Declare Your Independence from PMDD - Nutrition Matters

Today we offer a two-for-one post, with a guest segment from Julie, a woman who, like me, has taken the responsibility for management of her PMDD symptoms into her own hands.  Read on to find out how and why. 

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. ~Hippocrates, founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine

Julie starts:  Over a decade ago, I sat down with a doctor and burst into tears. Literally within moments, I had a prescription for an antidepressant.

I left feeling ashamed and deficient somehow. The drug didn't help at all and I was cycled through various others to see if one would finally work for me. When I decided to quit the search, I was tapered off of everything and felt like bolts of lightning were jolting through my body for weeks.

Nobody ever asked about my diet.

I've had three idiopathic blood clots. That means doctors can't identify what caused them. But now I take an anticoagulant for the rest of my life. For years, I've had to be careful about which foods I ate because certain foods could interfere with the medicine.

I even saw a gastroenterologist who wrote me a prescription for an anti-anxiety drug before printing me a list of foods that might be the culprit behind my constantly upset belly. There was no real plan, no follow-through. Just a drug to treat the symptoms.

I was told that my symptoms were all in my head and just manifesting themselves in my gut. I felt broken and shamed again.

Yoga was my first step in recovering from depression. I'm now a registered yoga teacher and practice almost daily. I meditate and take long walks to soothe my nervous anxiety. I have been gluten-free for years and until recently ate what I thought to be a fairly healthy diet. I don't drink or smoke or even drink caffeine. Most people who know me would probably consider me somewhat of a health nut.

One day it occurred to me that I would never just "open my medicine cabinet and start swallowing random handfuls of drugs." I don't even take Tylenol without checking to see if it's safe with anything else I have to take. But I do this with food. I open the refrigerator and...

I [finally realized that I] paid more attention to the appetizing picture on the package than to what was actually in the package. I finally understood that FOOD IS MEDICINE and that literally every single cell in my body was made of the food I chose to eat.

For the past several weeks, I've been eating nothing but clean food. I've removed all dairy, grains, legumes, soy, and sugar from my diet. I have piled my plate with veggies, fruit, and protein. Everything has been delicious and satisfying. I've definitely lost weight, and I've never felt deprived or gone to bed hungry.

But I've also gained strength and endurance. My sleep has improved. My skin is happy. And my resting heart rate has dropped steadily.

And this happened after only two weeks!

I'm much happier these days than I was a decade ago. I've fought for my own happiness. I now know who I am and what I need to feel like me. Antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs are helpful to many and there's no shame in taking them—none—but they've become so stigmatized that we sometimes get defensive about them instead of fairly examining the whole picture.

None of the doctors I met ever asked me about my diet. I was told that my symptoms were all in my head. Who cares that my head happens to be connected to the rest of my body?

What we eat matters and affects our entire being, not just our physical body.

Did you know that body fat secretes hormones? It works like an organ. If any other organ were enlarged and throwing the rest of your system out of whack, you'd probably consider that a problem.

Food is comforting. These past weeks have been emotionally exhausting. I got a call from the vet who has been treating our beloved dog for his leukemia. When they diagnosed him, they said he had 7-60 days left. He fought for more than six months! Even so, the vet confirmed that we had to say goodbye. He suggested euthanasia was the most compassionate response. It was gut-wrenching. I was standing in Target sobbing and calling around looking for someone to come to the house that night to help my dog transition in peace.

During that situation and other, equally stressful situations, I found myself face to face with the reality that I use food to comfort myself. I longed for sugar, cream, grains... Cookies, basically. I stared at the brightly colored bags of treats and imagined what it would be like to eat them. To feel their crunch and sweetness and melting chocolate. I felt alarms going off in my head like an addict fighting to stay clean amid temptation. I pushed my cart through the store with eyes red from crying and left with my commitment to a clean diet intact.

Once at home, I made myself a bowl of chia seed pudding with coconut milk and cream, bananas, blueberries, and love. It satisfied and comforted me. It nourished me instead of making me feel sick and sad.

It's okay and good and right to feel comforted by your food. Food is medicine. Food is one of the truest joys in life. Learning to see food for what it really is has been an intense and eye-opening experience.

