Teenagers with pmt

[larry5]

Dd is 15 and seems to be suffering with painful periods (dose with parecetamol) and pmt. She has a lot of course work on at the moment and when she has pmt everything upsets her as she thinks she can't do it and usually ends up having a row with dh.

Has anyone got any tips about how to help her. I know that I used to suffer from pmt but had a hysterectomy 12 years ago so the rest of the family havn't suffered from my pmt since then so have forgotten how to deal with it.

[anorak]

you could try evening primrose oil.

[legoleia]

PMT - make sure you use a calendar to log when she will be Pre-menstrual - when I was a teenager just knowing WHY I felt so terrible helped me to deal with it. (and tell your DH too )

Also, Ibuprofen seemed to help with the pain a lot more than paracetamol. Used to live on feminax for 4 days or so!

HTH! PMT is AWFUL!!!!! Poor girl!

[ishouldbeironing]

Agnus Castus works for me - get it at Health Food shop

[Hassled]

Magnesium supplements worked wonders for both me and DD - we had got into synch at one point and so had PMT at the same time and were just vicious to each other. Agree that just knowing there's a reason for unreasonableness can help.

[Wisteria]

Best think I think is the knowledge of why you are feeling like it as legoleia says - big difference if they are able to be really open about their feelings and not ridiculed for them Oh and your dh needs to understand that she can't help it.

My poor dp now has to put up with me, both dds and the dog last month, all at the same time!!!! He is seriously looking at converting the shed into a games room.

Pain - extra strong nurofen taken as soon as pain starts (don't wait until it's deemed bad enough IYSWIM and hot water bottles). I had crippling pains at her age and needed a day off school every month.

[Wisteria]

and I keep putting the end of brackets in the wrong place so sorry for that

[larry5]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will go and visit my local health food shop. I do try heat packs which do help her.

[ivykaty44]

Eve primrose every day of the month, a good vit B for 2 days before her period starts and then for the duration of her period and then stop.

The vit b alters the blodd vessels diameter and reduces the pain of the blood flow.

You - or rather your dd should find that her periods are actually shorter if she takes this.

[arionater]

Feminax is codeine + paracetamol + an anti-spasmodic - much more effective than anything else over the counter ime (though quite strong, and the codeine can exacerbate constipation if she's prone to that at that time of the month anyway). I think if you can find a really reliable painkiller that she knows will sort out the painful periods quickly that'll help a lot in general - feeling so out of control and at the mercy of your body hardly helps your mood. I've found that if you can knock it out at the very first glimmer of pain, then you can control it almost completely, whereas if you wait for it to get really bad before you take anything, the drugs are never quite as effective.

Also: hot water bottle, very soothing, and helps more than painkillers with that horrid 'full and achy' feeling between her legs if she gets that. Exercise really does ease it too if you can persuade her into it. I felt I suffered a bit less when I started using tampons rather than towels, but I can't think of good reason why that might be the case, so maybe that's purely psychological! (though I've heard other people say the same thing about transferring to mooncups)

I think the difficult thing about PMT is that on the one hand it's reassuring to understand why it's happening, but on the other hand it's incredibly annoying and frustrating to be told it's 'just PMT' when you're feeling really hopeless and terrible (even if you sort of know that it'll pass as it has before). So I suppose the trick is to find a way of helping her to understand it and keep going, without denigrating the experience - which is after all quite a useful life skill for difficult moods in general. If you suffered from it yourself, maybe ask your own mother?

[sdr]

My DD13 also has a terrible time of it. You can buy Heat Packs which can be worn under clothing all day which help. Also Lemon & Ginger drinks, hot or cold, can help with nausea if she gets that as well. My DD can get quite down about her painful periods as all she can see is years and years of them.

[glitterfairy]

Where do you get heatpacks from? I am also going to investigate the health food shop thanks for this ladies.

[littlewoman]

I read that paracetamol blocks pain in periods, but ibuprofen actually attacks the cause of the pain. So it goes away, rather than just masking it. I find my girls do better with ibuprofen. I can remember lying in bed on my back, when I was a teen, hot water bottle on stomach, and bringing one foot up the bed towards by bottom, then the other. Rather like a cycling motion. Did this in labour too. It stops uterine muscles tensing up. Looks ridiculous, but it did help me!