The women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder struggling to get a diagnosis

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. I was labelled ‘a troubled teen from a broken home’ by a doctor and then I was told it was just exam stresses; and then it moved back to depression, anxiety and postnatal depression; and then it went further and it was bipolar disorder, a personality disorder, and complex PTSD.” Ms Smart explains she began getting PMDD symptoms when she was around 14 years old - adding she becomes overwhelmed with physical and psychological symptoms when she ovulates. “There is little training around PMDD for psychiatrists or indeed medical students,” Dr Thomas Reilly, of the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University, says. In psychiatry, we rarely consider whether a patient’s symptoms might relate to hormonal changes.” Rachel Fosset, another sufferer, says her PMDD generally manifests with more physical than psychological symptoms. You can be more irritable for a couple of days, you doubt your ability to think, you can take things people say the wrong way, and have hypersensitivity to noise and sounds.” Ms Fosset says she diagnosed herself with PMDD after reading someone’s personal testimony about the condition on a Facebook group in 2022.