Major and unrelenting stress can make PMS much worse

When you have a lot of stress in your life, when it's unrelenting and of a major kind and it is something that is rather beyond your control, this can be a major contributing factor in worse PMS symptoms so that they resemble PMDD, which is the more severe form of PMS.

For the last few months, I have been under a great deal of stress due to a very uncomfortable situation that I have been exposed to. I am trying really hard to extricate myself, but in the meantime, it means that the stress, frustration, anger and other negative emotions that I have been feeling, are contributing to my more exaggerated PMS symptoms this month, which I haven't felt in a very long time.

The one consolation I can give myself is that because I know any intense emotions I get are due to PMS, so this means I can use my little mind trick, where I tell myself, "It's only PMS. It's not real," and this brings my feelings back down to a more normal level pretty quickly.

But, as I am not yet right in the day or two before I menstruate, it still mean it could get much worse, but I hope not. I have done a lot of hard work to get my body to react more normally during PMS over the past few years and I never want to have those intense and crazy emotions that I used to get in the past, where I felt like my head felt like it had this intense pressure inside that I couldn't seem to release and was seemingly coming from nowhere. It was almost like I was going insane with all these intense, crazy emotions that had nothing to do with me, for 2-3 days almost every month and it was the most awful feeling as I could not control it.

Now, after several years of eating properly, exercising, doing meditation, taking certain supplements and massaging my body regularly, I don't feel that way any more. Yep, all without any medication, which was recommended to me, but I declined, preferring to do it the natural way, as I wholeheartedly believe the body can heal itself if you provide the right food, supplements and tools.

Just goes to show, how even if you implement everything properly, except in one area (not reducing stress) it can have a debilitating effect on your health and some of us are more susceptible than others.

PMS symptoms are worse this month

Day 26 of my cycle

Today is day 26 of my cycle, which means I should get my periods in about two days or slightly later than that. Hopefully it will not be too much longer, because I can really feel the PMS more strongly this month than in a long time.

I felt very hungry today, which is normal for me during the last week before I get my periods. I need to eat it seems every few hours and if I don't eat properly, my blood sugar levels go down too much and I feel dizzy and light headed, as well as anxious and jittery. Once I eat, all of that goes away and I feel calm again.

I also have an extremely sweet tooth during PMS, when I crave and eat, quite a bit of sweet food. About the only sweet thing I eat is chocolate. I buy organic or European, so it means it has a low glycemic index (GI) and helps with the blood sugar level problems.

I had some organic chicken soup with organic chicken wings earlier and afterward I felt really satisfied with the meal. I added a little balsamic vinegar to it, as I was craving something sour. It was absolutely delicious. But you know, it's been a few hours and I am hungry again. It's almost like I haven't eaten anything even though I have! That is part of how PMS affects me in terms of my blood sugar levels and hunger levels.

The level of PMS symptoms I have right is just like what I used to have a few years ago - really severe, really bad and more like PMDD - and it's all because of the major stress in my life, which has not yet been removed. It has been mediated a little, but not removed and that is the priority for me.

I think my last post may have been too much for some people, because I described some of my symptoms quite descriptively. I do so, because I know it helps other girls/women know that they are not alone in their suffering. It was about fluid retention in my breasts and nipples - damn annoying that it even happened this month (the bloating and pain, that is)!

PMS bloating symptoms here in full force

It is now day 23 of my menstrual cycle.

The PMS fluid retention symptoms are here in full force.

I also feel rather emotional, more so than normal. Like if I see anything emotional on television (someone crying), it makes me feel too much empathy for them and I want to cry too.

Yesterday and the day before my breasts were so painful, bloated and spilling out of my bra, like I needed to go up a cup size. In addition to this, my nipples were completely painful and quite enlarged (as if I was breastfeeding and needed them to be that big)! Even when I had a shower yesterday and my arm accidentally moved past my nipples (say if I was reaching over to get the soap, or moving around washing myself), it hurt so bad the pain was almost unbearable. It must have been because they were so bloated and abnormally large and that is why it hurt so much.

I haven't had this kind of pain in my breasts/nipples for well over a year, maybe two years, ever since I started eating better, exercising, massaging and meditating. It must be because of the intense emotionally charged and stressful situation I am currently in (but trying to extricate myself from and it's taking longer than I anticipated), which is bringing on these PMS symptoms so strongly.

Weird thing is, today the bloating in my breasts and pain in the nipples is no longer there, so maybe the prawns and rice I had yesterday with the spices helped. Or, maybe it was the Scheussler tissue salt, General Tonic, which as all the 12 tissue salts, in homeopathic form that I had last night which did the trick to help tone down the bloating. It's the formula that is for the "temporary relief of overall fatigue and exhaustion", which work on the whole body, especially the nervous system, to help support it and that's obviously what I need right now. Will have some more today.

