PMDD - symptoms, diagnosis, and my treatment so far

foreign [Music] I hope you're all well I thought I'd do this video today as a little bit of a really honest open catch up about things that have been going on in the past few months uh in my head and in my life and I know I haven't posted much on here for a while and I was actually I did actually originally start talking about this in one of my weekly Vlogs and I ended up sorry Hendrix is here just like coughing away it sounds like he's got her ball hey buddy oh okay grumpy okay like I was saying I was gonna bring this up in one of my Vlogs but I kind of started talking about it and I went on speaking about it for so long in such that that I was like I may as well do a whole separate video and have a real sit down and try and not rush this conversation because it's a difficult one and I whilst I feel a lot better now I have really kind of gone through the ringer with a lot of things and I think it was just I just think it's an important thing to talk about if you've been watching my weekly Vlogs towards the end of last year there was like a couple of instances where I kind of essentially had like little breakdowns and I only showed you probably about five percent of what actually happened if not less and it was always like a case about you know I might be like filming and being like oh I'd feel already down today and I just feel really low in myself and I feel like I just I don't know what it is but I just feel like I'm not good enough I'm not good enough for myself my own expectations like I'm just not good enough and I'm rubbish at my job and then there was the one the one time where I had a real like influx of body dysmorphia related problems that I just I I had a real breakdown about that and I was just like I just can't see my body properly like I feel so disgusted in myself that would always happen in my Vlogs and then like it'd be like either a few days later or the following week I'd be vlogging and it'd be like oh my period came LOL like I guess like I was so upset because my period was due but when I say that I was upset I really really struggled and the things that I didn't show were really really dark so I feel I feel it feels really weird talking about this because I'm super I feel like very composed now I feel like an element of distance from it but I for a few months that I had that I have pmdd which is a very severe form of PMs and it's pmgd stands for pre premenstrual dysphoric disorder and I've known about it for a little while but I kind of was like no that's not what this is that's not what this is I'm not gonna allow that to be a thing and also I didn't think that is what it was because I would have a dip when it'd be really weird I assume that pmdd was like oh just sort of like before your period comes kind of like how PMS is like you know maybe in the five days in the lead up to your period you get like a bit like pissy irritable sleepy sore boobs upset Terry but my I you know I would I would feel I'd wake up one day and I would feel so low and so depressed and so down and it was like a light switch had gone off in my head and I felt like a very very different person inside my head and after maybe like a couple days feeling like that I checked my cycle tracker and be like because I'd be like I feel so down like my period has to be due and I'd check it and it'd be like oh yeah your period's not due for like maybe like 11 days and I'd be like oh well this isn't PMS then because I I would be much closer to my period I'm only halfway through my cycle this is where pmdd comes in so symptoms of pmdd which I'll go into in a moment they start I'm kind of doing this a little backwards a little bit backwards but I really didn't know how to sort of talk about it so I'm literally just like chatting about it so the symptoms of pmdd usually start to hit just after ovulation which is around the mid part of your cycle so you're looking around maybe 10 days between like maybe around like 10 days before your period is actually due sometimes maybe a little bit more it's around it takes up around it can take up around half of your cycle so this is when all the severe symptoms come in and this this is hard to talk about because I think a lot a lot of people just don't get it a lot of people are like oh you're just dramatic it's just hormones like it's just you're a little bit hormonal or you just don't get mental health like full stop but uh pmdd symptoms like pmzd is to is to PMS what a migraine is to a headache it is like PMS on steroids so instead of feeling irritable you feel like severe rage instead of feeling sad or low you feel depressed and often suicidal there is a huge percentage of women who suffer from pmdd who have made suicide attempts so it is something that is very very serious and it's really hard to talk about without getting like emotional because it's it's it's really it's a really horrible thing to go through there are loads of symptoms I think instead of just listing them I'm just going to put them up on the screen now or as I kind of maybe talk about more how it were it kind of like manifested for me but I would find that around part way through my cycle I went from being my absolute normal happy positive self who like literally like love life super positive like everything's okay like you know might have a bad day but like you know everyone has a bad day like it's fine get over it like you know I can always see the Silver Linings and the positive like the positive and everything and then I just wake up one day and I'd just be there like it was like it is literally like someone who switched a light switch