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Hi everyone, I just joined out of exasperation. I'm recovering from a particularly bad PMDD spell and I feel like I have nobody to go to, so I decided I should join this community and get my feelings out.
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1. Your herpes outbreaks...
Those are actually not strange or unexpected during this time. With the sudden surge and then drop of hormones during the menstrual cycle, the pH of our bodily fluids changes, which prompts dormant infections to proliferate. People with herpes, and things like pilonidal cysts are expected to have flair ups during this time. Propionibacterium is the bacteria associated with acne. This bacteria also gets a good foothold by taking advantage of the optimum conditions for growth during this part of your menstrual cycle. Infections and flare ups of chronic medical conditions are a component of hormonal changes, and have no relation to psychiatric diagnoses.
2. Diarrhea is also a side effect of sudden hormonal fluctuations. The release of prostaglandins causes hypertmotility of the bowels as a consequence of their main function: Which is to induce uterine contractions. The very same contractions that occur during child birth, also occur during our period in order to help the uterus shed it's functional lining. (The endometrium). Needless to say, prostaglandins are some pretty amazing chemicals. Except when they're causing you to pitch a tent in the bathroom b/c you're stuck in there for a few days out of the month. :( Needless to say, diarrhea after the period starts is not unique to PMDD, as it's a byproduct of what is actually healthy exocrine function. So no worries on that either. :)
3. The spaciness associated with your period is also not unique to PMDD in terms of diagnostic symptoms. The B vitamins help us produce myelin...think of an electrical cord. The same way we insulate wires to keep current from jumping and ensure that it stays on course, our body does too. Myelin is what they mean when they talk about "white matter" in brain tissue. Gray matter is unmyelinated neurological tissue. White matter is that color b/c the fatty tissue it's composed of causes it to look that way. Myelin covers the neurons in a sheath so that electrical impulses can travel safely through our bodies and into our brains to transmit information to be successfully processed and subsequently used by the brain. When we have a B vitamin deficiency, we'll exhibit mild confusion at first onset. This deficiency is most prominent in women during the hormonal fluctuations of the menstrual cycle. Taking B vitamins as well as D can help tremendously with this issue as well as fatigue. There have been documented studies that have proven this over and over again in the past 20 years. Omega fatty acids also help make sure we're able to produce the myelin we need so we don't walk around confused and weird during the worst parts of our cycles.
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