If you're looking to learn more about all of this, please go find a copy of the book, It Starts with Food. Written by a certified sports nutritionist, it's an absolutely fascinating and inspiring read.

Liana adds:  So make today the day you declare your independence from PMDD.  In addition to whatever treatment plan you are following, take a good, hard look at your food habits.  What you eat, when you eat, where you eat, and why you eat.  Read up on food and nutrition and how it all works to support and sustain your brain and body.  Do what you can to eat clean(er)—and feel the difference for yourself.  Become more body aware as you start to feel healthier. 

Make changes in small increments if that's the only way you can stick to a plan.  Baby steps. 

That's the way I did it, and, like Julie, my symptoms have eased to barely worth mentioning in the year and a half  I have been eating cleaner.  So much so that I haven't needed to take anything for anger, irritability, depression, mood swings or anxiety other than an extra 100mg of progesterone as needed.  (I wear an estrogen patch (.75.mg) and take 100 mg progesterone capsule at bedtime daily.  I take an added dose of progesterone (either via a second 100 mg capsule or a dime-size dollop of progesterone cream) on days when I feel symptomatic.)

Nutrition matters.  And you deserve to be nourished, not pacified.  So give cleaning up your diet a sincere effort, like Julie and I have.  There's nobody out there who can or even will do it for you.  It has to come from you.

Then, once you, too, feel stronger and have more stamina and energy—mentally, emotionally, and physically—you may be able, with the supervision of your medical practitioner, to be weaned from any substances (or situations) you have determined are making you feel worse...instead of better. 

And wouldn't that be something to celebrate?

Readers can find Julie on Instagram @hideadollar and can reach Liana either through posting a comment here or by emailing her at info (at) livingwithpmdd (dot) com.

PMDD and Maple Syrup

Okay, time to check in again. One of the things I make a point of here is to be as honest with you as I possibly can. But my information is only as good as what I have personally experienced, so I can’t—and won’t--recommend things I haven’t tried. I’m just as eager—and sometimes just as desperate—as the next woman to find a way to feel well all the time, but I’m not one to just throw things out there to see if they stick. I’ve chased enough dream cures for PMDD in my forty years to know I don’t want to send any of you down the same road of futility and despair.

Because every time one of these so-called “miracle cures” fails to take away our PMDD, we tend to blame ourselves, and not the product we just spent another $20, $50, or $100 on. The problem must be with us, right?---not the stuff in the pretty package with all the glowing testimonials of how it worked for other women.

Wrong. The only problem here is you fell prey to hope.

That said, the only thing I know for sure is a woman with PMDD needs to pay careful attention to what she eats and drinks, and needs to listen to the signals her body sends her about whatever she is putting into her body, be it food, drink, supplements, creams, hormones, or medication of any sort. It’s only through this total body awareness that we’ll be able to get a handle on our PMDD.

Our bodies are amazing, and communicate with us constantly. Think aches, pains, tingles, queasiness, sleepiness, nervousness, whatever. Unfortunately, we’ve been conditioned to ignore these distress signals from bodies, and therefore our health and well-being, as long as we are able to get done all the things we need to do. It’s this ignoring of our bodies that leaves us wide open to using and abusing them in ways that invariably come back to haunt us, via cravings and weight gain, irritability and mood swings, and susceptibility to illnesses of all sorts, both physical and mental.

So the number one thing you need to do is take the time to get to know your body, what nourishes and sustains it, and what sends it, and therefore you and your life, out of kilter.

Last week I thought it was the cottage cheese bringing me down. I’ve since figured out that it was--and it wasn’t. It wasn’t bringing me down in the way I thought it was. As most women with PMDD, I need a certain level of carbs to be functional. Carbs are the precursor to making serotonin, which is a hormone a woman with PMDD lacks during certain times of the month.

There aren’t a lot of carbs in cottage cheese :). So after coming off the fast, which was a cleansing fast, and not one I would recommend for everybody (which is why I’m not openly promoting it here), I was (and still am) determined to watch my calories. Not count them—never again will I count calories—but I am determined in general to stick to a reasonable level of healthy fuel for my body intake.

