She is just looking to tell your story. I have talked to her so if you want to talk w/ me first, feel free to email me at redefininglifewpmdd@gmail.com

I have decided to run my first and ONLY 24 hr sale on my 2 books. Starting Tuesday, 2:45pm (central); Ending Wed, 2:45pm (central)

The first one is normally $15.00, you can get it for $12.50
The second one is normally $5.00, you can get it for $3.00

You can be assured this will be the only time I run this discount so if you have been waiting, now is a great time!

Let me know if you need any help, it’s thru Paypal.

Please let me know if you have visited a doctor, a center or a neuropath, etc…..that you have been pleased with, in regards to your PMDD.

Please email me at redefininglifewpmdd@gmail.com or reply here with the state, city, (zip if possible), phone number (if possible), basically as much info as you can on where the doctor is located, make it easy for another Woman with PMDD to get in contact with them.

So many Women have to jump through hoops to get a doctor to listen and believe that PMDD is not just in our heads. I believe this section will really help all of us.

Stef Prose, PMDD Advocate

I am still here and responding to emails that come to me, I just really needed to take a little break. With 4 kids the holidays were exciting and awesome and I didn’t want my focus to be on PMDD.

Also, I am planning on scheduling my hysterectomy for next month. As many of you know I had it scheduled during the summer and my son was unexpectedly hospitalized with a staph infection- he is doing fine now.

Jennifer needed a break and needed to focus on her counseling services and her family so she won’t be posting on lifewpmdd.com anymore, she will be missed, but I understand completely on needing to focus on the top things first.

I am excited as to what lifewpmdd.com will offer this year, it’s a new year, I will be having my surgery and am so excited about that, I can’t even hardly describe it. I will be keeping you up-to-date on my recovery as well.

Also, I will be offering PMDD life coaching classes. I have tried offering these before with little attendance to the online courses and not much feedback as to what you all would really like, however, I am still positive that with all the new members here, I can help some of you live a more positive life regardless of your PMDD.

Now that the Holidays are over I am getting back to the grind stone of working on this site and offering you the newest information out there.

Please, email me or post here as to what you feel would help you the most, what sort of things would you like to conquer this year in your life with regards to your family and your PMDD.

This is going to be a great year for a lot of us, I just know it!

Stef Prose
PMDD Advocate!

Date: October 24, 2009

Time: 3pm (Central Time)- 1 hr

What: You email your questions to redefininglifewpmdd@gmail.com between today and Wed., October 21, 2009 and we will read your questions and answer live on October 24, 2009 at 3pm (central time).

*You will receive a transcript of the show via email within 48 hrs.*

Cost: $25

PMDD 1st Course

Q/A $25.00

*Once you have joined you will be emailed the link for the program within 48 hrs.  Please contact us if you do not receive it.  You will also be able to chat (quiet, keyboard online chat) during the program with other Women that have joined the course.  Please make sure we have a valid email address for you when you join.

**If you cannot make this time, but would still like to have a copy of the transcript you can do so, but you won’t be able to email your own questions, it will be just a copy of the transcript. Cost: $10.oo Transcript Only
Also, please let us know if another time works best for you so that we can best accommodate everyone for our next course.

PMDD 1st Course

Transcript ONLY $10.00

*Please let us know if you have any questions/comments or concerns.

Jennifer at www.pmddhope.com or www.lifewpmdd.com

Stefanie at www.stefanieprose.com or www.lifewpmdd.com

I hope to be able to do more for Women with PMDD thru these services.  Please let me know if you have anymore questions.

Stef, PMDD Advocate

Donna was told she was stressed and the ‘cure’ was more sex. In fact, she had a crippling new form of PMS

By Jane Feinmann at www.dailymail.co.uk
Last updated at 12:19 PM on 06th October 2009

Consider this: there’s a condition which has a seriously disruptive effect on women’s lives, leading to severe depression and wreaking havoc on their work and relationships. Yet many GPs aren’t aware it exists.

Meanwhile, even the specialists who do acknowledge it can’t agree on what it should be called.

This confusion has devastating consequences, with many sufferers being misdiagnosed with manic depression (bipolar disorder) and treated with antidepressants or antipsychotics, or, at the other extreme, told simply to pull themselves together.

Long battle: PMDD sufferer Donna Barrowman with her son Jamie

Yet, with proper hormonal treatment, they could soon be leading normal, healthy lives.

The condition is premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). An estimated 800,000 women in Britain suffer from it, with symptoms including severe depression, loss of energy, anxiety, irritability and feelings of hopelessness for up to two weeks before menstruation.

