Speaker 1 (00:20):
PMDD shaped my life for 17 years before I could name it, I spent those years searching for answers, questioning my sanity, and desperately seeking treatments that actually worked. My painful journey had an unexpected twist. Helping others heal from PMDD became my life's purpose. Hi, I'm Jess, a board certified nutritional therapist coach, the founder of her mood mentor and your host. This is PMDD PEP Talk, A weekly reminder that your suffering is real, your experience is valid, and your future is brighter than your symptoms suggest. Each week we're going to explore the truths about PMDD that nobody talks about, the kind of truths that shift something deep inside you and make you think maybe there's more possible than I imagined. Whether you're in the depths of luteal darkness or riding the clarity of your follicular phase, you're exactly where you need to be because here's what I know for sure. Healing PMDD isn't just about managing symptoms, it's about transforming your life. This challenge, as brutal as it can be, is an invitation to know yourself more deeply and live a more joyful purpose filled life. PMDD might feel like your whole story, but it's just a chapter and you get to write what comes next. Welcome to PMDD, PEP talk, quick pep talk, pause. Remember that everything we talk about here is meant to educate and inspire. Always team up with your healthcare provider for personal medical advice. All right, now let's get into it.
(01:56):
Hello. Hello, hello friends. Welcome back to the pmm DD PEP Talk podcast. Today we are covering such an important topic about advocating for yourself in the best way is possible. When you are in a physician's office, there's so much medical trauma that many of us have suffered due to the way our appointments have gone, and I'm hoping that this information, these tips that we're going to dive into today are going to resource you and help you feel more confident, more prepared when you are seeking out medical treatment diagnosis with PMDD. Before we get into the episode, I want to encourage you, if you're enjoying getting anything out of the conversations we're having here, please rate and review the podcast. You can just pause right now, leave a 32nd rating and review. It helps more women find us more people suffering from PMDD find us, and it gives them hope about what's possible for their future.
(03:07):
You can learn to reduce and manage these symptoms. So every rate and review helps spread our mission and message further and we so thank you for taking the time to do that. So let's get into it today. Like I said, we're talking about tips for better advocating for yourself in a doctor's office when you are looking to get support with P-M-S-P-M-T-D hormonal mood symptoms. And before we get into it, I want to just again, validate so many of us are feeling dismissed, experiencing medical gaslighting or just simply not being heard when seeking support for PMDD. In fact, there was a 2020 study in BMC Women's Health that revealed that it takes an average of 20 years for a woman to get an accurate PMDD diagnosis. Now, this is very alarming and disturbing because women who are diagnosed later in life are more likely to attempt suicide.
(04:13):
We did an episode, episode 21, the Shocking PMDD statistics No one talks about, plus my dad's reaction. I highly encourage you to go back and listen to that episode if you have not yet, because all these episodes are related. They're building on each other and those statistics are important for you to know. But one of the reasons why there is such a drive towards hopelessness that then turns into self-harming thoughts and behaviors is often because of the way that we are handled when we go into medical providers seeking help and the fact that it is taking as they have found an average of 20 years for women to be accurately diagnosed and treated for PMDD. Another study revealed this was a yes. This was a 2023 study also in BMC Women's Health called Exploring Diagnosis and Treatment of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder in the US Healthcare System, A qualitative investigation.
(05:26):
So this study found that patients saw up to 10 different providers before receiving an official diagnosis, which then took years, which you see from the previous study, the average is 20 years to get a diagnosis. So you may see up to 10 providers and it may take you 20 years to get an accurate PMDD diagnosis. According to this 2020 and this 2023 study in BMC Women's Health, we'll link these studies below so you can poke around in there and learn more and read them. But that's why this conversation is so important today. It's so important to resource you in advocating for yourself when you go into your physician's office so that you experience less medical trauma and hopefully it takes you less providers and less years to assess the PMTD diagnosis and access the treatment if you're looking to get treatment within conventional medicine for this condition.
