eat not much portions, but frequently in order to stabilize blood sugar.

9. Many more
There are quite a few other natural remedies, which can help PMS, like Reflexology, Chiropractic, Vitamin E, Ginkgo, Royal jelly, Wild yam, Uva ursi, Progesterone cream and Dandelion.

Dear women, you all know that it’s not necessary to suffer so much from premenstrual syndrome, but I think most of you just don’t know how to fight it. So I think you will appreciate my hints on natural remedies able to relieve the feeling of discomfort.

1. Try to eat several small portions of meal during the day instead of usual three meals. Make sure you don’t spend more than 3 hours a day without a meal in order to keep your blood sugar even.

2. Avoid any caffeine-containing drinks, because caffeine causes the increase of nervous tension, accompanying PMS.

3. Avoid eating much salt, as it increases retention of fluid and bloating.

4. For the same reason drink lots of water. It will help to lower retention and bloating as it’ll dilute the salt concentration in your body.

5. Also avoid sugars. Sweets usually deplete your body because Vitamin B together with other nutrients are being wasted to digest them.

6. Make sure you eat lots of fiber and complex carbohydrates, as they are considered a source of energy lasting over long time. Many foods that are high in carbohydrates also contain fiber, and that one is very important for your overall health.

7. Take 400 to 600 IU of Vitamin E daily. This has been reported to lower cysts within the breasts and the breast tenderness. But please make sure you take good Vitamin E, as it might be rancid. I’ll give you a hint how to choose it right – cut a liquid gel cap open and try. If it tastes sour, it’s not of the high quality.

8. Also take Vitamin B-6 (Pyridoxine) 50 to 300 mg per day. It can help to ease the symptoms of PMS.

9. Do regular exercise, as it can reduce the stress that women felt before menstruation being caused by regulating levels of hormone.

10. Sleep enough. If you don’t, you’ll feel tired and overstrained and this might increase stress levels and PMS symptoms.

PMS is a complex disease influencing virtually all the systems of the body. However, PMS has the greatest effect on the very emotional condition of ours. You are sure to have noticed that few days before the cycle started you got touchy and angry, often went wrong with your family or took everything to heart. As for me, these days I cry as many tears as I don’t manage to cry over the whole month. I cry at the slightest opportunity. I can be touched by a dramatic moment in a movie, sad love song or even a homeless puppy on the street. And my vulnerability can turn into aggression in a second, that’s when I start making a row with the first person coming in my way. That is why for me a perfect PMS medication is the one that not only helps to get rid of pain in the belly and breast, but also improves my emotional condition. Prozac has positive calming effect on the nervous system and helps to return it to its stable condition.

Prozac is the very medication that brings relief during those few days before the cycle starts, when life becomes hell not only for me, but for my family as well. Indeed, this medication helps to see things positively and not to be distressed by trifles. Besides, Prozac calms the nerves down, so I stopped going wrong with my family and can adequately control my emotions. This medication removes the symptoms of depression, calms the body down, and makes me feel positive. Of course, Prozac does not give you the feeling of euphoria or excitement. It’s just that when I take it I feel calm and confident both before the periods start and during the menstruation or after it ends.

Well, Prozac has been talked about for long. In the USA over the last few decades this medication is taken by every twentieth person! Naturally, they prescribe it not only for PMS, but for other problems with nervous system as well. But the health professionals do not have the united opinion on it. Most of them are prone to thinking that it is absolutely safe, while some doctors claim that constant stimulation of serotonin generation (which is the major effect of Prozac) is not good for human body. Generally, when I take Prozac I found myself totally comfortable. The only problem provoked by this medication lies in periodical sleep disorders. Sometimes I felt sleepy during almost the whole day, while later on I could not fall asleep till dawn. When I started to have these symptoms, I reduced the dose of Prozac and the sleep disorders stopped.

A recently made research shows that forty-two percent of women who are suffering from premenstrual syndrome take over-the-counter medications or prescriptions to alleviate their symptoms. Among them, about 80% mostly control pain by using OTC medication.

Nowadays a growing number of those women who suffer from PMS are asking for help from both alternative and conventional health practitioners. And the research indicates that women opting for alternative therapies found them pretty much effective. So you may draw a conclusion that the medical community should get used to the efficiency of countless evidence-based natural interferences.

