Woman diagnosed with PMDD after hearing about symptoms on Loose Women
Warning: This article discusses suicide.
A woman says she had a ‘life-saving’ diagnosis of premenstrual dysmorphic disorder (PMDD) after first hearing about the symptoms on ITV’s Loose Women.
Stephanie Gray, 30, reveals that she struggled with severe depression and suicidal thoughts each month before her period for 12 years before her PMDD diagnosis.
"I was becoming suicidal every month before my period arrived," Gray, a nursing student from Edinburgh, explains. "That constant cycle was controlling my life. Throughout my teens, I’d struggled with my mental health, with depression and anxiety.
"It wasn’t until I went to university in 2013, aged 19, that everything came to a head. I was regularly suicidal and isolating myself. I made an attempt on my life during my time at university because I wasn’t able to cope with the symptoms.
"That’s what started it all off – my family and I recognising that this was really extreme, and we needed help."
After visiting doctors, Gray was put on antidepressants and sent to psychiatrists, but nothing seemed to work.
It wasn’t until Gray’s mum heard Loose Women presenter Denise Welch sharing her experiences with the condition on the show that she recognised the symptoms.
"We heard about PMDD for the first time on Loose Women," Gray explains. "Denise Welch was talking about her own experiences, and my mum saw it – and it clicked for her.
"She came to me and told me about it, and I thought that it was exactly what I was experiencing. I just knew that’s what it was."
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, also known as PMDD, affects nearly 1 in 50 women in the UK, and is estimated to affect up to 31 million women and girls globally.
Sufferers of PMDD experience a range of physical and mental symptoms in the luteal phase of their menstrual cycles, which is the phase just before the period begins. It includes increased anxiety, mood swings, sleep problems, and even suicidal thoughts.
Gray and her mum reached out to Welch on Twitter, who replied and provided the pair with resources, including details of people to speak to for more information.
"It was when we were questioning things after we’d heard about PMDD, and asking if it was a possibility, was when things changed for us, and we started to feel ignored," Gray says..
"The process took years. No-one had heard of it. We were talking to professionals that didn’t know it was a thing – they said that my mental health couldn’t be impacted by my period in such an extreme way."
Eventually, Gray found a sexual health clinic in Edinburgh that recognised the symptoms of PMDD and she finally began treatment.
She was prescribed a combined contraceptive pill, which regulates the hormonal fluctuations thought to cause symptoms of PMDD and she soon began to notice a difference.
"It was years – years of not being believed, and eventually slowly getting help for hormones in general at that sexual health clinic," Gray adds.
"The first line of treatment thankfully worked for me. It’s a combined contraceptive pill, and that worked for me alongside different lifestyle changes.
"I’m really lucky, because a lot of women end up having to have a hysterectomy to attempt to improve their symptoms. A lot of young women who haven’t had families, their symptoms are so bad that they can’t find relief through any other form of limited treatment they have."
Gray is now using her experience to raise awareness of the condition – and highlight the lack of help and research available.
"I’m a student nurse, and I’ve seen how although professionals are more aware of PMDD now, the treatments and awareness are lacking,” Gray explains.
"Although I’m speaking out about PMDD and my experience, I think it’s really important that we don’t just focus on one condition when trying to raise awareness about the struggles that women face in healthcare.
"It’s under researched and underfunded as a whole, and the waiting times to get a diagnosis and the amount of professionals they have to see before they get a diagnosis is very similar, whether it be PMDD, endometriosis or PCOS.
"My experience definitely gave me a direction – it lit a fire in my soul to want to be able to help women and help improve the healthcare we provide for women."
April is PMDD awareness month, and as part of an international campaign by charity IAPMD, Edinburgh Castle will be lighting up teal on 30 April.
Supporters are welcome to join Gray and other sufferers of the condition on the Castle esplanade from 7pm onwards, to show their support.
Additional reporting by SWNS.
Women's health: Read more
'My PMS symptoms were so extreme, I was hospitalised for my own safety' (Yahoo Life UK, 7-min read)
Why PMS symptoms affect some women more than others (Yahoo Life UK, 3-min read)
The Red Flag Signs Your PMS Is Actually Something More Serious (HuffPost, 4-min read)