(06:30):
So today we're going to talk about ways to advocate for yourself and give you some tips there, and these practical tools are really going to help you walk into that appointment feeling empowered and prepared. So getting into the first things to consider this is some homework before you go into the appointment that you'll need to do in order to feel prepared and empowered in that time, the very limited amount of time that that physician is going to be spending with you. So first, you want to collect your data. This is non-negotiable. You want to walk into that appointment with your symptom mapping data, listed out what your most severe symptoms are, what the pattern is, how long they're lasting, all of that. You can use our free symptom mapping kit to help you do that. I encourage that you collect that data for two to three months before your appointment.
(07:28):
So you can walk in, you can have that in your hand or you can pull that up on your computer if you choose to do it digitally. We have options for both, and you can show this data to your provider. This is helpful because it's going to show them patterns that follow a cyclical nature because PMDD is not diagnosed through testing. There's no blood, urine, saliva, genetic or imaging tests to say you have PMDD. That's what it is. It's a diagnosis through exclusion. So that pattern and those symptoms listed are going to be part of you evaluating part of your provider, evaluating if you qualify for a PMD day diagnosis. Now, hopefully, and we're going to advocate for additional testing to rule out any other factors that could be driving your symptoms to be so bad, but that data is key to accessing a diagnosis and key for evaluating a diagnosis.
(08:27):
You need to go in prepared with that data and our symptom mapping kit is the best way. So make sure you grab that below. This is going to highlight recurring symptoms. It's going to highlight what your most severe symptoms are, and then again, it's going to give you a visual representation of that pattern that you and your provider can look at as you're evaluating if you qualify for a diagnosis. The next thing you want to do before you go into your appointment is you want to get really clear on why. When you're going to appointment to appointment, when you're going to practitioner after practitioner, you need to be clear on why are you going here? What is it that you are hoping to achieve? What is it that you're looking for that's going to make this go smoother? Because at the end of the day, if you're going in with no clue on what you're looking to get out of it, there's going to be a lot more confusion and you're not going to be able to advocate for yourself very well.
(09:29):
So this isn't about convincing yourself you're sick enough. It's about remembering that you deserve support and understanding. What are you wanting when you're going into that appointment? Why are you going into that appointment, and ultimately what are you wanting to get out of it? So brainstorm that a little bit because I don't want you to make the mistake that I did, which was going to conventional practitioner after conventional practitioner wanting more holistic solutions and approaches being shared with me and then feeling really defeated and really hopeless and really abandoned because I wasn't getting what I was looking for. I didn't know why I was going there and I was going to the wrong places. So just a little bit of force, a little bit of planning, a little bit of checking in with myself before I maybe would've come to the conclusion. If I keep going to a gynecologist and get being offered birth control and antidepressants and I don't want those solutions because they haven't worked for me, they've made my symptoms worse, and I don't understand that that is what that practitioner, that provider offers, then I'm going to be feeling really hopeless.
(10:55):
This sounds so stupid and it's so embarrassing to say this, but I did that for decades. For nearly two decades, I kept basically, let's just use an analogy. I kept going in to a cake shop looking for donuts and then feeling offended and victimized because the cake shop didn't sell donuts. So getting clear on your why and getting clear on your what are going to help you even determine are you going to the right practitioner and if you are, are they meeting your needs for your why and your what, and can you communicate those to that provider?
(11:40):
Another thing to be aware of is exploring yourself. So we're getting into the third point here of homework. Before you go into your appointment, exploring yourself to understand what your treatment preferences and boundaries are. So when it comes to PMDD, the first and second line treatment within conventional medicine are going to be SSRIs, hormonal contraceptions or referral to a counselor, referral to someone in the mental health world. So getting clear on what you're looking for. And then of course there's also all of these holistic approaches, tons endless. So you're going to be told you have two options potentially, or a referral from a conventional provider. You have so many options, it's actually overwhelming, but that provider may not be able to offer you any of those other approaches because that's outside of their scope. So some of this work that we're doing before is understanding that different practitioners work in different scopes and provide different treatments and different approaches.
