Of pesticides and PMS

Detoxing from a hormone-disrupting herbicide, along with getting the right nutrition, was the answer to a patient’s debilitating PMS, says Dr Jenny Goodman

Helena, 33, had been suffering from premenstrual syndrome (PMS) for several years. From about mid-cycle (day 14 or 15), she would begin to get sore, swollen breasts, and would feel tearful, irritable and anxious.

By day 27 or 28, just before her period began, these symptoms had become so bad that she couldn’t go to work. She snapped and yelled at her partner constantly and even felt suicidal. She recovered a day or two after her period started, but within a fortnight, the whole nightmare would begin again.

To get to the bottom of things, I went through Helena’s diet diary with her. She needed to eat much more fruit and veg and some whole grains, pulses and nuts, none of which she usually ate at all. She also needed to greatly reduce her intake of sugar and refined carbohydrates.

Helena said she would try to cut out the sweet stuff, but that it would be impossible in the last few days of her cycle, when the sugar cravings were completely overwhelming.

I addressed this by prescribing plenty of protein and good fats, along with small, frequent meals in the run-up to her period. The goal was to prevent the hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which was making her feel so desperate for sugar at this time of the month.

When I saw her a few weeks later, after she’d made the dietary changes, Helena reported that her symptoms had been a little milder, maybe 20 percent improved. In particular, the frequent small meals in the last few days of the cycle had reduced her sugar cravings noticeably. But this wasn’t enough.

Supplements for PMS

I started Helena on several nutritional supplements that are crucial to maintaining a healthy menstrual cycle and effective for treating PMS: