Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)

Birth control medications are now used for treating the severest type of premenstrual syndrome – premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). The first such drug that was approved by FDA is Yaz. It was clinically proved that Yaz is able to relief PMDD symptoms with efficiency not less than 50%. These results motivated FDA for its approval.

What is more, Yaz showed its effectiveness in removing both physical and emotional disorders caused by PMDD, positively influencing on daily activity, relations with people and emotional stability.

Yaz, as other hormonal birth control medications, contains estrogen and the unique form of progestin. Its unique characteristics are very helpful in fighting PMDD, if to follow its 24-day intake schedule, according to the latest release from Berlex Inc., the American representative of Yaz manufacturer (Schering).

Andrea Rapkin, MD from UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, reports: “Yaz is able to solve both problems. It combines facilities for effective contraception for preventing unwanted pregnancy and for reducing the PMDD impact on female organism”.
It is common for the most of women to experience PMS problems, but PMDD occurs only in 5% of cases. PMDD has the strongest symptoms that impact women making them unable to do their everyday activities.

PMDD: Aggressive PMS Successor

For the most of doctors and patients PMDD is something like PMS squared. For diagnosing PMDD women has to experience at least five of the symptoms described below:

· Mood swings, frequent wish to cry

· The feel of apathy, sadness or hopelessness

· Increased irritability worsening relationships with people around

· Tenseness or anxiety with no reason

· The feel of losing control

· Shortage of energy

· The loss of interest to things and people that usually were interesting

· Appetite changes like intense desire to eat, overeating

· Problems with attention and its concentration, slow mental work

· Slumber problems: not getting enough sleep or excessive sleeping

· Physical disorders like headaches, pains in muscles and joints, swelling, breast tenderness, increase of weight, etc.

It is required to experience one of the first four symptoms to give a diagnosis of PMDD. As a rule these symptoms appear the week before periods and totally disappear in a couple of days after they start.

PMDD is very hard to stand, that is why doctors often prescribe the whole complex of medications for its treatment, including antidepressants, hormonal drugs, water pills, vitamins. Nowadays many kinds of birth control pills are used to treat PMDD, but Yaz was the first one that received FDA approval.

The most popular side effects caused by Yaz are headaches and pain in breasts.

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.