I highly recommend tissue salts for use - they generally don't interact with medications (but check with your doctor to make sure) and do help:
Search Amazon.com for tissue salts.

PMS symptoms are fluctuating this month

I am at day 20 of my cycle, which means I have definitely been in PMS mode for about 6 days now.

I have discussed in previous posts that I can feel the PMS symptoms more keenly this month, with the fluid retention and fluctuating emotions starting right after ovulation.

At the moment, my stomach has this huge amount of fluid retention, which seems to come and go. Today it's very definitely here, my stomach has a lot of fluid retention and even when I hold my stomach in, it's still there. Lovely. At least I know it will be gone once my periods finish, but it's still annoying.

Additionally, I have felt the rise of emotion overwhelming me, having a far more intense reaction to stressful events than I normally would have, if I wasn't in PMS mode. It's almost like a physical sensation, the wave of emotion that threatens to overwhelm me and it rises so fast, that it is difficult to stem the tide.  But I try to do so, because it's not healthy to buy into it.

Whenever I feel that rise of emotion - anger, resentment, anxiety, fear - or tears, I keep telling myself, over and over again, "it's just PMS, it's not a real emotion", until the intense emotion goes away. I managed to stem the flow of angry tears even before they started just using this little strategy of mine!  So it's a big plus. Better than any medication and cheaper too, that is for sure!

While I have had the intense negative emotions, they haven't been going on that much, or that consistently, so that is a positive. On the plus side, I have been feeling more creative and more incisive and my brain feels like it's functioning better. It's always good to see the positive side of anything because it helps you cope better.

I have been exercising for about 35-45 minutes most days of the week in this last week. I am better from the flu and can manage exercising more normally now.

This past few months I have had to deal with an unrelentingly stressful situation that has been greatly upsetting, so the immense stress I have been under has made a huge impact on my PMS symptoms, making them much worse than normal, but still not as bad as they used to be, because I know how to manage them better now

Just a clarification

I was going through my blog the other day and decided to do a bit of a clean up.

I found a blog post which I thought was far too long and contained far too much information for just one blog post.

It was a post I made on 5 February 2008 about the causes of PMS and PMDD, with five different areas.

I decided to edit that post  into five separate blog posts, in order to separate the different topic areas contained within the post.  There was too much content for just one post and I separated it to make it easier to read.

The post was previously entitled: PMS and PMDD Causes and it was quite comprehensive in content.

It has now been divided into five posts, for the same day, just to make the content more readable and easier to manage as there were five different areas within the same post and lots of information in the one post.

I decided that because it was an important topic - the possible causes of PMS and PMDD - that each part should have it's own post.

You can view the five separate posts here:

• PMS and PMDD Causes - Part 1: Nutritional Deficiencies
• PMS and PMDD Causes - Part 2: Stress
• PMS and PMDD Causes - Part 3: Lack of Exercise
• PMS and PMDD Causes - Part 4: Toxic Chemicals
• PMS and PMDD Causes - Part 5: PMDD is Not a Mental Disorder

Enjoy!

And in case you hadn't noticed, I changed the format of my blog too. Hope you like the swirly pattern in the background and the new format. I wanted to make it more colourful.

PMS has started early for this month, already

PMS has started already this month, early.

I think because I have been rather inactive these past three weeks and have had to deal with a very stressful situation (which I am trying to extricate myself  from), that's most likely causing PMS to start early.

I haven't been active or doing much exercise these past three weeks, because I have been really sick with the flu from just before the start of my previous months' periods and I am only now just starting to get better! It's been a very virulent flu virus that got me and I am still coughing and have sinusitis as well as feel very lethargic and tired.

At the moment, it's just my breasts that feel rather full and heavier than normal and my stomach is bloated out, it juts out when I sit down and that's not normal for me when I don't have PMS.

I don't mind having full, heavy and even painful breasts and the fluid retention that goes on in the rest of my body, but I do not want the emotional symptoms - the anger, irrational thinking, depression, anxiety and everything else that goes with it, to a varying degree, for those days before my periods start.

Last night I did about 15 minutes of exercise - not much, but I didn't have much energy to do more. Today, I did 30 minutes of exercise, so I hope that, combined with eating more fruits and vegetables and taking all my vitamins/minerals, can help to prevent the worst of the fluid retention and other PMS symptoms.  I probably also need to do some meditation too. Maybe I will do some tonight, before I go to sleep, which will be very soon.