Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)

Each month thousands of women suffer from PMS symptoms. It is possible to try to treat it with the help of some chemical remedies or to use some natural medicine recipes and formulas. Most specialists advise those women, who experience pms symptoms, keep to a diet and organize their eating habits in a more healthy way.

These advices will certainly help to deal with moodiness, migraines and irritation but it can be not enough to fight a pms problem. Actually, why do pms symptoms appear? Scientists say that PMS is mostly caused by lack of necessary vitamins and minerals in the body.

So it is a great idea to reduce eating salty and sugary food and drinking less beverages with caffeine, but it isn’t enough because it won’t give you useful substances your organism need. Here you’ll read about the food which will help you to fight PMS if you include it in your diet.

Eat fish, especially sardines, salmon, tuna, herring. These fishes are highly rich in omega 3-s, the fatty acids that help to reduce menstrual cramping. Your body also needs calcium and sardines can provide you with it much better than even milk. The problem with calcium is not only in ordinary lack of it – you should also remember that the organism cannot absorb calcium without the help of vitamin D –and these fishes contain really a great amount of this vitamin. According to statistics eating food which contains lots of vitamin D can reduce risk of PMS up to 40 percent.

As it was already mentioned, enough amount of vitamin D in the organism will help your body to cope with calcium that is extremely important itself. Fish is not the only food containing calcium – to get it in a sufficient amount you need to eat dairy products. Calcium affects the balance of estrogen in the body and helps to avoid depression and anxiety during your period. Drink a lot of milk or yogurt, eat cheese and you’ll notice a positive effect right away. If you don’t like dairy products, such things as broccoli or kale can replace them.

Together with calcium and vitamin D our body also needs vitamin B6 and magnesium. B6 is very well-known thing to reduce different PMS symptoms. It is needed to regulate the body’s estrogen level which is very important because too much estrogen causes mood swings and inability to focus. You can get vitamin B6 simply by eating bananas, garbanzo beans, spinach, potatoes (with skin on), chicken and turkey.

Women who experience PMS symptoms usually have a low level of magnesium. Magnesium helps to struggle with water retention and bloating and helps to regulate our brain mood regulator – serotonin. Add more beans to your diet, try pumpkin and sunflower seeds and peanuts and you see how magnesium can improve health especially during your period.

Certainly during the PMS period your body feels not very well and you often want lots of salty or very sweet food just to entertain yourself. You don’t want to deal with this useful uninteresting food. But after you try it you’ll understand that your body doesn’t ask for junk food any more and you feel much better in general.

The modern medicine defines premenstrual syndrome (PMS) as one of the most multi-symptomatic disorders that impact women’s physical and mental health during the time before periods. This can be a few hours or a few days, up to weeks before menstruation starts.
One of the most popular PMS symptoms is excessive liquid retention that is the consequence of disorder in urinary system, when urine formation is decreased.

As a result of excessive liquid storage women can experience swelling and weight gain. Furthermore, it can increase the breast tenderness. The rapid weight gain can cause various heart and vascular disorders due to increased weight load.

If you experience such a problem as fluid retention, consult a doctor who will prescribe you the correct diuretic for increasing the urine formation. If you have experience in taking these meds, you can use over-the-counter pills that suit your organism. Also urinary disorders during PMS can be alleviated by the changes of lifestyle, diet, normalized vitamin balance.

According to various studies, vitamin B6 seems to be the most important for PMS character. Its deficiency can cause various symptoms. But, extra doses of B6 are not digested, they are removed from the body with urine.

If vitamins intake, improved lifestyle and diet rules have no relieving effect on PMS symptoms, it is recommended to consult a doctor for qualified assistance and therapy. He will define the initial reason of symptoms and prescribe correct medication for its removal.

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 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.