Talk:Premenstrual syndrome

Occurrence in twins

The article says, "PMS tends to be more common among twins". This seems to say that a person who has a twin is more likely than average to experience PMS. Shouldn't this passage read, "The occurrence of PMS in one twin leads to a higher-than-average occurrence of PMS in the other", or something to that effect? --bdesham ★ 05:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

"Leads to" doesn't make sense, as PMS in one wouldn't cause it in the other. I assume that you're suggesting that the intended meaning is that they tend to have similar symptom patterns. HOWEVER, there are other twin-related remarks (including the monozygotic (identical) versus dizygotic (fraternal) tendency comparison [which is mentioned twice, but i'm not sure which should be removed]. Those suggest that it is that monozygotic twins are each generally more proned to it than other women. So no edit seems to be necessary (other than, perhaps, eliminating the redundancy). (Though i'm also curious about dizygotic twins vs non-twins.)
—überRegenbogen (talk) 14:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Despite the wording issue pointed out by überRegenbogen, I think the Bdesham is correct. I looked quickly at the source cited.

This wikipedia article says: "... studies have found that the occurrence of PMS is twice as high among identical twins compared with fraternal twins".

The source says, instead: "Genetic factors also seem to play a role, as the concordance rate is two times higher in monozygotic twins than in dizygotic twins."

I'm not a medical researcher, but dictionary.com defines "concordance" as "the degree of similarity in a pair of twins with respect to the presence or absence of a particular disease or trait", making our PMS article incorrect. So I've changed the wikipedia article to better reflect the research.

Signed,

A PMS-er who, like any net-head, went to wikipedia first for info :)Meh222 (talk) 01:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyone read Norwegian?

The lead claims that 14% of women stay home from school or work due to PMS. It's not clear whether this means "at least once per cycle" or "at least once per lifetime." The ref is in Norwegian.[1] If you read Norwegian, can you enlighten the rest of us? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I interpret that as when they're experiencing it.
—überRegenbogen (talk) 14:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

So you think it means "14% of women have severe PMS." I had assumed that it could mean "14% of women miss school or work a dozen times a year, for the 35ish years between puberty (PMS onset) and menopause (PMS end)" -- which, to be honest, seems unreasonable to me. I think that if 14% of all women missed work every month, it would be perfectly obvious to all of us. I wish we could actually get reliable information on this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The reference mirrors pretty precisely what is stated here. A study commissioned by the manufacturer Always (product) indicates that 14% of Norwegian women between 20-35 experience menstrual pain to such a degree they are prevented from going to work/school. Typical to such questionnaires, there is nothing in the data to distinguish between "every cycle" or having experienced it at some point. Hope that helps. MURGH ^disc. 18:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It helps enormously, because menstrual pain is not the same as PMS. Thank you! WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad. You're welcome. MURGH ^disc. 20:12, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Diagnosis

Are there any reasonably reliable sources out there for diagnostic criteria? What I specifically want to know is whether the emotional components are necessary for a PMS diagnosis. Is a consistent cyclic pattern of, say, bloating and itchy breasts and headaches --but with no psycho-emotional changes -- good enough for a diagnosis? (If so, then I don't get the claims that this is a made-up syndrome with no biological basis.) On the flip side, if you throw a temper tantrum a few days before each menstrual flow, but have no other symptoms, is that good enough for a PMS diagnosis? (If so, I begin (barely) to understand the complaints about PMS being a way of devaluing women's emotions.)

