Hey everyone, this weeks video topic is
what is the difference between PMS and
PMDD. And what do we do if we have them.
So stay tuned.
music
So like I said, this weeks video topic is
what's PMS and what is PMDD and how do we
know if we have one or the other, and what
does that even mean, right?
And I'm sorry guys, 'cos I know this is a
very woman centric video topic but I
promise I'll do others that are more man
centric, so.
The first one, PMS, is something that
people use a lot and it can really
frustrate us because they'll say "What
are you PMSing or blablabla?" "What is
that just 'cos you're about to start your
period?" "What's wrong with you blabla?"
And PMS is something that is actually very
common. There a tonne of different
statistics that I've looked up but,
it it almost equates to about half of
women struggle with PMS. And, this is the
week before we start our period. We'll be
irritable, we'll have a lot of, what they
call in the therapy world, like mood
lability, like our moods like
happy, I'm sad, I want to cry, I want to
scream, I want to kill you, oh my god
everything's so stressful!
And we may be bloated, umm a lot of us
will umm, feel really tired and just
irritable right? And it's almost, ahh, it
kind of varies from person to person, but
that in a nutshell is what PMS is and as
soon as we start our period, poof, it
goes away right.
Now, PMDD which I am in the DSM for
because I want to make sure that I've got
it correct, because I haven't personally
dealt with this and I, um, don't have any
clients that have it currently. So it's
something that I had to lean about.
And PMDD, for lack of more knowledge,
which I'm going to walk you through the
diagnosis, is just an extreme version of
PMS. But it still will stop as soon as we
start our period, okay, and most commonly
it is still the week before we have our
period when it's at its worst. Some people
will have it longer and it can go almost
the entire month, where they only have
like a week where they're free of
symptoms. But the DSM states that we must
have 5 or more the following symptoms and
they must be present most of the time
during that week before our period. And
the symptoms are: feeling sad, hopeless or
self-deprecating, self-deprecating being
like "I'm terrible, I can never do this
right" when you're always putting yourself
down. The second one, feeling tense,
anxious or on edge, we've all had that,
you know, where you just feel really, it's
just that irritability component.
Three, marked lability of mood, like I was
talking about we're up and down, um,
frequent tearfullness, you know, 'cos were
all over the place with out emotions.
Number four persistent irritability, anger
and increased interpersonal conflicts.
A lot of times we'll start fights with
people just because we're irritable,
right. Number five decreased interest in
usual activities, so you might withdraw
from certain social relationships, so you
might just want to stay at home, watch
re-runs of Sex in the City all week, we
might want to watch all of our romantic
comedies that we have on DVD all week.
Um, six, difficulty concentrating.
Seven, feeling fatigued or lethargic.
Eight, marked changes in appetite, so we
might eat more, we tend to binge eat
'cos we'll be craving more foods. A lot of
times people will crave salts or sweets.
Um, number nine, hypersomnia or insomnia
so that means you either sleeping a lot
like I'm sleeping like 15 hours or
insomnia where ahh I went to bed at 4am
and I got up at 7am and that's all I
needed. Um, ten, a subjective feeling of
being overwhelmed or out of control
and they say subjective because what that
means is that it's up to you, as a client,
to express it to me as a therapist and
we can together kind of decide if we feel
that it is that overwhelming feeling,
right. And the last one, eleven, physical
symptoms such as breast tenderness or
swelling, headaches and that bloating
weight gain kind of thing thing that I was
talking about. Now, I know that's a lot,
that's eleven items and I had to read
through all of these to kind of understand
PMDD and, like I said you have to have
five or more of the following, and it even
goes as far as to say that you must have
at least one of the first four, but lets
not get, I feel sometimes we just get
caught up in the weeds of things 'cos
diagnoses can be so intense and
overwhelming. To know that you have PMDD
is something that you're going to have to
go to a doctor for. You're going to either
have to see your regular doctor, your
obgyn - whoever your gynnaecologist
might be, either a psychiatrist or your
therapist. Those are the people you would
see who would make sure you have the
features of it and you're diagnosed
properly. Now, once we're given a
diagnosis, ok, so I thought I had PMDD but
it's just PMS or I thought I just had PMS
and everybody felt this way but my doctor
just said I have PMDD, now what do I do.
