His and Her Health

As we were first talking to our doctor about my problem with my wifes lack of libido and cylical mood swings, he said "try this" and handed us a two week sampler of Prozac with a new name. We persisted and were able to have my wifes T level tested. It was low. We convinced the Doc to prescribe Sub-lingual T and it at least helped with the mood problems. <BR>At the time I was a bit upset at how little the doctors in the area knew or were willing to learn about the subject. A year ago, I got a job at the hospital that includes the duty of arranging continuing medical education for all the Docs in our area. Cool eh! Turns out there is no money for bringing in speakers. We have to rely on drug companies to sponsor speakers and make them sign a form that says that they don't have a bias for any products or financial conflict of interest.<BR>So now I have a drug rep who sells a SSRI who wants to sonsor a speaker on PMDD which is a medical term invented to sell SSRIs. I want to be well armed because I, of course, get to attend the talk and ask questions.

That is very interesting.<P>As one who almost unfailingly gets a significant degree of Pre-Menstrual Tension, I believe that it is, at least in some cases, a pronounced hormonal exacerbation of a (mild or severe) pre-existing mood disorder. <P>Interesting that the testosterone supplementation helped your wife.

PMDD is not androgen deficiency. In fact, some studies have shown free testosterone and DHEA levels are higher in women with premenstrual irritability and dysphoria. With regard to testosterone and low libido or dysphoria, moodiness, or other psychological symptoms, there is evidence suggesting these women do not have an overall lower testosterone level, but rather a tendency to have hormonal levels that fluctuate more than women who do not have these symptoms. It could be hormonal levels do not cause these symptoms, but rather are the effect of something else going on either physiologically or pscyhologically.<P>On another related subject, testosterone does not improve symptoms of clinical depression significantly over placebo. There is a change when testosterone is administered, however when placebo controls are used, there is no difference. That is, it is a placebo effect.

Bihag, it might be helpful for yooperdaddy if you could give the studies you are citing from. That way, when he's asked (and it's likely he will be) where he's getting his information, he can give a concise, documentable answer. Otherwise, it may come across that he is "making stuff up," or his information may be questioned as unreliable.<P>Just a thought

Yes. Citations would be great. Pinky and Bihag, are the premenstrual symptoms you mention the two or three day kind or the two week kind? My wife gets the two week kind and is characterized by being over sensitive and worried about small matters. As she puts it, "when I forget to take the testosterone the littlest things bother me".

yooperdaddy,<BR>I assume you have access to Medline at the hospital. Try a search on testosterone, PMS, dysphoria, depression. You can then pick the citations you're interested in. If you don't have access to Medline, try the National Library of Medicine search site at this link:<BR><A HREF="www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed" TARGET=_blank>www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed</A>

I have the 2-week kind of PMS. It used to be 9 days long, but now it often lasts 2 weeks. My main symptom is breast tenderness.