(12:54):
There are many. We could do a whole nother episode on that topic alone in collaborative care and we will, we will. But understanding what types of treatment preferences you have and what types of treatment boundaries you have currently are going to help you get clear on what providers are going to align with your values, your lifestyle, the approach that you're ultimately looking to take, and it's also going to help you have more clarity when you are in with a provider of what you're willing to try, what you're not willing to try, why, and to be able to ask more questions, yet some more informed consent around the options that are presented to you. And I want to remind you, and we'll come back to this, you don't have to accept the first thing that's offered, and you don't have to accept the only things that are offered if only a few tactics or treatments are being offered.
(13:51):
You can think about the conversation and you can make a decision later. You should never feel pressured to make a decision in that moment. And even if you're written a prescription, if you don't have to fill it immediately, you don't have to take it immediately. You can still sit with your decision before you make it and make sure it's the right decision for you after you do additional research or provide your own informed consent, which you'll likely have to do unfortunately. The next thing that you're going to want to do in the homework category, preparing for your appointment is going to be to write out your medical history, your personal health history, including what you've tried so far, how long these symptoms have been affecting you, other diagnosees that you have had, other symptoms that you have that you're not sure if they fall into the category of PMDD or PMS as much detail is going to be better that you can include.
(14:51):
You also are going to want to write any family history down of conditions, mood, symptoms that you think could be related to what you are experiencing or something that you would want to monitor in the longterm with this provider. Again, like I said, you're going to want to write down everything that you've already tried, including what it was, what the dosages were, what the duration that you utilized that for was what the effects were, how you monitored the effects, and anything that you're aware of that makes the symptoms better or worse. You want to include all of that in your personal health history, which we have resources that can help you do this as well, but that's going to be an important thing to walk into the appointment with. Another thing that you're going to want to prepare before you go into this appointment is to write down any questions that you have, any concerns that you have.
(15:54):
Your provider, if you're working with a conventional provider, will maybe have 15, maybe 20, 25 minutes if you're lucky that you get to meet with this provider. So you want to go in locked and loaded with what are your questions? What are your concerns written down? Because when you are in these types of appointments, which we're going to get into more, the potential for your nervous system to become dysregulated is very high and you're going to forget. You're going to fumble, you're going to freeze. Lots of things could happen crying, who knows? So you just want to be prepared with your questions. So even if you don't get to ask them all, you can give them to the provider to answer in your client portal later, it just makes sure that nothing important to you is getting forgotten, and that is your responsibility. So write down any questions, any concerns that you have, and go in there with those as well.
(16:59):
Then one more thing to consider here in this category of prepping before is kind of considering maybe what types of tests or what testing that you would want to have done. Now we provide a list to all of our clients to go into their providers if they're going to run their labs through their provider rather than facilitating them through our practice. But the important caveat is that most providers will not run all of the labs that we would ultimately like to see. This is going to be even more common in countries outside of the United States. We work with a lot of Canadian clients. We work with so many clients all over the world, and it's harder to get some of these labs it seems in some other, so they may not run all of the labs that we ultimately would like to see. They may say, that's not necessary. Our insurance will not cover it. So something you may want to do before you get the test done is contact your insurance based on what tests that you would like to see and make sure that those will or will not be covered because you can be charged exponentially for things that are not going to be covered by your insurance and a yearly wellness check, I'm speaking to the United States listeners here every year most insurances are going to cover a basic blood panel.
(18:30):
Some of the markers we would like to see will be covered in those basic panels, but if they're not, you can make the mistake that I did even as a practitioner, even having the access to facilitate my own labs, I was charged $2,000 for labs that I could have ran through my practice for under $500. Same panel we run for our clients. So I don't want you to make that mistake. If you take our list in and you try to get these tests and then you end up with a massive bill when if you're in the states, we can facilitate these for you through our one-to-one program. So much to unpack here, so let's just keep going. Something else that I want to share when it comes to the testing. So when you go in to seek diagnosis or treatment for PMDD, do not accept a diagnosis without testing.