off in your head and got rid of all of that like happy positive view it's like you do not exist anymore and what exists what is left in place is like the worst version of you like like the angry version the depressed version the the version of yourself where you look disgusting and you look hideous and you're unsuccessful like all the worst thoughts about yourself that you've ever had this is what you now are and that's how you feel you are and not only that everything around you feels very scary like I tend to get I tend to feel quite suffocated especially like you know I work from home like my flat is beautiful I love it here but when I'm doing my period I start to feel insanely suffocated in my environment like it's like the walls are closing in on me I have honestly felt like I've had hallucinations at points where it's like I felt so insanely in my head that the walls it felt like either the walls were shaking or like my vision was shaking it was that intense and that serious and there had been months where I you know I would call my mum sobbing and my mum would be like Sophie what's wrong what's happened and I'd be like nothing nothing has happened I just cannot I just I just hate myself I hate myself so much like I can't stand myself like how can anyone love me um like I'm just like such a person um I'm not good at what I do I'm such a failure and all these really really horrible thoughts I've identified triggers for me like work is a big trigger for me to being self-employed and being a full-time content creator I've been obviously doing this for a long time now it's it weighs on me a lot that I've been here for a while and very lucky to do what I do and I don't know what it is sometimes it's just that imposter syndrome sometimes still pops out and it really triggers me and gets me into a bad state of mind and then usually I end up looking for support from people be it my parents or my agent or my boyfriend and I have like a bit of a freak out and I'm like oh my God like I just hate myself and I don't know like what I'm doing with my life and you know I'm rubbish at this time rubbish at that and I just can't get off the sofa I can't stop crying and then whatever they do to try and support me it never comes across as good enough and I don't know well I do know why when you're when you have pmdd you have a heightened sensitivity to rejection and you will perceive rejection in the smallest of things it's like you're constantly living as a rational State of Mind where everyone seems like they're on the attack everyone you know you just read into every negative little thing every like tiny like word every like tone like a tiny bit of tone of voice but if someone puts a full stop somewhere like you read into everything and you think that someone's just rejecting you and it's just honestly really insufferable and I I it's like I'm a totally different person and then when your period arrives you're just like oh oh okay and you feel like your normal self again it's like this huge huge huge release and I did a couple of tick tocks about this um kind of explaining like how I was really suffering from severe PMs and that's at the point where a few people suggested it might be pmdd and it's like I don't I don't recognize myself when I'm due on my period like I the self-hate is so so so dark I you know I have a history of self-harm like through my teenage years and in my 20s and not like super severe but it's something that I found as a coping mechanism and I've never really spoken about that before so that's really hard because I think it's one of those things that people don't understand people are just like how why would you do that to yourself why would you choose to do these things to yourself and I think people don't understand that it feels like it is at the time it feels like a creating a physical release a few things going on inside your head people don't seem to understand that it sounds really silly like people just don't get it it's very hard so you know like my I don't ever really get that desire anymore because I never like I don't you know I don't get that desire when I'm in the good part of my cycle and the good part of the month but I do that desire sometimes really like really rears its head when my period is due and if something happens to like really trigger me and something feels like it's really difficult like I have really embarrassingly not dealt with situate but you know I remember like speaking to a GP about this about um my history with self-harm and they said uh they gave it like you know so I think this one this might be helpful for anyone else who has dealt with this because since I found out this sort of like technique I have never I haven't done anything ever since um they recommend it that if you ever feel that desire to go and get something really cold from the freezer and like hold it in your hands so it kind of creates that kind of discomfort and sort of pain in your hands um to create that mental just like that kind of physical mental distraction thing sorry this is a lot like there's a lot I'm you know I'm a 31 year old woman and I just spoke about something which is kind of really seen as quite like a like a teenage attention seeking problem in a second but back to pmdd so I don't know why I'm laughing it's really not laughing matter at all is yeah when I'm during my period I I don't really recognize myself I become a horrible version of myself I feel like I'm a lovable I become insanely irrational like I will wake up in the morning like there's been times where I work in the morning and I've just had like this really ridiculous irrational