PMS Guide |

Some women have PMS symptoms in their teens, but they do not realize that they are sufferers because they have no basis of comparison. Menstruation is a new event in their lives and anything that happens may appear to be “normal.” Also, PMS seems to run in families, so a mother who does not know that she is a sufferer may not be concerned if her teenage daughter behaves as she herself always has. The majority of PMS sufferers, however, are not teenagers.

Premenstrual syndrome is much more prevalent among women in their thirties than in any other age group. Women may become sufferers at any age, but usually the condition is rare among teenagers, more noticeable during the twenties and not only common but severe in thirties.

Fatty tissue contributes to an increase of estrogen in the body, so as woman gets older and slowly gains weight, she may suddenly experience symptoms caused by an overproduction of estrogen and she may realize that she did not notice these symptoms when she was younger and slimmer. Age changes the body in many ways. As woman matures, her ovulation might not be as perfect as it was in her youth. A woman’s ovaries do not function in the same way from month to month, and certainly not from decade to decade. An over-thirty woman may experience a hormonal imbalance because she is producing less progesterone than she used to. The lowered progesterone in relation to the combined ovarian and “body fat” estrogen becomes a much less effective hormone and an estrogen/progesterone imbalance occurs that contributes to premenstrual syndrome.

Then there is another reason why a woman may experience PMS for the first time when she is over thirty. Besides the fact that her ovaries are aging, and even if she has not gained wight, she may develop premenstrual syndrome because the ratio of muscle to fat in her body has changed. When a woman is young, muscle surpasses fat, but as she matures the ratio reverses and she has more fat than muscle. Once again the passage of time is responsible.

Also, early in life a woman has her childbearing ahead of her. Older women who have borne more than one child may find that they have PMS symptoms that can be traced back to their pregnancies. Abdominal bloating is especially notice among women who have given birth to more than one child, because pelvic congestion tends to afflict these women. In addition, it is common to see premenstrual syndrome occurring after a woman has had her normal hormonal cycle interrupted for some reason during her pregnancy, or perhaps a few years on the birth control pill. The interruption of a woman’s cycle takes time, so she is older when she notice the effects of an intrusion.

Women who become attuned to their bodies and know that premenstrual syndrome might surface when they are over thirty feel ready to overcome their symptoms. Before the fact that PMS might appear for the first time in an over-thirty woman was recognized, doctors prescribed tranquilizers for complaining older women and made them feel as if they might possibly be going mad. Today both doctors and patients know that PMS is more likely to strike the mother of a teenage daughter, rather than the teenage daughter herself.