Full fat cottage cheese is 30% fat—that’s what makes it so tasty. But by eating the cottage cheese, I was putting something in my body that wasn’t going to help improve my mood. What I should have been eating was something that would provide some healthy carbs to fuel my serotonin production.

In short, I substituted fat for carbs. And while it satisfied my hunger and the pleasure/reward area of my brain, it did nothing to improve my mood, or sense of mental clarity and well being. The key, in my case, is to keep a steady supply of carbs in my system, so my body has enough resources to make the level of serotonin I need to stay happy and focused. There are a few ways to do this. One, by eating some dense, healthy carbs—like oatmeal, or multi-grain toast with no sugar added preserves, or even bananas, grapes, apples, or oranges. (But you have to be careful about eating too much fruit if you have problems with insulin resistance.)

Another way to boost your serotonin levels is by exercising moderately. Too much exercise, and you deplete your body’s stores of carbs, therefore defeating the whole purpose. So a nice, moderate, 2-mile walk really helps. Maybe a some kind of dance (Zumba is great for this) or Pilates class. But if you don’t have time for that, even 10-20 minutes of walking or light aerobic exercise will help—just enough to get your heart rate up and break a light sweat.

A third alternative is to take some 5-HTP. I have two kinds here…one with 37 grams per capsule, and one with 100 grams per capsule. That way I can take whatever I need, based on whether I feel like I need a big boost in mood and focus or a small one. However, it is not recommended that you take 5-HTP if you are already taking any MAOI drugs or SSRI anti-depressants. The main reason being that they accomplish the same purpose so you could easily overdose by taking both. For more information on Serotonin Syndrome, go here.

An alternative to 5-HTP is to take a SSRI-type antidepressant—but only while you are feeling symptomatic. There’s no need to take any kind of drug every single day, day in and day out, for something that troubles you only part of the month. SSRIs have been proven to help with symptoms of PMDD in 60% of the women who take them. You won’t know if you’re one of the 60% unless you try. But what they don’t tell you is that for PMDD, you only need to take them when you are feeling symptomatic. It’s just easier to prescribe one for you to take all the time, and when it starts to fail, up the dosage (and all the unpleasant side effects). It’s like we can’t be trusted to know when we need a boost and when we don’t.

But while an anti-depressant takes a few weeks to kick in for those who are truly depressed, if you have PMDD, a SSRI can somehow affect the part of your brain that boosts your serotonin level within hours. So yes, I have a 10 mg prescription handy for those days when nothing else seems to work. But those days are few and far between, Thank God (in six months I’ve taken them three times, for 2-3 days each time), and I much prefer to use the natural methods of treatment available.

Other options are to increase your intake of Vitamin D, or to simply get more sleep. I realize that this last one is the least simple of the options available, but sometimes nothing less will do. For it's when we sleep that our body has a chance to re-set itself, and put everything back into balance if it can.

I did mention that while on the cleansing fast, I had no symptoms of PMDD. My guess is this was due to the maple syrup component of the fast, which kept a slow, steady supply of carbs circulating through my body and brain all day long. One serving of maple syrup contains 53 grams of sugar, 10 more grams than a can of regular soda. But all sugars are not alike. Sodas not only don’t add anything to your body but calories, they actually rob your of vitality and nutrition, and leave you dehydrated, to boot.

But since I was using organic Grade B maple syrup, I was getting all of the nutritional benefits (Grade B organic maple syrup is filled with all sorts of vitamins and minerals), without any negative side effects. However, at one point I was running out of Grade B syrup, and since the Whole Foods store was on the other side of town, I went to the grocery store instead to find a replacement to get me through the weekend.

No dice. All I could find was 100% pure Grade A maple syrup (not organic). One serving of that, and I had an immediate headache and was sick to my stomach. I went to the internet to find out why, and learned that non-organic Grade A maple syrup is sometimes processed with formaldehyde.

My body was letting me know I was not giving it something that was good and healthy. Back to the Whole Foods store I went, and the problem immediately went away.

So now I sweeten my tea with a little Grade B organic syrup, and it does wonders to keep the healthy carbs flowing.