What Is PMDD and What to Do About It?

What is PMDD? What does it do to women? How does it occur? If you believe you suffer from this condition, or think you do, then you probably know some of this, but most people do not really know that much about this fairly common condition. This article aims to help you understand PMDD further so you can take action to treat it!

PMDD, or PreMenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (a mouthful to say the least!); can be rather confusing to understand. We all know what premenstrual is from the more well known PMS condition, and we know what a disorder is for the most part - but what is this funny word dysphoric? What does it mean?

Dysphoric - An emotional state characterized by anxiety, depression, or unease.

This is the main part of what PMDD is, the emotional turmoil that can show itself as depression, rage, anxiety, panic, sadness and crying, or a host of other emotional troubles. This causes this disorder to fall under the broad definition of a psychological condition not a physical one (though there are also physical symptoms as well.)

One way that some look at it is that PMDD is actually a very severe form of PMS. This idea has merit as the same base causes are linked to both conditions, but when we look at the word severe we need to really pay attention to that. This is not just a little bit worse than PMS - this is a massive shift of emotional state to make you feel like you are not yourself at all during the last week of the menstrual cycle!

Rather than a feeling of sadness, you might be close to clinical depression. Rather than being a bit testy, you might be irritable and angry to the point of explosive rage for a whole week. Rather than feeling a little on edge, you might feel so anxious and nervous you make yourself sick. This is how PMDD feels and it is not pleasant - and is NOT an exaggeration!

However, after all this talk of emotions and psychological, the root cause of PMDD is not mental - it is physical. The root causes are hormonal and coincide with the end of the cycle because that is when a massive natural hormonal change happens in your body already. On top of this your regular hormonal woes that might not show during the other weeks come to the fore leading to the mayhem and misery of PMDD before subsiding again after the onset of bleeding.