Like many women, I’ve had my fill of medical concerns dismissed by doctors. One example being when I experienced severe hair loss and spoke to my primary care provider, my gynecologist (hormones maybe?) and a dermatologist. I remember the dermatologist said to me “you have a lot of hair, I wouldn’t be worried”… when he said that, I thought to myself “What, in the actual, fuck?”. Yes, I still had a full head of hair, but I know my body and I know that I was experiencing hair loss that I didn’t have an explanation for. Anyways, enough about my frustration with not being taken seriously by medical providers, let’s move on to a more uplifting scenario.
As mentioned in my previous post, I had been tracking my symptoms for over eight months, and due to unmanageable anxiety levels brought on by the pandemic, I decided to talk to my new doctor about my self diagnosis of PMDD. I had a phone appointment with her on June 17th, 2020. I really didn’t want to come at the discussion with “I think I have this because I looked it up on the internet”, I wanted my diagnosis to be genuine, and I didn’t want her to think I thought I knew more than she did because “I googled it”.
So I proceeded to tell her about my symptoms, and that I had been tracking them in line with my menstrual cycle. I’m ordinarily a positive, energetic, and kind person, but during the week-two weeks before my period, I become depressed, intensely anxious, etc, etc. I shared that I was finally seeking treatment because my anxiety had become unmanageable (intense chest pain, high heart rate, heart palpitations, inability to focus, etc.) and I wanted to discuss the possibility of medication to manage it. To my complete surprise, and delight, she immediately responded with “It sounds like you have Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder”. I was surprised and delighted to know that she was familiar with PMDD, and we spent the remainder of our conversation discussing treatment plans.
She said my options were behavior therapy, medication, or a combination of both. I opted for a combination of both, and we discussed medication options. She recommended Zoloft, and said she I could do a full time regiment, and I immediately declined that and reminded her that I do not experience symptoms all the time, just the one-two weeks prior to menstruation. We agreed on a low dose that could be taken while I experience symptoms, and would be low enough that I wouldn’t experience any withdrawal symptoms when I stopped taking it. Unfortunately, Zoloft was not for me. I experience nausea, fatigue, inability to focus, and honestly, felt worse than my PMDD symptoms made me feel. I know that I could have pursued other medications, possibly a combination of medications, but after that experience I wasn’t ready to try something new for a while. So for now, I’m battling this disorder without the aid of prescription drugs.
Life with PMDD 