thought in my head like oh my boyfriend's gonna do this or this is gonna happen at my work or my friend thinks this about me and it consumes me and it makes me obsess over this thought and I I'm like rationally it's really weird it's like if I was in like the other side of my cycle where I can think rationally I'm like okay like I know rationally that this is not the case and like you know it's like one of these things it's like we tell we've got the facts about some about life and about something and then like there's the fiction there's a story we make up on our head for example let's give the example of my boyfriend and my relationship oh my boyfriend really loves me he really cares about me that's the fact fiction is perhaps this ridiculous story in my head like oh he's going on holiday with his friends he's not going to text me the whole time he might meet someone else and fall in love with her and never want to speak to me ever again none of that is likely to ever be true but but it's like in my head when you're in that like pmdd cycle like of your brain you obsess over that thought and you cannot get it and you cannot get out of it and then obviously like you say that to your partner like I can imagine if I say that to hate it like now he understands like what I go through he would guess it but if I had said something about that like that to him previously he would have been like what the hell and it was you know what like dealing with pmdd stuff it was hard like I would have like these horrible horrible horrible thoughts and you know I felt really isolated like I couldn't talk to anyone because it was almost like I knew that my thoughts were crazy and I knew that they weren't normal and that they weren't real but they felt really real to me and I felt like I couldn't tell anyone and I'm lucky that like I had my mum to rely on but at the time she was just a bit I'd call her sobbing and saying all these things and like oh but what if this and what if this and she was just like Sophie like what's going on with you like you know this is you're fine you're fine and I'll be like I'm not fine I'm not fine I don't know what's wrong with me and that was a problem like I did not know what's wrong with me like I was like I just don't understand what is wrong with me and I think that that was that was that was a scary thing you're there like in your head like I feel this way but I don't know why and that is terrifying and you look at your cycle tracker and you're like my period's not due for another like 12 13 12 11 days that's why it's not like I'm PMS like what's going on I must just be crazy and as someone who has well we'll go on to this so someone who has suffered from depression previously and been on antidepressants for me I always found it really scary because I would say like oh my God I'm just getting depressed again I have now realized that I don't know if I was ever just simply depressed or if I simply had pmdd and it was affecting me throughout my whole cycle because you can have pmdd where you um you basically it's it's the lead up to your period which is like horrific some people get it where they're bad for the whole cycle but then really really bad when they're in the luteal stage of their cycle just after ovulation and I actually think in hindsight I'm not a doctor but I do think that is probably what I was going through if I then went on antidepressants for that because I just thought it was just bog standard depression and therapy wasn't helping that was the thing therapy I was in therapy for like nine months before I went on antidepressants and it just wasn't helping so then I went on antidepressants and they they helped so I was on 95 cents for three years right and I really they really really helped me I then came off my antidepressants when I was in Bali in January 2022 because I didn't take enough with me so I was there like I don't know why I didn't pack enough I only I was there for sick I was away for six weeks and I only took four weeks worth so I had to drop my dose down and then I ended up just coming off them when I came back to the UK I just felt just felt right at the time so I came off there and I felt so much better mentally I was in a much better headspace but then it was probably around maybe August September that my symptoms before my period started to get really really bad it really all came to a head in January point where I was dealing with a lot of stuff in my personal life anyway I find January a really difficult and depressing month I was during my period And I lost my mind and I I felt in past months things have been so bad like I had Billy called the hospital and gone to taking myself to hospital because I was scared to be alone so obviously like you know needy feeling like you need to take yourself to hospital because you're not less like you're you feel like a bit of a danger to yourself is not fun and this in January was really difficult I booked an appointment with a GP but couldn't get it until the beginning of Feb and I was spoke to my parents spoke to them about pmdd and they both looked into it and were like were like this is this is you this is Sophie this is you and my parents aren't the kind of parents all due respect to them when it comes to the very end of their generation of like oh mental health like it's important but like you don't need to put a label on it it's just you know you can feel a bit depressed without being depressed you can you know it's just more of a low mood so for the fact that my parents like looked at that and was just like oh God no this is this is a million percent what you have you need to get help and