General Health

This drug is a so-called LHRH (Luteinizing hormone releasing hormone) agonist. It was found effective against bloating, poor mood and breast tenderness, which is quite good news, but it was not effective against irritability and fatigue. On the down side, it causes hot flashes, mood swings and lowered sex drive.

and potentially could cause bone loss over the long term.

Surgical Removal of the Ovaries

An extreme measure to say the least, removal of the ovaries does help relieve PMS symptoms. But it certainly isn’t the treatment of choice for relieving PMS—in fact, some would call its use for this purpose barbaric.

So Just How Well Does Treatment For PMS work?

While individual treatments seldom do the whole job, comprehensive treatment—for the body, for the mind and for the family—does often work. In one study at a comprehensive PMS treatment clinic, 95% of women were satisfied after a year of care. Eighty-eight percent said that their lives were better after treatment, which one could argue is the bottom line. Of course, “better” is in the eye of the beholder. Endicott finds that a lot of her patients do not expect to feel great before their periods begins They just want to feel good, or better than they, feel now. If your expectations are realistic, you are much more likely to be pleased with the result of your PMS treatment.

On the down side, there have been studies showing that when you scientifically measure improvement after PMS treatment, the results are disappointing. When given formal symptom rating scales, some women report that they aren’t doing that much better after all—which is one reason you might run into health care providers who aren’t sure it’s worth trying to treat PMS.

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General health