There's got to be something out there that's a little more rigorous than what this article presents at the moment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

This may be a good place to start -- see table 2. According to the UCSD criteria, an affective component is required. --Arcadian (talk) 06:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I am currently getting through this pain right now..laying down works best. I am hispanic and i dont eat fish. Makes me a high canditate. I get this pain about 3 times a year. Lasts until early PM. I can sorta tell when i'm goin to have it. I am willing to take a study test if there are any out there. (Beautyeyes11@aol). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.99.224 (talk) 15:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone needs to do some research on the last sentence of the first paragraph in the section titled, 'Symptoms'. I read the article that is listed as reference '4' for the last sentence and the whole last sentence does not agree with the article that is referenced by it. The article DOES say that all those symptoms that the last sentence says are not PMS, actually are part of PMS. Someone please correct that reference or find a new one or delete or change that sentence. Thanks. Victoria —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.238.93.143 (talk) 00:46, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Archive

I have created an archive of the old discussions. I have copied back to this page all recent conversations. In case anyone needs to know in the future, I used the Move Page method. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

NPOV, controversies, non-western views

Hey all, I was just browsing through the this article and noticed the controversies section had some serious POV issues. It largely asserted the view of feminist critics. (Perhaps it was largely copied from someone's gender-studies textbook or term-paper?...) I've done a few basic fixes, but more work may still be needed. It looks like more research and citations are needed - particularly with regard to the section on non-western views. It seems to argue that non-westerners have a much more positive view of menstruation. I'm not an expert on this, but from what I've heard, many traditional cultures have women completely isolated during this time. So yeah, more work is probably needed, but at least it reads fairly NPOV now :-) ~CantBeBotheredToLogin 118.92.65.128 (talk) 00:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

PMS in nonhuman animals?

...Does it occur? Do mammals or even primates other than humans suffer from PMS or is it unique to our species?

76.64.150.184 (talk) 03:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Most mammals don't menstruate in the first place, making it impossible for them to experience pre-menstrual anything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Drug of Choice

The quote "initial drug of choice for severe PMS" in reference to SSRI's isn't on the cited page. There is a reference to "First-choice agents for the treatment of PMDD" but that's for Fluoxetine, a specific SSRI. And, "first choice" is a _recommendation_ on that site, not a statistical fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.209.39 (talk) 19:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Somatization disorder

There is barely any mention of PMS resulting from somatization disorders. In somatization disorder, it often appears with other "popular" syndromes (most vague, non-objective, occurring mostly in females, and with little physiologic data). These include chronic fatigue syndrome, IBS, fibromyalgia, "sick building" syndrome (EAS), etc. The article is not neutral and is heavily geared toward physiologic causes, rather than psychologic. Considering that somatization disorder affects 2% of females (close to prevalence estimates of PMS) and is highly heritable, it should definitely be discussed in more depth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.252.231.27 (talk) 03:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC) ==So it's all in our pretty little heads, eh? Thanks for mansplaining. 71.181.32.42 (talk) 23:33, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

As to who says pms increased in prevalence due to changes in work demographics etc

Martin, E. 1998. Premenstrual Syndrome, Work Discipline, and Anger (pp. 221-241). In Rose Weitz (ed). The Politics of Women’s Bodies. Sexuality, Appearance and Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.66.76.88 (talk) 17:38, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Video

A low-quality high-bandwidth video has been spammed to several articles; it conveys no information that belongs in this article and isn't already available in text. Please do not reinsert it -- and definitely not in the middle of the article! WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

PMS as a criminal defence

In the article a citation is needed. I found this which seem to originate from the 90'ties. http://www.springerlink.com/content/e23v14666ug54855/

Does it qualify? —Preceding unsigned comment added by BoosterDK (talk • contribs) 10:35, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

PMS is not the same as PMT

the S is for Syndrome.. the T is for Tension I have unfortunately been a sufferer of severe PMS and unlike my friends who suffered with just the 2 days of pre tension, it is life crippling. Wiki should have a seperate entry for PMT - the two cannot be compared —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.175.102 (talk) 20:40, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

PMS and PMT are interchangeable terms. You may be thinking of PMDD, which is more severe. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree with WhatamIdoing Dr B2 (talk) 19:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism?

In the section "Risk Factors" , it states that women may have "Allergies to nuts, trees, grass, and markers" Is that correct? Sounds a bit...fishy to me. Suurlemoen (talk) 14:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems fishy to me, too, and it isn't in the named source (whence the rest of the list was copied, word for word, so I removed it.