my parents came downstairs with me and I got booked an appointment with a specialist a hormones like privately so I booked her appointment with a a clinic called the Bronte clinic and they have a doctor they have someone they have a specialist who I've said about specialist so many times she specializes in um pmdd and severe PMs and I went to her and was basically like as it was it was the best thing I could have done going and being able to pay privately to go it was 250 pounds for the consultation and I'm very grateful that I was in a position to be able to do that and I know not everyone is and I went and I saw her and she basically spoke to me about everything I explained my symptoms explained how long I've been feeling it for I've been keeping a mood diary and she made me feel like I wasn't insane because I had been feeling like I was and she was just like Yep this just sounds like textbook pmdd um you know I there are things that we can do to help you and there's things that we can suggest and let's kind of go through some options so first Port of Call is like lifestyle change and holistic approach to things so this involves like taking a ton of supplements it involves sort of like changing your lifestyle so perhaps like you know I already exercise a lot I love exercise but it's like you know if you don't already to incorporate that to sort of maybe change your diet to incorporate very certain foods it's also like for me it's about sort of changing the way I operate to sort of like work with my cycle a little bit better for example like you know not planning loads of really intense like events and very like people focused things because when I'm due on my period I cannot be in loud environments because the noise like I'm generally not very good in loud environments because I'm like I can't focus and I can't think and I can't hear myself and I just like really like disconnect from situations but when I'm doing my period And when I'm in my luteal phase I really really disconnect and I really struggle with that so you know it's like things like just making sure you sort of plan your mind like maybe plan all the really busy things for the first part of the month of your cycle and then kind of lend Taylor off and do the slower things towards the end of the month acupuncture has been proved well like you know acupuncture is meant to be amazing for pmdd so I started that expensive it's like 100 pounds a session like 90 pounds a session but it has so far been so worth it I will leave a link to the woman that I've been going to below because she's fantastic she's so kind once again so understanding like I explain what I've been going through and she was like I've treated a lot of women for things like this in terms of supplements I have been taking calcium magnesium Agnes castis which is meant to be incredible for PMS symptoms and pmdd symptoms um ashwagandha including primrose oil vitamin D I feel like there's one or two more but I'm going to list them below for you guys as well if you want to have a little look into that I leave in supplements a million percent I really think that there's a lot in them I've always had really good results with supplements in terms of skin care and energy related things so I was like why will this not work for me and I and then the next line of treatment for pmdd is two options so you've got like the psychological medical like like this is this is like the medical approach so you've got psychological approach which is taking ssris antidepressants and there's two ways of doing that so you take it for a low dose in your luteal phase of your cycle so for half of your cycle I found this very confusing because I was like how can you take antidepressants for only half of your cycle like won't you have withdrawal symptoms because obviously like I was on antidepressants and I was like yeah but you get withdrawal symptoms apparently it works the doctors are like no this works you the low dose means you don't really get withdrawal symptoms the other version of that is if you just feel low for the whole month uh you take it for the whole month and that's it the other option is cycle suppression using birth control pills so Yasmine is a birth control pill which has been recorded in a lot of countries actually so I it wasn't really interested in this option but it has a certain kind of progesterone in it which is no no people they believe there's this is such such little research on pmdd but there's I think a strong belief that it can be caused by a sensitivity to Progesterone which means people who take birth control pills a lot of the time taking that progesterone there's different types of progesterone and different pills and that can really exacerbate people's pmdd symptoms but with a couple of other brands of the birth control pill they have a different kind of progesterone in which doesn't cause this like sensitivity overload so the option for that is to just take it like consistently and suppress your cycle so you don't get a period I've got on with SSRI so I just said so she was like you know it choose which you want I'll write you a letter and go to your GP and ask for it if you have any issue getting the pills prescribed she was like booking with it she was like booking in with another doctor and she said are you seeing a male doctor or are you seeing a female doctor and I was just like it's a male doctor and she was like you may have more issues with this because a lot of them don't even know what this is I left feeling better and in myself I was very much so like I I'm gonna give me until my next period my whole next cycle I was like I am going to do