Worst PMS of my life, because of hormone syncing?

[http://users.livejournal.com/fluidmotion-/]

Ok here's the story:



I am on the pill. I start my placebos on Monday. My period will likely come Friday/Saturday. For the past week (and now STILL) I am having the worst PMS of my LIFE. I am ridiculously moody and grumpy, disinterested, fatigued, sad, and having the worst and most painful bloating of my life. My skin has broken out like crazy (and I NEVER get facial acne) and my face is all puffy. The bloating is so bad I couldn't even eat anything until 5pm today because my stomach was so uncomfortable. I don't know if the bloating is related to the fact that I am also getting insane and random sugar cravings and binging on candy at RANDOM.

WHY? WHAT THE HELL?

The only hypothesis I have is this: Where I work we are mostly females. For the past year and a half I have been the only one on the pill, so I sort of made everyone else's periods shift to when mine are and we are all synced up. However, about 2-3 months ago our assistant manager came back from Maternity leave who is ALSO on the pill and whose placebo week is the one right before mine. Right now everyone is on their period but me. Can this change in hormone variety be what's causing this?

BTW I am almost always 100% PMS free. I never get any symptoms before my period besides a change in sex drive. No tenderness, no bloating, no pre-cramping, nada.

Whyyyyyyyyy.

Comments

[archangelbeth]

Some people are more prone to "syncing" than others, but I'd be more suspicious that you've either coincidentally caught some random virus that's running around, or that your eating patterns have been such that you may be nutritionally deficient. (In particular, you may want to check your B-vitamin levels, which can be linked to PMS symptoms for some people.) Have you been taking your pill erratically at all?

(Also, you're not having periods. You're having withdrawal bleeds; the removal of the artificial hormones signals your uterus to bleed. The rise and fall of hormones that dictates a natural period is muted or eliminated when you're on HBC. This pedantic terminology is important for people to remember because, during a natural period, when the uterus is bleeding is a time the ovaries are least likely to be ovulating. During a withdrawal bleed, though, those hypnotizing hormones are removed and the ovaries are waking up. If they go longer than 7 days without the HBC being resumed, they may wake up enough to ovulate even if the uterus is still bleeding.

So it's very normal and expected that you wouldn't have PMS -- unless you're on a triphasic, you don't have any hormonal variation going on. It's all "hormone hormone hormone DROP!" to your body.)

I suppose it might be the case that someone's natural pheromones are trying to trigger your body into having hormonal changes as well, which might be producing an extended PMS as your body has fluctuating hormone levels (the ovaries going, "Mixed signals! The hormone height says that we already ovulated, but there's other stuff saying we should be doing our own hormone work!"). But I would be a bit wary of assuming that it's someone who's also on HBC doing this, unless she just recently started and her ovaries are not sufficiently hypnotized to, basically, stop doing the rise-and-fall of hormones that dictate a natural cycle.

Or, tl;dr version: It could be some hormonal thing, but look at nutrition and pill-taking habits first, or if there's a bug running 'round the office.

[http://users.livejournal.com/fluidmotion-/]

Hmm.. I have been eating really well these past couple weeks, actually. And not much different than what I usually eat!

However, I HAVE been taking my pill erratically. I'm not sexually active right now, and I'm having my IUD put in on Tuesday so I'm at the point of feeling like I really don't care if I take it on time.

We're a pretty tiny little place where I work, with 6 females. I figured throwing another one into the mix would be enough to make things a little wonky, but not this!

I have been on the pill continually for like, 5 years and I remember when I started living with another female awhile ago who started the pill (while I was living with her) on a different schedule than mine. I would always get cramps when she was on her lady time, and sometimes even breakthrough bleeding! No PMSing, just the cramps and such.

Argh.

[archangelbeth]

If you've been taking the pill erratically, that is entirely likely to be confusing your body -- and/or allowing other people's pheromones to influence you, since the ovaries aren't under a constant stream of hypnosis! (Sounds like you're actually a pheromone responder, really! Maybe something in the scent of uterine blood?)

I hope that everything sorts out when you've got the IUD in!