Heavy bleeding. PMS that arrives like a storm and reorganises your week. Cramps that flatten you. The kind of mood shift before your period that makes you wonder if you're a different person — and then you bleed and you're back.
None of that is normal. All of it is hormone signal.
Is it PMS or am I depressed?
Both can be true. The diagnostic clue is timing. If your low mood, anxiety or rage is cyclical — predictable to the day, gone by day 2 or 3 of the bleed — that's a hormone signal, not a clinical depression. PMDD lives in this category, as does undiagnosed perimenopause in your thirties.
What we look for
Heavy, painful periods are usually one or more of: oestrogen dominance with sluggish clearance, low progesterone, elevated prostaglandins (the inflammatory molecules that drive cramping), and thyroid or iron involvement. A DUTCH test maps the hormones; full bloods catch the iron + thyroid story. Most cycles improve inside two to three cycles once the actual driver is identified.