everything I can holistically to heal myself and if I still feel as bad this month around as I did last month I'm gonna go on the antidepressants and because that's just going to be what's best for me I I have nothing against medication but I was really pleased to have come off antidepressants because for me so actually it gave me a lot of negative side effects like obviously like you know not being depressed was great but also I was really numb like I was like emotionally numb I couldn't cry I didn't really feel happy I didn't feel sad but I didn't feel happy like I couldn't orgasm anymore I had no sex drive like the thought of my ex-boyfriend touching me like I was like like I don't really just know like like no um I gained a lot of weight I get like I know that's like a really bad thing to admit like I'd like obviously my mental health is number one but I gained a loss of weight which then triggered my body dysmorphia so it's like it's just like oh it's really really difficult situation to sort of be in so I went to see my GP and I don't want this to put anybody off going and getting a diagnosis with their GP but I just want this to sort of maybe advise your approach to it obviously I went a source specialist first then went to my GP and to say hey here's my letter from a specialist that I went and paid privately to see can you put this with my notes and can you also give me this prescription for this medication that they recommended please thank you very much I also had to want to talk about assistant situation I've had with my one of my ovaries and I saw this doctor I gave him a letter and I was just like you know this is really horrible for me like I feel suicidal when I'm doing my period like I just don't want to exist anymore I don't want to be alive and he looks at me and he says do you really feel suicidal or are you just saying that and I just looked at him and it was really awkward pause because I was like my heart stopped I was like oh my God he really just asked me that and apparently that's what they have to ask because people come to the doctors and say they're suicidal all the time and I was just like I don't care I don't care like I think I don't think I've like I've seen other doctors for my mental health before and I've never ever been asked that do you really feel that way or are you saying it oh yeah mate I'm just saying it reflect or I don't the thing is I'm sorry I don't care like I it made me so mad and people will be like oh yeah but the NHS are underfunded like the Tory government I hate this government I didn't vote for this government I don't want a Tory government I want the NHS to have more money I want to have be I want people's mental health be taken seriously but this isn't like an NHS issue like this actually is just a doctor issue and I wasn't taken seriously at all and that was proven by the fact that when I brought up about my I've been getting really severe ovulation pain in my left ovary never the right only the left and every single month every single month in the left side and I was like that's not normal and I mentioned that him and he was just like hmm I just really think you need to think about going on hormonal birth control because you're really depressed when you're during your period like you said and you also get really bad period pains so this would be going on going on the pill would really help that and I was like dude this isn't period pain this is ovulation pain and I just thought I was like okay and I just nodded and was like yep all right whatever I'm just leaving like this is a waste of time he also tried to put me like when he wanted to give me the prescription for antidepressants he tried to put me on a different one to what was recommended by The Specialist see I don't want to put off anybody from going to see their GP I would recommend going to see a woman and also taking a friend or family member with you like or a partner to sort of like back you up and help Advocate like for you because I find advocating for myself really hard in situations like that and I felt really like like gas lit by this dude but I don't want to put people off from going but I know that I know this experience is quite common one thing I do actually remember is when I had when I was on when I first went on to Sertraline before covered I had to go in for a little checkup with my doctor every three months to see how I was getting on and one of my doctors I was always giving a different doctor and one of the doctors he asked me he was like you know like oh like do you get like you know how are we finding the medication I was like yeah good I feel so much better I actually want to be alive now and he was like yeah you know that's really good we get really good results on it so I'm glad you're happy I'm glad you're getting on better and then he was like you know let's just talk about things that he's like how do you find your cycle and I was like oh is this what it is and he was like oh do you ever get like you know really low before your cycle and I was like yeah I used to get like really low like I couldn't leave the house like I was so depressed and I was like but you know it's not as bad now and he actually was the one who first ever suggested pmdd and he said hmm that might be something to bear in mind because it might actually be pmdd that's affecting you and that was the first time I'd ever heard it I actually I I knew I'd actually know what PM pmdd is for a long time because I'd on off suspected that I had it but it was the first time I'd ever had heard like a doctor say something to me about it and especially our male doctor and he just