The Premenstrual Syndrome - PMS - Symptoms

What is the premenstrual syndrome (PMS)?

PMS is defined as distressing physical and psychological symptoms, not caused by organic disease, which regularly recur during the same phase of each menstrual cycle, and which significantly regress or disappear during the remainder of the cycle. The symptoms occur in the two weeks leading up to the next period known as the luteal phase of the cycle (Figure 2.3). The severity of premenstrual syndrome may range from that indefinable point that is acceptable to the majority of women to such a degree of debility that for some time each month a woman may fail to function at home, at work or both. There is evidence that suicide and criminal offences occur more frequently premenstrually. PMS and PMT and similarly premenstrual syndrome and premenstrual tension are synonyms.

Some premenstrual symptoms probably occur in 95% of women; only 5% of women have no premenstrual symptoms. Fifty percent of women have mild symptoms and 30% moderate problems. About 5% of women have such PMS symptoms that their lives are disrupted in the two weeks leading up to their periods.

From 2 to 10 percent of women of reproductive age have severe distress and dysfunction caused by premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe form of premenstrual syndrome. There has been a suggestion that the hormone profile of women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder is different.