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| and depression or anxiety. Some women also experience headaches, tenderness in the breasts, acne or increased herpes outbreaks. Though there are a myriad of jokes about PMS, the problem can be very serious for some women, disrupting their daily life. Relationships can also be adversely affected by PMS. Women have blamed themselves for many years for any conflict that arises from PMS, assuming that they have simply been unable to handle the normal hormonal cycle. ''Raging hormones'' has been the expression used to describe any emotionality associated with women, and this expression has been also used to justify the exclusion of women from certain jobs. Fortunately that is changing, albeit slowly. Women are able to seek help for premenstrual symptoms without feeling as though they are hypochondriacs. |
| PMS can be classified into four types depending on the symptoms experienced. |
| 1. The most common type usually involves feelings of anxiety, irritability and nervous tension as well as cravings for sweets and carbohydrates. Generally, the cause of this type of PMS is thought to be high levels of estrogen and low levels of progesterone in the body. |
| 2. Symptoms of edema (swelling), bloating in the abdomen, pain in the breasts and weight gain are the hallmarks of this type of PMS. The underlying cause is thought to be retention of salt and water in the body due to imbalances in hormones other than reproductive hormones, perhaps caused in part by the interaction of the two. |
| 3. In this case the symptoms are increased appetite, cravings for sweets, palpitations of the |
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