like he just was like you know just something to kind of Bear in mind that I was just like yeah whatever doctor like I'm fine now I'm cured of depression like I'm on these tablets and they're amazing they've killed me I I basically just wanted to come on here and this is why I couldn't put this in a vlog because his videos ended up being really long I kind of want to sort of explain what I've been going through and I think a lot of a lot more women have this and who like you know what they think it's a very invisible illness and it's very debilitating effects relationships like I look back and I feel like I know this is I know it's affected my current relationship and I'm very very lucky that my boyfriend is like he's like he's an angel like I think he found it hard when obviously he was on the receiving end of a lot of my issues before we knew what it was so he must have been like what the is going on why is my girlfriend a monster sometimes now he understands it's one of these things that it's like now I have got a diagnosis it's I I personally feel like already just having that sort of like diagnosis or knowing what this is it has made it so much easier to make sense of things so like when I have like a bad day it's almost like like the other day this cycle so my period's due in two days right and this is the best I have been in months and so like this whole this holistic approach and the knowledge of what I'm going through has really helped so I had like two days where I had really bad like mental health and I spent it either in bed or on the sofa but it was like this like dull ache that I felt inside like that oh my God I need to wrap this video up quickly because my camera's running out of battery because I've been talking so long but yeah I felt like this kind of like dull ache and I was like of like literal like emotional pain like the pain the emotional pain feels like physical it feels like your chest is like full of leads and it's gonna split your skin open and just look and you're gonna go blur and explode it hurts it physically hurts and I was like lying there in bed and I was just there like I know what this is I know this is my hormones I know this is going to pass and like you know I sort of briefed my boyfriend being like hey I think I might have a bad week this week so there might be a day where I have to say to you Hayes can I please come over and see you because I don't want to be alone and like I'm not going to turn around and expect and put all demands on you because you're busy and you have your own life but I just need you to know that's where I'm going to be at and he was like so that's fine I'm gonna be here for you I know you're doing everything within you to to combat this feeling supported by your family and friends like my mum gets it I've I spent the the days where I had really bad mental health days I've spent the days crying on the phone to her and instead of being like I just don't understand what's wrong with you she's just there like it's probably the hormones you'll be okay like do you want to come home for a few days and it's like having people around you that understands and believe you and like want to be there for you is so helpful I feel really grateful for it and I just I kind of just I'm sorry I'm having to like Rush the end of this but I just wanted to do this video because I think I think even though if only a few people see this and they're like oh my God this is what I've been going through to to feel validated in your feelings and know that it's not your fault is so important and I cannot stress enough how important it is to go and go and get a diagnosis go and speak to somebody look into acupuncture um I'll list obviously the supplements below but this month has been so much better for me like I've woke up most days feeling like really happy and feeling like my normal self and I feel really emotional because like last one was so different and this is why me my emotions are just like that but yeah like it's it's actually I'm not saying oh my God I'm a cured but I also know that like it's I've coped a lot better this month and it's given me a lot of Hope because the past few months have been really difficult so yeah um I just wanted to do this video and talk about it because I don't really feel like it gets much visibility I don't really know many people who talk about it or who have it uh I think a lot of people don't know that they have it I think a lot of people suspect that they have it but they can't get diagnosis because unfortunately women's health is so under researched and not taken seriously so yeah I just wanted to kind of bring some light to this as a topic because it is serious and it's debilitating but also like I want people to know that there is hope and stuff like that I'm going to leave some resources below as well that I found really really helpful um links online and stuff like that and things that maybe would be good for like your partners to read and stuff like that but um anyway uh thank you for watching this video it was really sad and depressing and I just always want to be open about mental health because I feel like it is important to do that and if if this can just make anyone feel a little bit less alone in what they're going through because it can feel so isolating um I really want that this Divine people in the right way so yeah thanks and I'll be back with a happier video sometime soon [Music]

Channel: Sophie Milner

Views: 24,369

Keywords: pmdd, severe pms, pmdd coping mechanisms, pmdd treatment

Id: spJ7NCALCeE

Length: 33min 30sec (2010 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 07 2023