During many years, the traditional medicine has been providing the suggestive cures for premenstrual syndrome that don’t always work. Majority of doctors have never had any training on this topic and some others haven’t heard of the latest studies on hormone balancing. To alleviate the pain, the reason for it should be discovered, while the traditional medicine keeps prescribing painkillers for headaches, diuretics for bloating and Valium for anxiety, but can’t find the underlying imbalance causing PMS. Besides, most of these treatments have side effects.

There are a number of alternative and lifestyle therapies that are able to reduce symptoms and maybe even improve your life quality, as the guaranteed and safe treatment for PMS is not discovered yet. On the other side, psychotherapy can help you understand the reasons for stress, but it only touches the biochemical and nutritional aspects of this disorder.

Keeping a specific diet could be very beneficial in relieving symptoms. Reconsider your needs for food and eliminate excess soy, dairy, sugar, alcohol and caffeine. While avoiding such foods, make sure to get plenty of the minerals and vitamins that your body needs. Eat organic, in-season, fresh vegetables and fruits.

Doing exercise is also a very good self-care approach that you can try while dealing with symptoms of PMS. It does not have to mean a sweaty and strenuous gym afternoon; it can be something very simple – for example, walking regularly. Exercise would be considered regular if done on average at least 3 to 5 times a week.

Apart from dietary and exercise measures, there might also be helpful to try alternative therapies. You may appreciate a great advantage of such relaxation methods as roll breathing, massage therapy, yoga and relaxation exercises in order to reduce stress.

Another interesting and widely used treatment for PMS is a bright light therapy. Some researches assume that receiving more full-spectrum or natural light on days with symptoms of PMS may reduce the symptoms severity.

As we can see, there is much evidence that women suffering from PMS have a possibility to lower the dependence upon synthetic drugs by shifting to various methods like chiropractic or acupuncture.

All mentioned treatments are well-tolerated and safe. Although they are not always considered as standard PMS treatment, you may find some of them helpful in alleviating the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.

Nervousness, aggression, apathy, and depression during PMS – here is my eternal problem. I have tried everything to avoid the unpleasant symptoms! But, unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to find perfect medication, which would kill the pain, improve spirits, and show no side effects. At least this is what I thought before trying out Vitamin В6.

At first I not in the least believed in this medication, which is not surprising, because I usually take strong pain killers and antidepressants, so it was very difficult to believe that simple vitamins would take away the pain and mood swings. However, I decided to try it out, and now from my own experience I see that Vitamin В6 actually makes me feel much better during PMS.

They say that Vitamin В6 should work with magnesium, lack of which, as the latest scientific data prove, provokes most of PMS symptoms. I started to take this medication, and it really helped me. There are no such mood swings, as there were before. I feel more even-tempered and not as aggressive as I used to. However, some kind of excitement still can be noticed if I drink a cup of coffee, strong tea or something energizing. Unfortunately, Vitamin В6 can not fight caffeine, so for maximum effect it is better to limit caffeine consumption during PMS.

Another problem I faced when I started to take Vitamin В6 is drum belly. But mu doctor came to conclusion that it is provoked not by the vitamin itself, but by its combination with dairy products. So from now on I will have to keep myself from drinking kefir or yoghurt before going to bed, well, at least during PMS.

As for the pain, I can not say that Vitamin В6 is 100% effective. Sometimes I still can not do without painkillers, and sometimes the first days of my periods are almost painless.

For some people PMS is in the first place connected with mood swings, but in my case every new month brings intolerable pain, which I always have in the first days of any menstrual cycle. The pain starts from the bottom of my belly and sometimes it becomes so severe that it provokes nausea or head ache. I tried great number of pain killers, both the simplest and more expensive ones. American medication Midol was one of them.

One can’t say that pain killers not in the least help during PMS. However, it is difficult to find among them such medication, which would really help to take away the pain any month. Actually, on one day it can be helped with simple no-spa, while on another day even complex of strong pain killers can do nothing about it. However, I have discovered for myself miraculous pills, which always take away the pain. Midol has become such “savior” for me.

Midol is sometimes called an American analogue to our baralgin. But, unlike the later, it really works. Only one pill taken on the first day of periods allows getting rid of pain and even improves spirits. Midol pills help me to normally tolerate beginning of the cycle, while I still remember the times when the first day of periods simply fell out of my life!