(19:25):
There are so many factors, nutrient factors, hormone factors, thyroid, insulin, things like that that can be massively impacting the severity of your symptoms. And it is heartbreaking when clients just get this diagnosis are put on medication and are not assessed for underlying drivers. Now, there is nuance and a caveat to this because what's going to happen if you work with a conventional provider is they're going to use conventional lab ranges. So if I'm talking a gynecologist, I'm talking a gp, I'm talking your PCP, anyone in that realm, their job, their scope of practice is to diagnose and treat disease with medication or surgery. Most commonly is what's happening in their scope of practice. So in order to do their job to their best ability, they're going to be using wider lab ranges in order to diagnose and treat disease. This is a very important distinction because in our practice here at ood Mentor, I do not diagnose and treat disease that is out of my scope of practice.
(20:35):
I help you reduce and manage your PMS and PMDD symptoms through optimizing your health. So when I review labs, I'm using what's called optimal ranges or functional lab ranges, which are much more narrow than conventional ranges. So if you do access lab testing, what is commonly told to our students and clients is everything's fine and normal. Nothing is out of range. Do not just accept that as fact. Nothing's out of range in a disease state according to their standards, which is also controversial because I have sent in referrals to conventional medical providers whose labs are out of conventional ranges and they're still dismissed, still dismissed. It's why I'm doing this podcast episode right now because it just happened again to one of our one-to-one clients. Her TSH, her Thyroid stimulating hormone was clinically out of conventional ranges, which is that TSH ranges the most controversial between functional and conventional medicine, so it's twice as big.
(21:48):
So she is really, really, really, really far out of optimal range is what I'm saying. And then she goes into her provider and they tell her to work on her stress and her sleep hygiene. You can't work on your stress and your sleep hygiene if you're dealing with thyroid dysfunction. Now, of course, we're helping her with that, but I have to make a referral. It's my responsibility to make a referral for a lab marker range that's out of conventional clinical ranges where she needs to be evaluated for diagnosis and treatment. Okay? Really, really frustrated about that, really hyped up about that, but these are things you have to know and how would you know these if we're not having this conversation? So if you're told your labs are fine and normal, you probably need to dig deeper because if you are experiencing PMDD symptoms, you live in a sensitive body and you're going to be sensitive to factors outside of optimal range, even if luckily you're not yet in a disease state which warrants diagnosis and treatment that you may or may not give by your provider based on my experience here in practice and my personal experience.
(22:56):
Okay, so moving on, something else to consider is the timing of your lab tests time, your lab tests with your symptom window if possible. Okay? You want to test when you're symptomatic, there are more caveats about that you want to be fasted. What does that look like? You want to be hydrated. That can massively impact your results. We have resources to help you walk you through all of that. We walk alongside our one-to-one clients and all of those details, but this is going to be a very long podcast if we get into all of that, so let's keep moving. One more thing I want you to consider when it comes to testing through your provider is that they're most likely going to run blood solely for PMDD and they're not going to want to run all of the markers. Like I said, that could be impacting your symptoms, so keep that in mind.
(23:56):
There are additional specialized lab tests that we run for our clients, specifically in the states but also internationally. We do blood and we do hair, tissue mineral analysis for all of our international clients, so you have access to additional specialized testing that could really help you change your PMDD story that a conventional provider does not offer. These are included in our one-to-one comprehensive four month program, so if you want more information about that, go below, schedule a session with our onboarding team. We're going to run your symptom assessment. We're going to talk to you about options for next steps, including more comprehensive specialized testing. Okay, before we get into the second section here, there are a couple of other points I wanted to make. You might want to time your appointment during your symptom window or you might want to bring in more evidence of what you've been experiencing.