The bit about affective disorders also wants some attention. Most definitions completely exclude women with depression (etc) from PMS. The exclusion kind of makes sense: you cannot simultaneously have affective symptoms "all the time" and "exclusively in the 10 days before menstruation begins". I suspect that a formal study would exclude such a woman from a PMS diagnosis, saying that she suffered from normal/non-PMS depression (for example) with, at most, menstrual magnification of the symptoms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Molimina

Why the medical term "molimina" is not even mentioned in this article ?? Dr B2 (talk) 19:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).

I recommend that you add it, with a high-quality source to support it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

"Interest in PMS began to increase after..."

I haven't read the cited article so I cannot argue with its case specifically, but as someone who's knowledgeable about PMS research and history I have to disagree with the notion that interest in PMS began to increase after its appearance in the courts.

First off, the wording just isn't informative. I'm not certain what it means to "begin to increase." I would think that interest presumably "began" when the first person ever became interested in it, right? Before that person was interested, interest was at zero. After that person was interested, interest was greater than zero. Interest began to increase when it went from zero interest to something greater than zero.

But there's a bigger picture than the language. Although not named as Premenstrual Tension until 1931, there were related or analogous conditions, syndromes, or symptoms that were described throughout recorded history.

Ehb (talk) 03:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The "history" in this article has always seemed to me to be dubious in spots, and seriously incomplete. If you have any good sources that address this, please WP:BOLDly improve the article! WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

diagnostic criteria

Symptoms / patient questionnaire:

Moreno, Giesel

Premenstrual Syndrome

eMedicine Specialties > Pediatrics: Surgery > Gynecology Premenstrual Syndrome

Clinical

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/953696-overview —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.165.11.243 (talk) 01:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Further understanding of PMS

Not sure how to include the research for the following recommended changes....Premenstrual Tension (as it was known in the 1930's) was renamed premenstrual syndrome and did not get much attention until the 1980's. PMT is now considered a subgroup of PMS in medical literature and is divided into four different subgroups. The research below should be added to the #1 for a reference. I could not find out how to do this.

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMMD) are a collection of physical, psychological, and emotional symptoms related to a woman's menstrual cycle.

Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2003 Aug;28 Suppl 3:39-53.

Steeleworks (talk) 18:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)Jonathan Steele, RN You can contact me at [email protected]

I'm not sure that's appropriate. We have a separate article at Premenstrual dysphoric disorder. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Most common symptoms

 tiredness or lethargy (84%), depressed mood (72.3%), sudden feeling of sadness or tearfulness (70.3%), anxiety (70%),  backache (69%), and sleep problems (66%).  

Results: Of the 300 participants, 98.2% reported at least one mild to severe premenstrual symptom and 16% met the criteria of DSM-IV for PMS. Most common symptoms were

• feeling of tiredness or lethargy (84%),
• depressed mood (72.3%),
• sudden feeling of sadness or tearfulness (70.3%),
• anxiety (70%),
• backache (69%), and
• sleep problems (66%).

Bakhshani NM, Mousavi MN, Khodabandeh G.

Prevalence and severity of premenstrual symptoms among Iranian female university students

http://www.jpma.org.pk/full_article_text.php?article_id=1664

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19402278

PMID 19402278 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdncntx (talk • contribs) 19:08, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you think should be done with this. The existence of physical symptoms is very common. You could probably get similar numbers for fatigue, backache, and sleep disturbance by surveying obese middle-aged men over a similarly long time period. That doesn't mean that the symptom is necessarily related to the menstrual cycle—and even when it is related to the menstrual cycle, it doesn't mean that these symptoms are actually PMS (in fact, the source says that it's not PMS for 82% of the women reporting symptoms).

This survey asked for information on symptoms over the course of six weeks (two weeks each month, times three months). Nearly every student reported some sort of symptom at least once during those six weeks. It would be a strange world if students had no anxiety and no fatigue during any randomly selected set of six weeks. (Do they have no difficult exams or papers to write?)

