Ladies, do you get "AMS"? Possible TMI

I only get the “normal” physical symptoms before and during my period. Some cramping, backaches, headaches and fatigue, When I was younger the headaches, backaches and cramps were pretty brutal, but I’m 47 so those are usually pretty mild.

But it is AFTER that the bizarro emotional symptoms generally associated with PMS show up.

Not every month, but frequently I feel this odd, anxious, out-of-sorts sort of “somethings wrong, missing or screwed up and I can’t quite put my finger on it” feeling. And that is often accompanied by unexplained tearfulness and other emotional whammies.

Anyone else get weird AMS symptoms?

No, but I do get other stuff “out of date”.

Apparently you’re supposed to get excited most easily during ovulation, but when I find myself sizing up every guy over waist-high (or, under waist high but old enough to shave) it means I’m getting my period the next day. Maybe I ovulate right before my period.

I have PMS, as in, permanent menstrual syndrome. I’m bitchy every time of the month. :smiley:

Well, no, not really. I get PMS about two days before and two days after my period (during I’m usually alright, other than doubled over in pain most of the time). The days of my period suck, because I get really horrid cramps, and then they go away, and come back on the last day. Then I turn into uber-cunt.

~Tasha

Yes, and it’s become much worse and more noticeable as I’ve gotten older. I’ll be 40 in February. After some research and consultation with docs, I understand it to be because the estrogen levels are at their lowest when menstruation begins and estrogen stays low until about day 7, when it begins to rise again in preparation for ovulation at around day 14. I think that it becomes less and less likely that we ovulate as we get older, and that can mess things up a bit as well. I’m not menopausal or even perimenopausal yet, but my doctor says I’ll notice bigger shifts in hormones as I get older. (I’m really quite angry about this and wish to lodge a complaint with the manufacturer, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do so yet. :D)

My neurologist recommended a while back that I check with my gyn about getting a very low dose estrogen patch to stave off my menstrual migraines. I wear it for about two days prior to my period and for about a week afterward. It helps some. It’s only 0.05% and a tiny little scrap of what appears to be transparent tape, hardly noticeable. I also use 20mg Prozac for the emotional symptoms. I hate doing that, but it was necessary.

So you’re not alone.

The emotions are off the scale sometimes, both the good and the bad. I love my husband soooo very much and I just know he’s stopped loving me and country music videos have me sobbing and I’m dead sexy.
Knowing that it’s hormonal helps and Drachillix knowing it’s hormonal helps although he doesn’t dare say it’s hormonal. That way lies pain.

My anxiety and tension peak right before my period starts. Right when it’s finished, I tend to be impatient and irritable. But only for a day.

I have stark, raving PMS, right up until I actually start bleeding. Then I do a 180, and get very, very sleepy and mellow. My hideous cramping, etc, stopped when my gyno prescribed vast quantities of industrial strength naproxen to be taken starting 3 days before my period. I am the nicest I ever am right after my period ends. I’m with lisacurl, I’d like to lodge a complaint with the manufacturer - why aren’t everyone’s symptoms the same, so that everyone knows what to expect and when? :mad: :smiley:

The last two years (I’m almost 40) I have experienced some yucky PMS: my breasts swell and become so tender that it hurts to walk; I get a migraine the day or two before; I break out; and my skin gets really greasy. I’m beautiful, I tells ya!

I can also get really down and have to work hard to remind myself that it is hormonal and not necessarily “reality.”

Me, too! I think it’s because:

a) when I’m ovulating, I get the added benefit of a sensation that feels like someone’s jabbing an 8-inch carving knife right up my butt, and

b) about eight seconds after I’m done ovulating, my boobs get heavy and hurty, and don’t stop hurting until the day before my period (that’s how I know to stock my purse with “supplies”).

So on the day before my period, I’m the happiest I’ve been all damn month! Bring on the boo-tay!

I’ve never had much PMS, but “AMS,” oh yeah, lately. My own (admittedly, odd) theory is that my body really likes being pregnant, and it gets angry when I’m not. So every time I turn up not pregnant, my body rebels and stages a mutiny, in hopes I’ll get pregnant again. That is NOT going to happen, thanks to a surgical procedure, so my body can just make me miserable one week a month until menopause kicks in.

Yup, I get the AMS, too - if I get a wicked headache, it is likely to be the day right after my period. And sometimes the irritability too, but not for too long. Then I’m good for a couple of weeks.

So, tell me, after menopause, you’ll feel good, like between your period and ovulation, all the time, right, not PMS’ing like between ovulating and menstruating, right? RIGHT?

I get the jabbing butt pains too! But usually only on the day that I start my period. Butt spasms. That’s what I call those evil things.

I get similar cramps, except it feels like someone’s jabbing my hoo-ha. Very nice. They happen on the first day of my period, or thereabouts.

Does anyone else ride the digestive rollercoaster? I get constipated right before my period, and then “normal,” and then diarrheaic during the last party of my period. It’s lovely, I tell you.

I get constipated during my period. It’s like my psyche shuts my bowels down because it can’t deal with any additional flotsam coming out of that general region. So I usually have a giant poo right before my period starts (another thing that makes me happy and ready for love :smiley: ), and then nothing until it’s over.

I can’t believe I’m talking about this on a gigantic message board.

Do you try to do anything about it? Sometimes a hot (HOT!!!) bath works for me. I saw on a website once that sometimes it helps to massage the area ( :eek: :o ), but I’ve never tried that.

Are we related? Because I have the same thing! Except sometimes, usually towards the end, I’ll have constipated diarrhea. The turds will be soft and liquidy, but they come out begrudgingly, with much butt-squeezing and grunting.* I blame the cramps for this, which I usually experience real bad on my third day.

I used to be like StuffLikeThatThere and have full-fledged diarrhea (usually on the first day, when I used to experience the Bloat). But I don’t experience that too often anymore, and I attribute this blessing to my ibuprofen regiment.

For butt spasms, crying out in pain and cursing God usually does the trick.

*I can’t believe I just wrote this.

Perhaps I am a long-lost triplet. That would be exciting - maybe we could give each other organs!

Want my ovulatory sphincter? :eek: :stuck_out_tongue:

AHEM! In order not to hijack this thread any further, though, I do have to say that sometimes I’ll be REALLY! cranky before my period, actually realize the reason for it, and figure it will be gone when my period starts.

Sometimes that doesn’t happen.

Or sometimes it does, but comes back during the “after-sauce” phase.

I hate hormones.

See…this is what I’m afraid of. That is, that this AMS is really just a precursor to the horror of menopause. FTR I’m 47 and the AMS seems to have steadily gotten worse for about the last 5 years.

Hey, all you post-menopausal ladies, give us the skinny - you feel better, right? Not worse? I read in the linked site on the other menopause thread the expert lady calling it the calm of after menopause (or something like that) - that’s what I’m hoping for. To basically be like a man. :smiley:

Holy crap, the butt pains. My friend dubbed that “the probe.” We all know how she feels.

As an IBS sufferer, I have to admit that it gets significantly worse during my period. I just start eating bland foods for the first few days.

But AMS usually shows up as being incredibly weepy the week after, often with depressive spouts as well. That’s usually associated with starting the pill again, and it sucks.