(24:58):
If you have any videos of an episode that you have had or anything else that you think is going to be beneficial to really pleading your case, which you shouldn't have to plead your case, but just to be resourced, to go in with everything that you possibly can to share what you're going through and get the results, the what and the why of ultimately you're wanting to go to this appointment for. I would also encourage you to bring in printed research and guidelines for PMDD. Print out the DSM five diagnostic criteria for P-M-D-D-I-A. PMD is the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders. They have some resources on their website that you can print out because if you go in and your doctor seems uninformed about PMDD, they may need some help, and if you're willing to do that, then you can print some things out and have that be a part of your strategy.
(25:57):
I would also ask them about their experience in treating patients with PMDD. How many patients with PMDD do you currently treat? This can help you determine if they're the right fit or not. If they don't know anything about PMDD, if they don't treat any patients with PMDD, you may choose to seek out a different provider or a different type of practitioner. Okay, so I just want to recap the things that we're doing before the appointment, the homework. We're collecting your data, we're getting clear on your what and why. Why are you going to a certain practitioner? What are you hoping to get out of it? You're exploring yourself and your preferred treatment preferences and treatment boundaries. You're preparing your medical history, your personal health history. You're writing down any questions or concerns before you go in. You are thinking about testing. What testing do you potentially want to advocate for? And you're keeping in mind the nuances and the limitations for each type of provider that you could be seeing. And then if you do access testing, you're testing during your symptom window and maybe you're even printing out additional handouts on pmm, dd, the DSM five, any I-A-P-M-D resources that you want to take in, and in addition, you are going to ask about their experience treating others with PMDD.
(27:35):
Okay, let's keep going. We're moving into the second segment of things we're covering here during the appointment tips so you can feel empowered for your appointment and get the most out of it. I do want to remind you that your nervous system is likely going to be activated and when your nervous system is activated, you process information differently. So I highly encourage you during the appointment at the beginning, you can have this in your notes so you don't forget. Ask permission, say, I would like to record this appointment so I can review it later. Is that okay with you? Ask your provider that this helps you catch details that you've missed. It helps you review options and treatment instructions, and it provides a bit of accountability for the provider because you have a recording of the session, most physicians will say yes, and that isn't important about whether or not they're the right fit, and if they say no, you could ask them that you requested this and have them put it in your file. I requested that I could record this session, this appointment for my health notes that was denied. Can you add that into my file?
(29:01):
That's a leveraging point that we're going to come back to again. The next thing during the appointment that I want you to think about here is that treat this like an interview because it is. You are hiring them as much as they are supporting you. This is a partnership, not a power dynamic. You can and you should refuse options that don't feel right, even if that's the provider. You can always seek a second opinion and keep an eye out for red flags, being dismissed, being rushed, not being listened to. So step into your boss, babe energy here and think of this like an interview because it is you hiring this provider to work for you. That's the dynamic. That's the power dynamic shift that you need to understand and you need to step into, and we really need to cultivate more just in the world because this is not how we enter appointments with providers and it's not reality. They are not the boss of you. They're not going to tell you what you can and cannot do what's right for your health. You know that best. So you need to treat the appointment like an interview, especially the first appointment, but keep that in mind for every single appointment to follow.
(30:23):
Another thing that I encourage you to do during the appointment is to bring back up. Bring a friend, a family member who can help you advocate when you're feeling overwhelmed. They can take notes, they can ask questions that you forget. They can witness what's said and choose someone who supports you and not someone who is going to minimize your experience. This bring backup strategy is really key because unfortunately, sometimes providers will take symptoms more seriously when they are witnessed by others. Frustrating but true and use it to your advantage. I just want to touch on this. If you cry during the appointment, it's okay. Crying is data. It's not weakness. Your emotions are information about how much you're struggling, so don't apologize for tears if they come out. You are there looking for support, and this is a good test if it happens. If you get emotional, a good provider will see this as confirmation and how much you need support and how they handle you and your emotions during the session. During the appointment is going to be information about whether this provider is a good fit for you. If they dismiss you for being emotional, that's information that they might not be the right fit for you. Just one example, another thing that I'll say in the appointment that is going to be kind of your secret weapon is that documentation request. So if a treatment is refused or if testing is refused, you're going to say, can you please document in my chart that I requested X today and it was refused?
