Quick warning: This site is not for the faint of heart.
We don't sugarcoat things very much here as it takes away from the seriousness of this condition. PMDD has not been taken seriously for far too long, and we are here to open the eyes and minds of those who are in the dark about what the first "D" really means.
Prepare to be shown what's behind the figurative curtain of PMDD. Some of you will be shocked. Some of you will nod in agreement. We've had people tell us our blog posts are "provocative" and we take that as a compliment!
Last we checked, there are no longer any open Facebook PMDD groups. All of them have become Closed or Secret groups at the behest of the majority of their members. You can try to join the Closed ones and lurk to see what these women go through, or you can visit My Monthly Monster or our small forum. You might find the posts to be very similar to the cries of help made by those in chronic pain.
What is PMDD?
PMDD is not PMS or PMT or slight moodiness that comes and goes with a woman’s period. And it is not menopause or early menopause.
PMDD has more severe and debilitating symptoms than simple PMS or PMT. (See "What Are the Symptoms of PMDD?")
PMDD = the rare H1N1 virus PMS = the common cold
However, the number of women who have PMDD is
striking. Most reputable medical sites will list 3% – 8% as the
estimated number of women who have PMDD. If you calculate that, it
comes to almost 100 million women. That’s larger than the population of
Australia!
Did you know?
….many of the women in prison are there because of PMDD.
I chatted with a woman whose mother committed murder
because of PMDD.
….most of the attempted suicides by females? PMDD.
…all those bipolar diagnoses? Many are PMDD.
Mental institutions? Many filled with women who have PMDD.
Don’t even get us started about the divorce rates,
failed relationships, or men and children who have been
put through the wringer month after month.
The available treatment options only treat the symptoms; not the cause. PMDD appears to be an extreme sensitivity to normal female hormone changes, a hormone allergy, so to speak. Possibly an autoimmune issue, some of us are conjecturing. We honestly do not know. No one does.
PMDD has been recognized for the first time as a true disorder and is finally listed in the DSM5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition), which was released in May of 2013.
Does it belong in the DSM? Sure, it has psychological symptoms, but so does diabetes mellitus if left unchecked. This is a HORMONE problem; not a psychiatric one. PMDD is a menstrual problem; not a mental problem. If any medical specialist should be treating it, he or she should be either a gynecologist or an endocrinologist (or a reproductive endocrinologist). This article here and this article here suggest that there are people who still believe PMDD is not real or that it is a cultural issue and cannot be found outside of the U.S.
This website and our Facebook page (and maybe later Google+ page and Twitter page if we ever get around to it) are here to bring PMDD into the light to show people exactly what it is and why it is imperative that a cure other than surgery is found.
