Is your PMDD treatment
making a difference?
3 min read · checked against its sources · updated 17 Oct 2026
The most useful way to tell is a daily record kept through the cycles before you start and the cycles after. Then compare the same stretch each time: the week before your period against the week after it starts. One good or bad month proves little, so look for a pattern across at least two cycles, and take it to the person who prescribed the treatment.
This is a way to see what is happening, not a way to judge the treatment yourself. Whether to continue, change or stop is a decision for you and your prescriber.
Get a baseline first
If you can, log for two cycles before the treatment begins. Doctors ask for the same thing to confirm PMDD in the first place, and why-two-cycles explains the reason. The NHS advises a symptom diary for at least two menstrual cycles, and Cleveland Clinic says you may need one or two.
If you are already on treatment, start now anyway and write down the date it began. A record from today still shows more than memory will.
A simple routine
Keep it small enough that you will do it on your worst day.
- Once a day, rate your overall mood and your main two or three symptoms from 0 (none) to 3 (severe).
- Add one line on how the day went: did you get through work, plans and looking after yourself?
- Note any side effects, and any missed doses.
- Mark the day your period starts.
If a rating scale feels like homework, one sentence a day works too. log-cycle-mood-by-voice covers that. The formal version of this record is the DRSP, explained in drsp-daily-record-severity-of-problems-explained.
What to compare
Line up each cycle in the same way.
- The week before your period: are there fewer severe days, or are the same days milder?
- The week after it starts: do you still feel better, as before?
- The rest of the month: is it still steady, with no new problems?
- Function: is it easier to get through work and relationships?
- Side effects: do they fade, stay or grow?
Early side effects can show up before any benefit does, so write them down rather than guess.
How long to give it
It varies by treatment and by person, and I did not find a published timeline that holds for every medication. Doctors have used SSRIs both daily and only in the second half of the cycle, and a review in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry describes both as first-line options. Ask your prescriber when they plan to review your record, and what they would count as a change.
Don't stop or change a medication on your own. Bring the record instead.
When not to wait
If you have thoughts of harming yourself, or things feel unsafe at any point, get help right away. Don't wait for the end of a cycle or for the next appointment. In the US you can call or text 988.
For the appointment itself, getting-ready lists what to bring, and what-doctors-suggest covers the common treatment options.
Keep the record your doctor needs. Tideline is a period and mood tracker for iPhone: write one sentence a day, and after two cycles it puts the week before your period next to the week after it starts, with your own words quoted. Free to track, no account.
Keep the record your doctor needs. Tideline is a period and mood tracker for iPhone: write one sentence a day, and after two cycles it puts the week before your period next to the week after it starts. Free to track, no account.
Get Tideline on the App Store
Keep reading
Sources
- NHS: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS): treatment
- Cleveland Clinic: Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD)
- The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry: Evidence-Based Treatment of PMDD