American psychiatrists invented the label to distinguish it from the far milder and more common premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

The problem, say experts, is that GPs tend to assume any problem linked to the menstrual cycle is this mild form – for which they normally recommend lifestyle changes such as regular exercise and cutting back on sugar.

Later this month the National Association for Premenstrual Syndrome will be sending all GPs the first guidelines distinguishing between PMDD and PMS and their treatments.

But as hormonal expert Nick Panay explains, whatever the more serious condition is called, doctors and gynaecologists need to recognise that it must not be mistaken for PMS, and that women with these more severe symptoms need treatment with hormones.

‘It’s still too common for doctors to assume that women with PMDD are making a fuss about relatively minor symptoms – and even to accuse them of being acopic [unable to cope] or lacking moral fibre,’ says Mr Panay, a gynaecologist at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London.

Like the milder form, PMDD occurs in women who are sensitive to the fluctuating levels of hormones during the menstrual cycle. In the two weeks after ovulation, progesterone increases dramatically – it’s this hormone that is responsible for premenstrual mood swings.

Donna Barrowman was a bright, confident 22-year-old, engaged to the man of her dreams and with a job she loved. Life was rosy – except for the monthly occasions-when her energy and self-belief plummeted so low she could barely get through the day.

‘From seeing myself as a strong person who coped well and enjoyed life to the full, in the ten days or so before my period, I’d turn into someone who was constantly tired and who obsessed about a friend’s trivial remark or an incident at work that I’d normally brush off without a second thought,’ explains Donna.

A support worker for adults with mental health problems, she quickly recognised the symptoms were linked to her menstrual cycle. Yet her GP told her repeatedly that she’d just have to put up with them, and even the specialists made light of it.

‘After being referred to a gynaecologist, I told him how I was finding everyday life increasingly impossible and it seemed to come and go on a cyclical basis,’ says Donna. ‘I asked him if there might be a connection with my periods. He told me that was nonsense, that I was obviously stressed and should have more sex. I can laugh now, but at the time it was desperately hurtful – one more person telling me it was my fault I was feeling so bad.’

In June 2003, Donna was put on Depo Provera, a monthly contraception injection her GP assured her would regularise her periods.

But what is a useful therapy for healthy women causes havoc in those with PMDD as it gives them more progesterone.

Donna’s monthly low mood turned into full-blown depression and her periods became so heavy that ordinary life became impossible. ‘I could barely get out of bed,’ she recalls.

The contraceptive was stopped after three months. Her wedding to Alan, a marketing and sales manager, went ahead that year, but he had to get used to her Jekyll and Hyde personality. ‘He was never sure which woman he’d come home to: my normal, bubbly self or someone who was withdrawn, snappy and tired.’

When she became pregnant with Jamie, now three, life suddenly took an upturn. ‘I didn’t feel out of sorts once when I was pregnant,’ says Donna. ‘I thought I’d found the answer and that motherhood would make me healthy and happy again.’

In fact, Donna’s disruptive hormonal swings had disappeared because she was no longer menstruating – a classic sign of PMDD. Immediately after Jamie’s birth, along with her periods, her symptoms returned with a vengeance.

But instead of recognising this pattern, doctors diagnosed her with postnatal depression and prescribed antidepressants, which made no difference. Exactly the same pattern followed when she became pregnant with Blair two years later: the same diagnosis, the same antidepressants.

This time, Donna had had enough. Through the internet she discovered the National Association for Premenstrual Syndrome (NAPS) and was referred to Dr Heather Currie, a gynaecologist and expert in hormonal problems at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary.

‘She told me that my medical history couldn’t have been clearer – the way that I’d reacted so badly to the progesterone injection, for instance, and the fact the symptoms disappeared when I was pregnant were obvious signs that my problems were hormonal,’ says Donna.

‘She told me it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t have to put up it. ‘It was such a relief to hear that. Yet I was angry, too. I shouldn’t have had to suffer just because of other people’s ignorance.’

Once correctly diagnosed, PMDD is relatively straightforward to treat. Most women can be helped with oestrogen patches, pills or creams or with a monthly injection that shuts down the menstrual cycle, temporarily mimicking the menopause. For those who have completed their families, a hysterectomy is another option.

In March this year Donna was given the injection, and within a month her symptoms had gone. The transformation was so great that in August, just a few weeks before her 30th birthday, she had a hysterectomy to make the benefits permanent.

With the disorder recognised by doctors for 45 years, why did Donna suffer such a delay in getting help?

Part of the problem, says Mr Panay, is that international research to improve diagnosis and treatment has been held up because doctors can’t agree on the best name for it.

