PMS is the worst. I know first-hand.
I actually had my own PMS and PMDD pointed out to me by my best friend (who is also a Naturopathic Doctor) and I was mortified that my mood fluctuations were so obvious to him and not to me. This was my job after all, and I still had serious blinders on when it came to my own health.
But whenever you find a practitioner with a personal story, you know that they have gone to the ends of the earth to understand the condition and can speak about it with clarity and understanding to help you feel heard. I can make women in my office cry just explaining what it feels like inside their brain when they have a significant PMS experience. Because my brain does the exact same thing. I’ve lived it. I get it.
PMS changes a lot of things, even though we often focus on the mood-based symptoms when we talk about the effects on a woman’s life. PMS can show up as physical symptoms (breast tenderness, bloating) or mental emotional symptoms. It happens after ovulation when hormone levels fluctuate significantly. Women often feel as though their hormones are “causing” the problem and want their hormone levels “lowered” or “detoxed” to deal with their symptoms. This isn’t actually true. Let me explain.
The current understanding of PMS is that it’s the significant change in hormones from the first half of the cycle to the second that creates the experience in your body and brain. It doesn’t matter how high the hormone levels are, it’s the rapid fluctuation that creates that feeling of instability both physically and emotionally. Fluctuating hormone levels appear to “prime” the
brain to feel unwell. Even though you may look the same from day to day, the hormone soup mix that’s brewing under the surface in the second half of the cycle changes a lot of chemistry in the brain that shows up in your mood.
So? What’s an irritable teary-mess of a woman to do about it?
Let’s look at calcium.
Calcium levels are lower in women with PMS than those without, and we see changes through the menstrual cycle in how calcium is metabolized. This has led researchers to examine the role of giving calcium to women with PMS to see if this simple nutrient can change the way that
women feel. Overall it appears that women who eat more dairy have lower incidence of PMS, women who have higher levels of calcium have less PMS, and taking calcium as a supplement improves PMS in women who are suffering from it.
Sounds pretty good to me.
I always enjoy when research on a nutrient can come full circle. Sometimes we observe something (for example: people who have X condition have different levels of Y nutrient) and then assume that giving the nutrient is going to make a difference. It often doesn’t. There are thousands of examples of nutrients and minerals measuring differently in a diseased population but supplementing that same nutrient does nothing for the persons symptoms. I think this is part of the reason why the supplement industry gets a bad reputation. A lot of assumptions are pulled from observational research.
But when we give a nutrient and watch good things happen (this is called an intervention trial) then our understanding gets much clearer. People with PMS have lower calcium levels and if we give it, their symptoms get better. It’s closing the loop on our understanding of this nutrient in PMS and gives us more of a leg to stand on when considering using this nutrient to support women who are struggling.
Whether this is right for you or not needs to be discussed with your health care practitioner, but in my opinion, we need to have a bigger discussion about PMS. We need to be willing to help women feel more like themselves all month long and explore solutions other than antidepressants for their symptoms. Medications such as antidepressants often don’t fit the
values of women looking to support their hormonal health. If we make women feel like medication is the only answer, they often will choose to be untreated instead.
Which is a lose lose.
We lose out on that woman’s potential, and she loses out by feeling unsupported in her health journey.
Talk to your practitioner about calcium for your PMS. Let’s normalize getting the support we need. There are simple solutions, such as calcium, that can help you feel better.
Jordan.
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