Tools To Help PMS Symptom Relief
It’s hard to believe, but a small percentage of women have never suffered one PMS symptom and have no idea what suffering from PMS is like. For this reason, the moodiness, cramping and other symptoms associated with PMS are a bit of a mystery. Even the women who do report PMS symptoms, report them to varying degrees; from a headache and a craving for chocolate to unexplained bouts of crying and insomnia. The first step in assessing your level of PMS is using a few helpful tools to chart your symptoms, calculate your menstrual periods and make sense of the changes your body is enduring. Then you can visit the doctor with an arsenal of information to help your health care professional make the best treatment plan for you.
You might find it helpful to look for a PMS tracker chart. For a printable template, just visit www.womenshealth.gov/faq/pmsymptracker45.pdf or www.freeprintablemedicalforms.com/preview/pms_symptom_tracker. You can check off which days of the month you have your period and also track every day of the month for symptoms like acne, bloating, menstrual cramps, tiredness, upset stomach, headache, backache, food cravings, difficulty concentrating, tension, crying, mood swings and other symptoms that you fill in yourself. At www.mymonthlycycles.com/infopms_cycle.html, you can enter information on your computer as to whether each PMS related symptom is “mild, moderate, severe or nonexistent.” The website will then create a graph for you to show your ups and downs for each symptom.
If you wish to do a PMS symptom assessment because your behavior seems out of your control and your mood fluctuations are increasingly more erratic, then you may want to look for a more psychologically based “symptom diary.” When stress, moodiness, anxiety, irritability and depression are your predominant symptoms, then you may have premenstrual dysphoric disorder or clinical depression. Use the free template at www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTCS_01.htm. Here you’ll log your stressful events, how you handled them, how you feel on a scale of 1-10, what caused the event and what physical symptoms you experienced. This can be helpful to your mental health provider in finding the best solution.
Sometimes it just helps to know when you can expect the next PMS symptom to appear. Tracking your menstrual cycles with a calendar is a great way to anticipate your body’s changes and take preventative measures before it’s too late. One place you can visit is www.mymonthlycycles.com/charthome.jsp (for a subscriber’s tool) or www.period.nyws.com/Page.asp?Cat=4 (for a free tool), where you will enter your name, the length of your cycle and the date your last period started to calculate a whole menstrual cycle calendar for you.
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