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PMS
Natural Cures for Your Teen's Discomfort
By Laura Cone
Weed also encourages young women to consume cooked fruits and vegetables, quality dairy products and lean protein. "What I find especially with young women is that they are trying to stay thin, and they don't get enough minerals in their diet because of it," she says.
Dr. Lark agrees that nutrition plays a part. "Unfortunately that means limiting a daughter's intake of junk food, and that's a little harder with teens," she says. "Teenagers are still living at home, and they are surrounded by friends who drink Cokes and eat hamburgers and pizzas and ice cream and candy and junk. It's definitely harder with a teen but really worth the effort if the mother can serve healthy, whole-food-based meals at home, lots of whole fruits and vegetables and whole grains instead of refined flour products and white rice."
Other natural alternatives include vitamins and minerals, flax seed, fish oil, prim rose oil and chase berry, says Dr. Lark, who does not recommend progesterone cream for young girls. "There are nutrients you can give a young woman to help her make her own progesterone more effectively, like chase berry," she says. "Doctors would tend to put a young woman on birth control pills, but a more natural option is to put a young woman on chase tree berries. It will help her ovulate and make progesterone more effectively herself."
Ellen W. Freeman, Ph.D., a research professor with the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, says most research studies do not focus on teens, although women often say their problems with PMS started during those formative years. "It appears to be a problem that does gradually worsen with age at least until they are in their 30s," she says. "As they start approaching menopause, it seems to decrease overall. Once they have it, it seems to stay. It does not self-cure."