The best thing to do is medication, and I
know you're thinking "Kati, I don't want
to take medication, I'm holistic, I don't
like that stuff". Medication can mean a
lot of things. It can be anything from, I
take in ibuprofen because I have really
bad cramps or um, I take it because I have
a lot of um, breast tenderness or I'm
really bloated, right. It can anything
from that to taking some medication you
get from your doctor, or taking the midols
of the world, all those different kinds of
medications that are out there that help
us with these symptoms. And there are
actually medications to help with PMDD.
I'm not as familiar with them, or the side
effects. Always ask questions before you
go on any medication from your doctor so
that you know what the side effect profile
is, how it can help you, stuff like that.
Um, but that is usually the easiest thing
for any acheyness and stuff like that
we're gonna wanna make sure that we have
medication to help with the symptoms that we
have and the second best thing that we can
do is planning. Pay attention to when your
period is, mark it in your calendar, know
when the week before is coming and guess
what, maybe don't plan a tonne of events
with people at work or people who if
you're irritable and you're agitated
that you can't just say you know I've been
having a bad week like I told you, I'm
going to have to go home, you don't have
that ability. So do your best to plan
around that time and also during that time
make sure that you're eating properly,
you're taking time for yourself, you're
not over caffinating, you're not doing
those things that can make us on edge and
irritable in general. We need to take care
of ourselves. Watch my video on yoga
stretches and try to take time to self
care because we all know that our
hormones are driven by the food we eat and
what we do with our bodies, so we need you
know healthy mind, healthy body and in
order to make that happen and to make our
PMDD and our PMS as less intrusive as
possible is to take that time for
ourselves. So if you, yourself have
experiences with this and you have things
that help you, I know some people put hot
heating pads on your tummy when you're
having really bad cramps and that helps,
some of you put it on your backs and that
helps. There are a bunch of different
things so please leave your experiences
and your tips and things that can help
because we'll all work together and I'm
going to learn more too. Like I said I
don't have a tonne of experience working
with this so I had to read a lot and try
to learn about what it is and what it
looks like, but we can get better.
And also, before I forget, make sure
that you talk to your doctor and you
notice for sure that this is happening
before your period, not all month long
because a lot of times they'll misdiagnose
our depression as PMDD and we don't want
to be treated for something we don't
really have , right.
So the more questions we ask, the more
honest we are about it the better our
outcome. And keep working with me as we
take one step more towards a healthy mind
and a healthy body.
And don't forget to check out my website
katimorton.com. There are tonnes of
forums, theres a free workbook and I am
going to put out two new workbooks soon
and you don't want to miss it and if you
haven't got the first one hop on there
'cos it's free and nothings better than
free, right. So you can sign up for it,
it's my eating disorder workbook, I'll
have others coming out and you don't want
to miss, there are forums, chat rooms.
You can friend one another and you can
share your helpful tips and experiences.
I'm also on Twitter @katimorton and I've
opened up my Instagram katimorton1
'cause somebody took my name, jerk. So,
anyways check me out. I'm all over
Facebook, Tumblr, I'm trying to think of
other places but there's tonnes of places,
Google+ you can follow me and that will
give you more info, more tips and tricks
and you'll make sure not to miss anything
okay.
Do I need to say anything else
awkward.
I need to get the new one, this is old
now. It's like sell it on Amazon and
they'll only give me like 10$
crying noise
it though, it's all tabbed and
highlighted. It's so helpful. Oh my god,
look what I found, would you like to
download Bitter Sweet Heaven song of the
day. Oh my god this expired like. Oh my
god this expired in 07. Wow. It's been
my bookmarker since that time so hey it's
done its job.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community