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Tuesday, September 20, 1983The Daily Tar Heel5
PMS seldom understood, often misdiagnosed
By CINDY DUNLEVY
Staff Writer
It may sound like a chapter from Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but the symptoms
are real and the suffering is intense.
Lindsay Leckie suffered from cyclical
patterned anger, depression and migraine
headaches for nearly eight years before she
found relief.
"I thought I was going crazy," Leckie
said. "I'd have to refuse invitations to go
out and I would lock myself in my room."
Leckie had incapacitating symptoms
three weeks out of each month, with no
idea what caused them. But finally,
through an article her mother found,
Leckie discovered her problem and began
the treatment that would render her life al
most normal.
The article concerned PMS, or premen
strual syndrome, a hormone disorder
originating in the brain. A woman with
PMS can suffer from as many as 150
symptoms, including headaches, sinus
problems, crying, paranoia, compulsive
eating, clumsiness, depression, anger and
violence.
The key to determining PMS is timing,
watching for a cyclical relationship be
tween the symptoms occurring each month
and the menstrual cycle.
Leckie's brother, a doctor at Duke Uni
versity Medical Center, took the article
Coincidences
awe all involved
in child delivery
The Associated Press
NEW YORK When the labor pains
start two weeks early and the only route to
the hospital is a jam-packed freeway, what
do you do?
In a pinch, you could head for the
hospital, pull off the highway and wait for
a Chinese-speaking obstetrician to happen
along.
The Manhattan-bound traffic was
crawling along the Long Island Express
way on Thursday morning when 25-year-old
Wyai Heung Chan began feeling labor
pains. She and her husband, 31-year-old
Hoi Wah Chan, entrusted their 2-year-old
daughter to a neighbor and set out from
their home in the Long Island City section
of Queens.
But long before they made it to Beth
Israel Hospital in Manhattan, they realized
they had to pull over and began preparing
to deliver the baby themselves.
Then began the coincidences: .
The motorists who stopped to -help ,
included an obstetrician,' Dr. Kwok Y."
Miu.
He turned out to be the partner of
their regular doctor.
With him was his wife, Natalie, a
registered nurse.
And he and his wife were able to
speak Chinese to Mrs. Chan, who had lit
tle command of English.
Baby Derek Chan emerged, weighing 6
pounds, .6 ounces. Mother and child were
doing fine at the hospital a few hours later,
said Beth Israel spokeswoman Saralee
Faizelson.
"The doctors are in awe at the coin
cidences," said another spokeswoman,
Grace Kraskin.
omecomina
a nee
Saturday, September 24
immediately following the
William & Mary
Homecoming game.
Woollen Gym
The Embers band
Admission $5.00
Student Special 2 for 1
non-alcoholic beverages
provided BYOB
Tickets in advance from
the Alumni Office.
Box 660, Chapel Hill, NC 27514.
or at the door.
and began looking for more information.
He found a clinic in Boston that was treat
ing PMS, and Leckie's family sent her
there.
Within one year she overcame her usual
three-week battles with depression and
wishes to die and became chairman of the
National PMS Society. The society is bas
ed in Durham. Patty Cannon, the society's
vice chairman, runs another office in
Utah.
In 1982, Leckie was interviewed on
2020 and Cannon had a PMS article
featured in Family Circle magazine. The
responses from the interview and article
pointed to a backlog of women sufferers,
Leckie said.
The lack of PMS research is because of
failure to connect all of a woman's symp
toms to her menstrual cycle, a PMS society
brochure said. She goes to a neurologist
for her migraines, a gynecologist for water
retention and a psychiatrist for depression.
The symptoms are never combined nor
seen in their cyclical pattern by one doctor.
"The real effects of PMS are seen in
their interference with the women's daily
lives and their potential as human beings,"
Leckie said. About 22 million women suf
fer from PMS, and 6.5 million suffer to
the incapacitating extent, Leckie said.
Drug and alcohol abuse can be spin-off
effects of PMS, Leckie said. "Women
with PMS are more susceptible to alcohol.
She (a woman with PMS) can drink her
date under the table on the 15th, and on
the 7th she's dancing on the table."
Drug abuse results from women taking
painkillers two weeks out of each month.
"Pretty soon it is just hard to stop."
Leckie added that more than 50 percent
of female suicides occur within the four
days before menstruation.
For female students who suffer from
PMS, Leckie said studies show that test
scores increaser and decrease during dif
ferent times in the menstrual cycle.
"For these women scores can drop 40
percent. One girl was excused for two
weeks of each month from the school.
'Lucky her,' others would say.-Yes, lucky
her. She was sick in bed and had to do a
month's work in two weeks."
Leckie stresses that PMS is a major
women's health issue. "It isn't fair for a
doctor to say, 'Honey, I can't find
anything wrong with you, take a Valium."
Women need each other and this is the
base purpose for the PMS Society: to lend
support and information to PMS suf
ferers, Leckie said.
There is no cure for PMS yet. Doctors
usually prescribe natural progestrone treat
ment and elimination of some salt, sugar
and caffeine from the diet.
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Dr. Mary Jane Gray, of the University's
Gynecological Clinic, said treatment for
each woman differs because of the variety
of symptoms. "PMS is a very individual
sort of problem," Gray said.
Gray added that PMS has been around
for years and years. She recommended
charting symptoms, if they are severe, to
find if there is a cyclical pattern.
Usually a complete physical and psy
chiatric examination are required to make
sure nothing else is wrong. "The first
photographer for a story about us,"
Leckie said, "heard the interview and felt
she had the symptoms of PMS. So she
went to her doctor and found she had a
tumor." Leckie said this is why it is neces
sary to get an entire exam.
Starting the birth control pill or stop
ping it, first menstruation, childbirth and
hysterectomies are shocks to the endocrine
system and seem to trigger the onset of
PMS. Leckie said her PMS resulted from
taking the birth control pill.
"Some doctors have been known to
treat PMS by performing a
hysterectomy," Leckie said. "This can
just make everything worse."
Leckie still has headaches, but says she
feels 85 percent better. And she no longer
thinks about suicide.
"I can see a big difference," Leckie
added. "So can my family."
''V,",
Lindsay
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