My gynecologist is lucky I wasn’t actually experiencing PMS on the day he told me that it didn’t exist.
I had scheduled my yearly appointment with hopes he could help me find some monthly relief. I wasn’t expecting miracles — or my pants to fit . I just wanted to still be married, raising children and have a job when I became human again.
My family should know I love them every single day, not just three weeks out of the month.
As I sat on the examination table, covered in a too-small, drafty paper gown, the doc explained how recent studies showed PMS didn’t occur in happy women.
“Women getting married don’t experience the symptoms,” he said.
Huh?
I guess brides’ hormones were over-powered by the joyous occasion and they felt nary a pain, twinge or cramp.
Well, that made no sense on two fronts: Brides are stressed out. At least I was. If there was ever an occasion for PMS, my first wedding was it. I wasn’t happy until the honeymoon. Second, what the hell?
No such thing as PMS … as told to me by my male doctor. Oh really?
For an educated guy, and a gynecologist, wouldn’t he know to just lie for his own protection? Seriously, where he was sitting, I could’ve stabbed his eyes out with my big toes. It would’ve been a simple knee-jerk reaction.
At my trial, I could’ve claimed PMS . Even the courts recognize that defense.
The judge would’ve shaken a finger at the doc and said, “Duuuddeee, what were you thinking?”
By chance, I do know one man who whole-heartedly believes in the affliction. When told the story, he scoffed in disbelief. This guy has experienced the situation first hand. He’s a survivor, a dodger, soothsayer, child protector and a Midol buyer.
Wrestling an alligator and fighting a rabid porcupine at the same time would be nothing compared to what he handles every month. Jimmy’s the reason I haven’t set my hair on fire (though I’m sure he’s thought about it once or twice), buried the dogs alive or strung the children up by their toes and muffled their complaints with duct-tape.
Every month he single-handedly saves the family, welcomes me back from the brink of destruction, accepts my apologies, forgives me and shows me where he stashed the kids.
I love you , Jimmy.
I bet you wish you could marry me every month.
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Genevieve Hinson is a social media coordinator for Children's Hospital Central California. She's also a writer, wife and mom to two boys and a girl. The opinions she expresses here are her own, as is her obsession for coffee.
if it is any consolation, i hear the same bs from a FEMALE OB-gyn. of course she is old, pruny and had a complete hysterectomy years ago. me thinks it is time to get a new gyne-y.
good luck.
::::head rattling:::: OMG, he is nuckin’ futz!!!!!!!!!! Doesn’t exist my ass. I hope he’s not married. Or if he is, I hope his wife makes him MISERABLE at least once a month. LOL
Around our house, there is a constant supply of chocolate, dark rum, diet coke, midol, and prozac. Without those items, my family would lock me up for at least two weeks of the month.
) We call it Pretty Much Sucks… cuz’ it does.
Wow, sounds like it’s time to find a new gynecologist. Cuz this don’t know his ass from a PMS’ing woman…
The upside of raginng PMS (not that it exists):
I have a cousin who deliberately schedules all her tough meetings at work during THAT week every month, because she knows she’s not gonna back down.
Maybe we can book her in with your gyno. Hey! That rhymes with “dino”
I know a cure for this: find a new gyn
That guy needs to go back to medical school. Even my *neurologist* realizes PMS exists and had a discussion with me recently about how it interacts with my hypoxic brain injury to cause specific problems for me.
Sounds like the neurologist we just went to who told us autism didn’t exist…
I’m not qualified to comment. But I love this post!
I am qualified to post……at least I am a female. PMS does exist, get a new gyno AND I love this post. Gen….you crack me up. I will back you on this one….everytime.
My hubby is a (newly practicing) OB/GYN, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him dismiss PMS. Probably because he’s lived with me for seven years!
I may have to ask him about what your own gyne said. Maybe it’s something new making the rounds in the field?
DUDE! What a psycho!! He must be bestest friends with my old gyno, who told me I wasn’t experiencing any pain after having my tubes tied! :::shakes head::: is RA-IGHT!!
I am incredibly happy right now. I am totally and passionately in love with my boyfriend. I walk around smiling and laughing. And yet every month, for a few days, I am doubled over in pain, tearful, bloated, crampy, and completely miserable. Happy, but also miserable. And he, who curls up behind me, rubs my back, brews me tea, and makes multiple runs to the bodega for midol, knows this better than anyone. Clearly, your Gyno is single. Or gay. And never had any sisters. Or a mother. Because there is absolutely no way in hell a man could ever live with a woman for more than 28 days and still believe that kind of nonsense.
[...] Pregnancy never entered my mind. I blamed my late period, monstrous mood, body aches and nausea to PCOS. It was the cramps I couldn’t figure out. I never had those when experiencing PMS. [...]
Y’all will wish you lived in or near Atlanta. My gyn listens and explains; has no preconceived notions and takes me and my complaints at face value without judgment and with sympathy/empathy and takes me seriously. he’s never had a period but can describe them better than my last bitch of a Female gyn. because SHE never had a bad period and because SHE does not have PMS, then I must be crazy for having symtoms because she’s a woman; I’m, a woman and of course i should be the same exact clone of her. Wrong…we’re all different. www . advgynsol .com
look at the testimonial and see what i mean…
This web address works too… DoctorRabin.com
[...] Jimmy wasn’t kidding. I disliked coffee – refusing to drink it even – two days in a row? Something had to be seriously wrong. However, before we called in Dr. House, I decided to wait and rule out the bizarre-o hormone PMS factor. [...]