(32:14):
Let me repeat that again. If you are requesting treatment or testing, you are going to ask the provider, can you please document in my chart that I requested X today and it was refused? This works because it creates accountability. It shows you're serious and it often changes the conversation and it protects you if you need to escalate care or seek another opinion, a referral, or if in the future something needed to be tested that wasn't tested, you have record that you advocated for that and it was not provided. So an example would be I, am I requesting a full thyroid panel including antibodies? If you don't think that's necessary, please note in my chart if I requested it today.
(33:03):
That's a secret weapon and that is advocacy for yourself. It doesn't mean they're going to run the test, it doesn't mean they're going to provide the treatment, but at least you have it documented of what you were asking for and what outcome came of it. Some follow-up questions that you're going to want to ask during the appointment may be, what are the risks for benefits of this treatment? What side effects should I monitor? How long until we should see improvement? Who do I contact if I have concerns and what happens if this doesn't work? Those are some follow-up questions that I encourage you to ask. Should you be provided a treatment option that's going to help you better explore that with their provider who should be there to provide you some informed consent? Informed consent is being able to see all the risks and benefits of a treatment likely though that's never provided in my experience, you're going to have to do more research on your own in order to sort that out.
(34:10):
Okay. Our third segment in advocating for yourself in a physician's office in an appointment is going to be advocating through uncertainty. So you did your homework, so you determined what you wanted to get out of the appointment, why you were going to that particular provider, and I want to just remind you that you don't have to decide that day. Don't let pressure tactics work on you. You take the time to think about what the right decision is for you and saying, I need time to think about, this is a complete sentence. You don't have to jump into anything. If it doesn't feel right, trust your intuition. Go home, do your research, get that informed consent for yourself. Sleep on it before you make a decision. You don't have to decide right then and there and the appointment. I also want you to know your options beyond standard care.
(35:10):
So we talked about the first and second line treatments for P-M-D-D-S-S-R-I and hormonal contraceptives. These are not the only paths if these are the only two paths that you're offered, those are the only two paths, paths of treatment that that provider is sanctioned to make. There are numerous other options beyond the two first and second line treatments for PMDD. In conventional medicine, there's endless holistic approaches. There's root cause interventions. Like I said, they're specialized testing and these can work alongside of or if you wanted to in the place of conventional treatments. For example, for me, I tried all the conventional treatments. They made my symptoms worse, so I had to find something else. The majority of our clients use a collaborative care system that includes conventional approaches as well as the work that we're doing in our practice. So many of our clients are on medications, doing medication management through their providers, things like that. And then we're also working with them alongside with nutritional therapy, specialized testing, on and on and on coaching, all of that. So it doesn't have to be either or. You get to decide what your path is going to be and that can change over time, and you're allowed to want a different approach. So just know that you have options beyond what you're being offered in any appointment with any provider or practitioner. There are more things out there for you.
(36:52):
And then I also wanted to say again, if you're told when you get those lab test results that everything is normal and it doesn't match how you feel, don't let everything looks normal, gaslight you into believing it. Okay? Ask for copies of your actual results with the numbers, look at the reference ranges, compare them to functional integrative ranges and see what is out of optimal range versus what is falling within the conventional ranges. Now, I would highly encourage you to work with a practitioner like myself who reviews labs from a functional standpoint, but you also can Google these ranges for yourself and see what is out of optimal range that you're being told is normal and fine.
(37:42):
Just to touch for a moment on the insurance navigation, if testing is denied by your insurance, you do have the right to a second appeal. You can ask your provider's office about the appeals process. Sometimes a letter of medical necessity from your doctor can help get some of these tests to be covered by insurance, not the specialized testing, but the blood labs specifically. Again, document everything. I always encourage you to call your insurance before you get any procedures or testing done and save the case number. Save everything because you don't want to end up with massive medical bills that you don't need to be ending up with. There are ways around that. So it's going to take some legwork on your end, and just because your insurance won't cover it doesn't mean you don't need that test. So you're going to have to advocate for yourself through that, and that is the most annoying thing I think about.