The word ‘dysphoria’, he says, simply means having a mood disorder. But because some gynaecologists think this gives PMDD a psychiatric label, they are reluctant to use it. ‘The result is that women are still being seen by doctors who are failing to distinguish between PMS and the more serious disorder,’ he adds.

Professor John Studd, a gynaecologist who runs the London PMS & Menopause Clinic in Wimpole Street, Central London, is adamant that the name PMDD suggests it’s a psychiatric problem and thus gives the misleading impression antidepressants such as Prozac will help.

‘What matters is that doctors realise it’s entirely caused by abnormal sensitivity to hormones and that women stop suffering when their ovaries stop working: i.e. when they become pregnant, menopausal or have a hysterectomy with their ovaries removed,’ he says.

‘Otherwise, in all but the most severe cases, they can be helped with oestrogen patches or creams to bypass the hormonal damage.’

As for GPs, they often feel that the hormonal link is over-stated.

‘PMS, whether mild or severe, undoubtedly has a hormonal basis,’ says Dr Steve Field, chair of council at the Royal College of General Practitioners. ‘But depression can be a factor in severe cases and GPs will want to treat this symptom as part of their holistic care of patients.’

Early next year, a group of international experts will finally decide what to call this debilitating condition.

Meanwhile, Donna’s advice for sufferers is to forget about the name and complete the online diary provided by NAPS (www.pms.org.uk). This is the key to diagnosis because it proves the problem is cyclical and demonstrates its severity.

As Donna explains: ‘It gives you the confidence to go to your doctor and make sure you get the help you need, showing that your hormones are not an excuse for bad behaviour but the cause of the problem.’

I’m receiving emails weekly from Women looking for doctors in their area that specialize in PMDD.  Of course we know that no one ’specializes’ in PMDD, but some of us have run across some really great doctors that understood PMDD better than others.

I am making a list and need your help.  You can either reply to this post or email me privately at redefininglifewpmdd@gmail.com

Please send me the name of the doctor, city and state, address and zip code if you can, and phone number.  Really as much info as you can so that another Woman can find the doctor closest to her.

It’s so important with PMDD for us to find good doctors, PMDD is so misunderstood, this list can really help a lot.

Please participate, it will only take a quick second.

I thought this video would explain it a bit better than me just posting.
Unfortunately, I did not put on my little mic when I recorded it and it’s much easier to hear it very clearly if you put on headphones. It’s very quiet, but when you put on headphones you can hear it great! Next video I promise to do it right. :)

Enjoy and I can’t wait for you guys to sign up for our soon to come course on accountability. It will be a course w/ worksheets, talks w/ Jennifer and I, awesome info… Just incredible! Can you tell I’m excited?!

Okay, now the video… (I had to cut the last 2 min off- Sorry, will pay better attention next time :)

Disbelief (shock that the loss has occurred)

Denial (refusing to accept the loss)

Bargaining (making deals with deity, doctors, etc. )

Guilt (If I had done ______ maybe this never would have happened to me.)

Anger (towards the loss, illness, deity, etc.)

Depression (may run throughout the entire process until the loss is accepted)

Acceptance and Hope (Life has changed but it will continue and be meaningful. Acceptance doesn’t  mean you have to like your illness, but it can mean learning to manage it and be  with it as you continue on with your life.)

Today, try:

Taking a moment to ask yourself if you are in a specific phase of grieving related to PMDD or another chronic health condition.

Recognize that some of what you’re feeling may be related to loss and the process of mourning.

Ask yourself what you would do if a loved one were in a similar stage. If someone lost a loved one, you would (hopefully) not tell them to simply get over it and move on. Your heart would open to them. You would reach out to them with compassion. You would allow them the time it can take to move through the stages of grief. Try doing the same for yourself or asking someone else for support.

Honor your loss. Take time to recognize that you are experiencing a significant change.

Remember that you may find yourself moving forward, back, and forward again. For example, when I chose to have a total hysterectomy BSO, I spent some time with PMDD in the disbelief and anger stages even though I’d already been there before. The loss of the ability to have children and the potential health risks of having the surgery at the age of 36 left me feeling incredibly angry towards PMDD and the medical community. For a little while, I could not believe that I had come to the point of surgery with PMDD.

By simply taking the time to consider these stages, you may find that it helps you to soften in your expectations for yourself and possibly, to move forward. Remember that the time it takes you to move through the stages of grief is unique to you. That said, I can offer from my own experiences with chronic health issues that movement takes time (sometimes more time than you might prefer) but it  is possible.

* I am a PMDD Advocate and CRC offering supportive services for women with PMDD and their spouses/partners. Please contact me with questions about services or to schedule a free, initial 20 minute consultation. You can also visit me here.