cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (03/06/86)
I'm curious to hear some comments concerning PMS. After our daughter was born, my wife had severe depression, "bloat", and irritability. After talking to some friends who had been treated for PMS, she went to a clinic that gave her some diet advice (whole grains, no sugar, no artificial sweetners, etc.), told to her increase her exercise, and put her on a treatment program of natural progesterone (which they claimed was side effect free, unlike artificial progesterone), 1200 mg/day starting 12 days before her period. She experienced immediate improvements in mood, less bloat, and much easier to get along with. Let me emphasize that we are discussing truly major mood swing problems. She was ready to leave me three months in a row, just before her period each time. She burst into tears repeatedly, and toyed with the idea of suicide. After her period started, and for the first two weeks after it ended, she was her usual self. Her experiences with traditional medicine (and I would be inclined to view the clinic that treated her as non-traditional -- they certainly put some effort into distancing themselves from "The Establishment") were very unencouraging. Our family physician said, "The medical community does not regard PMS", and also warned here that taking progesterone had side effects -- although he didn't say what they were. One of her friends was told, "That's just part of being a woman" by *her* physician. I've read the booklet on PMS put out by, I think, the National Institute of Health. It seems rather skeptical about the viability of the natural progesterone treatment, but indicates research is still in progress. What do the doctors and medical students on the net have to say? Sometimes still being in school, or connected to a medical school provides advantages in keeping up on current research. Any comments on the dangers of progesterone in general, and the relative risks of "natural" vs. "artificial" progesterone? My wife is now down to 400 mg/day for the last four days before her period, and is beginning to feel like hell again, although not as bad as before she started on the progesterone treatments. I feel uncomfortable having her taking hormones on this sort of basis, and I tend to be skeptical of doctors who take pride in their heterodoxy. At the same time, she definitely has been much happier and easier to deal with, while she has been taking progesterone.