(38:41):
All of this is some of the insurance stuff. And then I want to talk about when to walk away. If you're not feeling heard by your provider, if you're not feeling valued, if you're not feeling respected, if your concerns are minimized, if they diminish your symptom mapping data collection, it's time to find a provider who is worth this effort, who is going to walk alongside you, who is going to be a guide for you, who's going to help you get the support that you need. They're out there, you can find them. So again, when you need to fire your provider, fire your provider, and then after the appointment. So we're getting into the segment four of things. I wanted to cover tips here. This is after the appointment. Review your recording. Not immediately, maybe let a couple of days pass, but review your recording when you're calm and regulated and take notes on next steps and clarify anything that was confusing. Get your lab results. So request all copies of your lab work. You need to have this in a client portal, in a patient portal printed out in your medical file. You're going to want to have that later. So I would really encourage you to get access to that and have it organized.
(39:58):
And don't just accept a phone call saying everything is normal in your lab work. You need to see and be able to access the results. You need to file them, and you need to keep this organized in your medical file system, whether that's digital or analog. Continue symptom mapping after the appointment, if they provide you with different treatment options and you are going to start them, it's going to be so extremely fantastically valuable for you to have your data that you've already collected without that treatment as you build the treatment in, because I'm going to tell you, treatments don't always work the way that they're supposed to. Birth control exacerbates symptoms for many women. SSRIs brings on many negative side effects for many of us, and you want to be able to know what is happening when you start that medication. Is it helping? Is it neutral? Is it hurting? You can only know that if you collect this data. Yes, it's laborious. Yes, it's a big ask, but you are going to be one of those people who is telling yourself, I've tried everything for PMDD when that's a limiting belief and it's absolutely not true. Go back and listen to episode 11 of the PMDD Pep Talk podcast that I've tried everything for PMDD mindset. You're going to end up in that mindset if you don't have this data. So keep collecting it as you bring treatments on board.
(41:32):
All right, that's, that was long. We covered so much. Let's see here. If we can just recap a little bit. I'm not going to go through all of this, but I want you to note there's homework that you need to do a significant amount of homework before you get into that appointment. Then there's going to be things that are going to help you be more successful while you're in your physician's appointment. You want to show up empowered, so be prepared to enact those tips when you're in the appointment. There are going to be things that you need to advocate for through the uncertainty as you're determining what paths you're taking and how this is all going to shake down and how it's going to be supportive to you. And then after the appointment, you also have some homework to do. So I hope you took some notes on this.
(42:32):
This is something, a conversation that I so desperately wish I would've had. None of this was shared with me. I had no access to any resource like this covering these tips, and I think it would have resulted in a much earlier PMDD diagnosis. It took me 17 years and I think I would have been able to be living a better quality of life so much earlier. I lost nearly two decades of my life to severe premenstrual symptoms, and one of the reasons is because of this conversation that we're having here today, I did not have access to these tips. I did not know these things. So you are really getting a leg up here with this conversation. I hope you found it helpful. If you did, please rate and review the podcast. Make sure to check out the studies that we cited earlier in the conversation and make sure to grab our resources.
(43:33):
You do not have to continue suffering. You do not have to continue working with providers who dismiss you and layer the medical trauma on. You have agency, you have power. You decide you are the steward of your health, and you'll always be the best steward of your health. No provider is going to care as much about your health and how it's impacting your quality of life as you do. And that can be frustrating, and that can feel overwhelming, and that can feel like, oh, I just need someone to pull me out of this deep, dark hole. I'm getting in. But that is your responsibility, and that is the only way it can be because you live in your body and you live in your life. So this is all actually a very good thing, and I'm so excited to see what happens for you when you're better advocating for yourself with your providers. Thank you for being here today.
