PMDD frequently complicates and worsens the normal mood swings of teenage girls. This can be effectively eliminated with appropriate evaluation and treatment.
By nature, teenage girls tend to be moody. At times, the mood swings they experience can be dramatic. However, when they occur regularly in the week or two prior to menses or during menses, then they may be manifesting PMDD superimposed upon their underlying personalities. These premenstrual flare-ups are completely correctable.
The adolescent and teenage years of young girls are marked by tremendous physical and emotional changes as they mature to adulthood. One of the primary changes is the onset of ovulation and progesterone production. Frequently, for the first several years of ovulation, the strength of the ovulation is poor resulting in low progesterone production. For sensitive girls, these lower levels of progesterone result in dramatic, frequently illogical, and uncontrollable outbursts. After the event the young lady will often realize how inappropriate her response was, but, under the hormonal influence of progesterone, they are unable to control themselves. (In England, PMDD has been used as a legal defense).
If there is no progesterone in the blood stream, then there is no PMDD. If adequate levels of progesterone are achieved in the blood, then PMDD also does not occur. However, if progesterone is produced and the levels are inadequate for what the teenager’s brain needs, then, in susceptible individuals, dramatic mood swings can be triggered.
Families find themselves at wits end. Their home-life and their daughters lives in both school and socially are disrupted. Desperate to help their daughters, parents frequently resort to psychiatrists, psychologists, and family counselors without success. Birth control pills, vitamins and exercise frequently have minimal or no sustained improvement. These outbursts can go on for years and end only when their daughter’s ovulatory cycle matures and progesterone production results in adequate levels in the brain. This is often described as their child’s “return to sanity” with adulthood as the cyclic, teenage PMDD outbursts stop.
With appropriate evaluation and treatment by a Reproductive Endocrinologist who understands and specializes in the treatment of PMDD in teenagers, this can be eliminated. When oral contraceptives, vitamins, dietary supplements, exercise and medications used to treat anxiety and depressive disorders are ineffective, treating the root cause of the PMDD can lead to a resolution of the symptoms.
For optimal results and to free your teenager of these cyclic, emotional extremes associated with ovulation and menses, seek the advice of a Reproductive Endocrinologist who focuses care in this area. In this setting, the PMDD can be controlled and the monthly outbursts ended. While teenagers generally eventually “outgrow” these PMDD outbursts in early adulthood, they can be treated much sooner.
If this describes your daughter, seek the advice of a Reproductive Endocrinologist who focuses care in this area. You can reach out to Dr. Burke either through this website, by e-mail (drburke@geraldburkemd.com) or call the office at 856-429-2212. You and your daughter can get off this emotional roller coaster ride.
Gerald V. Burke, M.D.