Man, am I sick of this. My husband dreads a week out of the month. I know exactly what is coming but it doesn't help the fact that I always think the world is out to get me and I want to jump off a tall building.

I keep telling myself it'll pass and I'll feel better soon, but it's all logic, and doesn't help at all with the feelings. I try everything and some of it makes a small dent -- exercise, eating better (if not right, which I can't seem to get a handle on), B vitamins, etc. I've tried herbal stuff but it screws up my system.

Any suggestions for things that might be effective? I am tired of being a wreck 25% (at least!) of my life.

PS hormonal birth control is not a treatment I can consider because it makes me . . . well, let's just say my husband was ready to divorce me during our honeymoon because I was such a wreck!!

My PsyNP has me taking 60mg of Prozac once a day for three days when the symptoms hit. I've done this all of once, and I think it helped with the mood issue- meaning that I wasn't suicidal this time. It didn't take me to "normal" but it was definitely better than what I usually go through, and I didn't have to deal with any side effects that I was aware of.

Thanks --

My pdoc mentioned something about using Prozac for a week before my cycle, which I think might be helpful since my symtoms kick in about 6 days before my cycle. I'm supposed to go on Strattera before I start anything else (she wants my 200 mg. Lamictal to be at full therapeutic strength before trying anything else.)

I'll definitely try to "push" for the Prozac because the Lamictal did NOTHING for me, maybe even worsening it a little.

My mother has PMDD and she said she's on Cymbalta for it.

not sure the last time you looked into birth control, but they've come out with "Yaz" which is supposed to help with PMS or PMDD (not sure which) as well.

I'm on it now, and while that wasn't my reasons for it, I can't say I'm MORE nasty then normal.

They've come out with a few different birth controls lately, even in the few years since I'd been on it last. If it's been a long time since you checked, maybe another look might be worth it.

I think I've read somewhere that bipolar women often have trouble with birth control triggering horrible mood swings. As for me, I sure can't take it. I tried every type imaginable in my early twenties and every last one of them makes me vomit constantly and have migraines. Fortunately my fiance has a vasectomy so I don't have anything to worry about.

As for the PMDD, I can be pure evil before my period starts. I tend to break a lot of things on purpose. I just try to deal with it as best I can as I have so many other problems right now.

Adhddogwalker,

I'm with you -- I am able to suppress a lot of my devilment because I have a young child and I just have to -- I don't want to scar her the way I was scarred by my mom's pure evil PMS twin.

I can't take hormonal birth control of any kind. Evil squared. The last kind I went on, I think I probably could have killed someone in a rage without thinking twice. It almost ended my (new) marriage. I didn't have mood swings -- I was full-on horrible, all the time, and I felt like scratching my own eyeballs out. Then, to make it even more delightful, I had an infection -- the doctors couldn't tell me quite what it was -- in my privates for about a year following using that birth control.

I'll have five more babies before I'll go through that mess again.

Wow, amie! That's even worse than my birth control experience. My sister tried going on birth control when she first got married and apparently she was just as evil as you describe (I didn't see her then, so I don't know, but my mother and brother both said so). I don't know if my sister is bipolar, but she has ADD, and has struggled with depression and eating disorders in the past, so she very well could be (I rarely see her so I don't really know many things about her).

I am on the patch, and not currently on any medication, but I know that the weekend before, I can be VERY unpleasant to say the least. The major thing that I have done to reduce my irritability and crazyness is cut out refined sugar. I feel much more stable now that I don't eat sugar (it takes a lot of practice to read the labels on everything) There is a lot of food I stay away from now, but I feel so much better. I still get a "lil unstable" around that time (more so than usual) but its no where near the way it was.
Hope that helps