Unexpected period symptoms you might have

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3 years ago

IN January 2000, Mary Hakeem, then 21 years, began to not feel like her. She had recently linked with the long strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities and had not much to keep herself busy. But suddenly she was feeling easily irritated when talking with her friend in her place.

Little things Kemi said or did would annoy her; it felt like she was on the edge. It felt out of character, Mary recalled.

These unexpected emotions bled into other aspects of her life. She teared up at her aunt for criticising her foul mood, for example.

It took a couple of months, but it began making sense to her that these states of heightened emotions came around the beginning of her menses.

“I can’t remember when I started connecting it to my menstrual cycle,” Mary said. “But when I finally did, it just clicked for me.”

Mary is one of the menstruating people who have premenstrual syndrome (PMS). People with premenstrual syndrome are sensitive to the normal fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone in their menstrual cycle, which can trigger mood symptoms, including depression, anxiety, irritability, sensitivity to social rejection and hypersensitivity to their environment.

Premenstrual syndrome is not just about feeling symptoms a few days before. It can refer to different symptoms which occur throughout the menstrual cycle, between ovulation and menstruation. A smaller percentage can have pain (cramps), at times debilitating, and life impactful!

Among Wolkite university female regular students, Ethiopia, for instance, family history of PMS, no history of sexual intercourse, intense menstrual pain, use of many pads during menstruation, irregular menstrual cycle, early menarche, and long duration of menses were found to be predictors of premenstrual syndrome. It was in the 2022 BMC Women’s Health journal.

Moreover, people with its more severe form termed premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD described their symptoms to include depression, anxiety, dark thoughts and suicidal ideation in the days and weeks before their periods.

Some said it feels like they become a different person during their “bad weeks”: They feel impatient and irritable, picking fights with people close to them when they otherwise wouldn’t. And in the more extreme cases, some said they had mistakenly believed they had or been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

“People with PMS can expect anywhere from two to three days to a whole 14 days of symptoms each month and it is because of the way people respond to hormonal changes,” said Professor Sina Oladokun, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan.

Professor Oladokun said that PMS generally encompasses physical symptoms, such as bloating and fatigue that some women experience before their menstrual flow and an evaluation of its symptoms at the hospital will tell the best way to ameliorate it in affected persons.

According to him, although its emotional symptoms can impair the person’s daily life, it is not a signal that the person has a mental illness.

“In some cases, a mere change in lifestyle might be what is needed to cope with PMS in a lot of people; some might also require having psychological peep up.”

DrFunmilolaOlaolorun, a reproductive and family health expert at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, stated that many women in Nigeria experience some form of PMS during their reproductive years and the way to cope is to first understand the fact that it is not a disease and particularly adolescents need to know that a lot of females also experience it too.

“It is not just about feeling low; their mood may swing from feeling low to feeling bad to feeling happy. Because their mood is swinging, one minute she is happy and the next minute, she is crying. It is one of the symptoms of PMS. Some have tender breasts and food cravings, as pregnant women do. These are not unusual.”

She declared that when adolescents with PMS document how they feel and discuss it with someone they love and trust, they can cope better with the condition.

Experts on how the menstrual cycle influences emotions and behaviours in people with hormone sensitivities, however, say that the biggest differentiating factor between PMS and PMDD comes down to the emotional symptoms. PMS generally encompasses physical symptoms, such as bloating and fatigue. But when emotional symptoms are distressing or impairing your daily life, it’s a signal that PMDD might be at play.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), patients must have at least five symptoms — one of which must be “marked” affective lability, irritability or anger, a depressed mood, or anxiety — during most menstrual cycles in the past year to meet criteria for a PMDD diagnosis.

The impacts of PMDD can be severe. A study, for instance, found that 34 per cent of people with PMDD attempt suicide. The study also found that, on average, patients waited 12 years and saw at least 6 providers before they received an accurate diagnosis of PMDD.

For many people with PMDD, the general relief from feeling hopeless or experiencing panic and sensory overload only come after their periods arrived.

But regardless of the stigmatization inherent in women and their functionality around and on their periods, women tracking their periods and acquainting themselves with their emotional patterns is the first step in ensuring that PMS ultimately don’t hurt women. Asking questions can shave off years of suffering, too.

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