Importantly, this survey apparently failed to use the necessary self-control: if your "PMS symptoms" of depression, volatile mood, anxiety, etc., do not reliably go away, then you don't have PMS; you have regular old depression (or anxiety, or whatever) that has nothing at all to do with the menstrual cycle. To diagnose PMS, you have to prove not only the presence of symptoms during the five days before the menstrual bleeding begins, but also their reliable absence no later than four days after the menstrual cycle starts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Content dispute on between WhatamIdoing and anon user

I don't think it is appropriate to revert the edit wholesale. I've protected the page until we can resolve this issue. For example, two of the paragraphs refer to the views of Carol Tavris, the anon edit makes it clear that these are views of the same person, but User:WhatamIdoing changed it back to say "Another view holds that..." implying that it is not the same person. Edward (talk) 05:10, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I am the anon who made the edits that were reverted. I put a lot of work into the edits. I do not think there should be a separate section called Alternative Views. These views are out-of-date and in such a small minority that they are really 'fringe'. The entire section is POV in this respect. I was just trying to even out the tone, fix the poor writing, and make the text match with citations. Cordeliasmith (talk) 06:02, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, Cordelia.

Your edits introduce the incorrect idea that Carol Tavris is the only person in the world who ever believed these things. For example: "Writing in 1992, Tavris said that PMS was being mis-diagnosed": Do you really believe that Tavris is the only person who believes this?

Your edits also violate Wikipedia's rules about sources. For example: "This discussion is largely academic these days as PMS is a known illness, with hospital clinics devoted to it." You cite the existence of a clinic that contains "PMS" in its name. I could cite the existence of Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital as proof that homeopathy isn't pseudoscientific garbage. Would you consider that to be a good proof? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:47, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Expanding "Alternate views" section

The following blog post cites several sources (news article, books) that can be used to expand the content of the "Alternate Views" section, I leave it here as a reminder for myself and other people willing to expand it: PMS is social construction. Bouktin (talk) 12:24, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Update to reference 25 and external links

I'm writing to let you know reference 25 which links to http://familydoctor.org/141.xml is no longer a valid link. The page has moved to http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/premenstrual-syndrome-pms/treatment.html . Thank you! Usableweb (talk) 18:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

added 'needs expert review' template

I flagged this article as needing an expert, ideally some doctor who also knows how to write wikipedia articles. This article is a total mess. There are a lot of competing theories citing various papers, and no coherent view of the actual causes or treatments. In the treatments section, too many "potential" treatments are listed, even many with studies, but no indication of the results of the studies. If they were not double-blind with significant improvement compared to placebo, they should not be listed as treatments. There was even some comment about evolutionary relevance, which is likely total rubbish. Speculative or unsubstantiated theories should not be included either, even if they were published. The same goes for discussions about genetic origins and twin studies. This does not mean much to the etiology. While it may suggest there is a genetic component, MANY things have genetic components. Unless someone identified an allele and stated that it specifically adversely affects only women cyclically each month, this should not be included. For example, serotonin transporter promoter VNTRs are associated with depression IN THE GENERAL POPULATION, and not just women due to hormonal or other physiological fluctuations. Wrfrancis (talk) 11:17, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Why should the article reflect a "coherent view" if (as it would appear) there may not be one? And there's nothing wrong with learning the latest expert speculation, as long as it is indeed by experts and clearly labeled as speculation.Daqu (talk) 03:28, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Why does this article link to the article on Feminism?

At bottom this article links to the Feminism article. But why?