The only thing, which I find disturbing about this medication, is that as any other strong pain killer it mismatches alcohol and other medications. It is the biggest problem about it. For me Midol is only a pain killer, because it does not help with bad mood and apathy. However, one should take good care when taking these pills together with other PMS medications, because they might provoke large hemorrhage, which would only make the pain stronger and wield negative influence on the overall health.

I got to know about Sarafem from my gynecologist. I had constant complains associated with pain during the first days of my periods and frequent mood swings in the course of PMS, that is why my doctor recommended to start pharmaceutical treatment, which would help me to restore and normalize menstrual cycle.

According to the doctor, Sarafem medication has complex effect on the body and not only help to cope with mood swings and depression, but also regulates pain during menstruation. At first I had doubts about this medication, because they write almost nothing about it. But, considering doctor’s recommendations I decided to try it out.

Sarafem medication did not in the least take away the pain, which I always have in the first days of menstrual cycle. However, it really helped me with my depression, apathy, irritation, and aggression taking turns within several days before my periods begin. Before that I could burst crying at the slightest pretext and become cheerful again in few minutes without any particular reason. PMS had some kind of magical effect on me – I could be active and gay or, on the contrary, feeling abandoned and castaway. After I started taking Sarafem, my disposition became more stable. It would seem to me that I had found perfect pills from the unpleasant syndrome, but eventually I had to give up on taking this medication. The thing is that Sarafem did not take away the pain, which kept torturing me every 1 to 2 days of the cycle. In order to get rid of the pain, I took aspirin or similar pain killers. Together these medications provoked large hemorrhage, due to which I had to stop taking Sarafem. By the way, alcohol also mismatches this medication.

PMS has always been a problem for me. Mood swings, apathy, depression, severe pain during the first days of the cycle – all this constantly repeated every month. Discovery of medication from the severe syndrome was a surprise. It was Yaz oral contraceptive, which was recommended by my gynecologist as a contraceptive.

At the beginning I could not even believe that Yaz can bring my woman’s health to norm. But the medication really works! The best thing in it is that Yaz normalizes the length of menstrual cycle, so from now on my periods always begin in time. Besides, as any hormonal agent, this medication wields positive influence on condition of my skin. Since my early days I had problems with butterfly patch. Today, there is almost no problem with that, but after taking Yaz I totally forgot about acne and unpleasant pimples. Another particularity of this medication is that it can influence your weight and your breast. From my experience I see that if one takes Yaz regularly, breasts really somewhat grow, and the overall weight becomes bigger as well. So, in few months my weight got two kilograms larger. Also after I had taken this medication, in the first days of the periods pain became not that severe, but it did not entirely disappear. Now I combine regular taking of Yaz wil pain killers, which I still have to take in the first days of my periods.

Along with all the evident advantages Yaz also has a number of disadvantages. It is extremely important to take the medication at the same time every day; otherwise you will not get any positive effect. Yaz also has considerable side effects, which often show themselves at the beginning. Thus, when I took this medication, for few days I had head ache and slight nausea, whereas in the instruction it says it might provoke diarrhea and a number of other unpleasant symptoms.

PMS is the eternal “curse” of women, which makes us suffer virtually each month. The nature of this phenomenon has not been completely studied yet, but the symptoms are evident: few days before the cycle begins we face problems of psychological and physical nature. The worst thing is that perfect PMS medication has not been discovered yet. The thing is that PMS somewhat resembles the very nature of women – it is extremely unstable and each time it can show itself differently. In my case PMS is mostly connected with mood swings. Sometimes my head aches, sometimes it can be stomach pain, and at times the pain can be so intolerable, that it provokes nausea, apathy, and faintness. So what is the best way to fight it, and what PMS medication really works?

I have tried great many of things to get rid of pain. The first thing I started from was strong painkillers I had taken a couple of days before the cycle began. Those were traditional pills known to everyone since childhood, such as no-spa or baralgin, as well as more recent strong PMS medication. This is how I started to take Midol. In these pills combination of aspirin and caffeine helps to kill the pain, but it does not improve my mental condition. In order to get rid of mood swings, I took two medications: Sarafem and Vitamin B6. In the instruction it said that these PMS medications both killed pain and improved overall health. They did not help me to get rid of pain, but my disposition actually became more stable. However, in combination with Midol these medications really help.

Another good PMS medication is Yaz. Actually, Yaz is an oral contraceptive, but is so good at normalizing hormonal bursts, that it also helps to normalize menstrual cycle and reduce PMS symptoms.