KFF Health NewsJul 3 2024 If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting "988."She worked days as a software engineer and nights as a part-time cellist, filling her free hours with inline skating and gardening and long talks with friends. But a few days a month, Lint's mood would tank. Panic attacks came on suddenly. Suicidal thoughts did, too.
For decades, a lack of investment in women's health has created gaps in medicine. The problem is so prevalent that, this year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to advance women's health research and innovation. In a 2022 survey of PMDD patients published in the Journal of Women's Health, more than a third of participants said their family doctors had little knowledge of the premenstrual disorder or how to treat it. About 40% said the same was true of their mental health therapists.
It wasn't until 2013 that the disorder was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the handbook used by medical professionals in the U.S. to diagnose psychiatric conditions. PMDD was officially recognized by the World Health Organization in 2019, though references in medical literature date to the 1960s.
"We need more research to understand how and why these reactions to hormones occur," Ross said. "There's so much work to be done."