The Feminism article — at least as of this writing — contains no mention of PMS or of menstruation.Daqu (talk) 03:25, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Frequency

The 2003 ref in AFP states "Up to 85 percent of menstruating women report having one or more premenstrual symptoms, and 2 to 10 percent report disabling, incapacitating symptoms" [2]

The NIH states "There’s a wide range of estimates of how many women suffer from PMS. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimates that at least 85 percent of menstruating women have at least 1 PMS symptom as part of their monthly cycle. Most of these women have fairly mild symptoms that don’t need treatment. Others (about 3 to 8 percent) have a more severe form of PMS, called premenstrual dysphoric (dis-FOHR-ik) disorder (PMDD)." [3]

These estimates appear to be somewhat at odds. User:WhatamIdoing do you think of "Up to 85% women of child-bearing age report having symptoms prior to menstruation. In two to ten percent the symptoms interfer with normal activities." as a summary? The 85% is not refering to just "physical symptoms" but any symptoms. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:34, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Mayo states "It's estimated that as many as 3 of every 4 menstruating women have experienced some form of premenstrual syndrome." [4] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:21, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Definition

The AFP 2003 paper says

"At least one of the following affective and somatic symptoms during the five days before menses in each of the three previous cycles:

Affective symptoms: depression, angry outbursts, irritability, anxiety, confusion, social withdrawal

Somatic symptoms: breast tenderness, abdominal bloating, headache, swelling of extremities

Symptoms relieved from days 4 through 13 of the menstrual cycle"

Thus it requirs both emotional and physical symptoms to be present. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:55, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing The above definition states some affective and some somatic symptoms are needed. And that these much not be present in the early part of the cycle. Thus I do not see that your changes to emphasis emotional symptoms is needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:49, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

One of the biggest misconceptions about PMS is that purely physical symptoms are PMS. They aren't: cramps (for example) before bleeding starts is "normal" rather than "PMS". This wasn't at all clear before.

It's also important to emphasize the timing, because (e.g.,) ovulatory pain sometimes gets mis-labeled as "premenstrual" by people who ought to know better. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

The ref seems to indicate that BOTH physical and psychological symptoms are required. But yes agree with the changes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:12, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

"Premenstion"

The text currently says, Menstrual psychosis typically occurs during the premenstion or menstruation. Is this a typo, or an uncommon word? It doesn't look like a valid Latin coinage to me ... in any case, even if the word is correct, we should link it to what it means ... unless it's just another synonym for PMS, in which case I would prefer that we just write PMS. —Soap— 21:19, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

WikiBlame traces it to [5], with a reference to the same article we currently have it linked to, which is not open-access. However, it is not clear that the terminology derives from the article. —Soap— 18:41, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

I decided to change it without having read the paper. Its highly unlikely that it means anything else. Please correct me if Im wrong. —Soap— 16:39, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Were does the ref support this?

"The chief complaint is the temporary and predictable appearance of emotional symptoms, such as irritability or mood changes."

Ref says "is characterized by emotional and physical symptoms that consistently occur during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle." https://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/0415/p1743.html

User:WhatamIdoing I am not seeing it emphasize the emotional symptoms over the physical ones.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:44, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Then let's find a better source. If you go look at the research, emotional symptoms are a requirement for a PMS diagnosis. If only physical symptoms are present, then you have "normal discomforts of menstruation". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Alternative medicine

Proposed addition:

Most studies investigating Damask rose have not attempted to determine efficacy specifically for PMS, but instead for some of the individual symptoms of PMS. Damask rose essential oil used during the luteal phase has a small positive effect on PMS symptoms. Supplementation with Damask rose reduces menstruation-related headaches, fatigue, and bloating. Damask rose reduces state anxiety, depression, and stress in adults, though further high-quality randomized controlled trials are needed to draw reliable conclusions regarding this.

3 recent review articles, all listed on PubMed. @Zefr --Isabela31 (talk) 02:35, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

References

All weak sources in low-quality publications, inconsistent with WP:MEDSCI. Listing of a publication on PubMed does not give it high-quality WP:MEDRS status; it is just a listing service. Zefr (talk) 17:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

@Zefr Does Wikipedia have a list of acceptable journals? WP:MEDSCI doesn't have a list. I am following WP:MEDSCI but you keep reverting. --Isabela31 (talk) 19:54, 3 November 2021 (UTC)