EEG BIOFEEDBACK TRAINING FOR PMS

It is my opinion that PMS or pre-menstrual syndrome does, in fact, exist. However, it is not a unitary condition. The symptomatology is highly variable among individuals. In fact, PMS is not a recognizable disorder within the diagnostic and statistical manual used by psychiatrists and psychologists. Perhaps it can best be looked at as a condition of disregulation. Biofeedback is therefore, highly applicable.

It is the cyclic hormonal variations that make females vulnerable to a variety of symptoms. PMS includes a variety of physical and emotional symptoms associated with a specific phase of the menstrual cycle. Premenstrual symptoms are reported by at least 75% of menstruating women, but they may not be severe or debilitating. However, there are a number of women who become extremely debilitated, having severe symptoms.

Many PMS symptoms are characteristic of depression. In fact, exacerbation of a womans usually manageable PMS can be indicative of untreated mild depression or partially treated depression. (An important fact to consider here is that untreated or not fully remitted depression can make a woman more vulnerable to having more depressions in the future than they would have had they kept their symptoms treated.) So it is not surprising that women are often treated with antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication for problematic premenstrual symptoms. However, medical management of PMS has been generally unsuccessful. It is our opinion that the fundamental issue of PMS is that of disregulation, for which the remedy would be regulation rather than the more unilateral intervention of medications. If we can teach the brain to reduce or eliminate the symptoms, and learn to keep them in remission, we may be able to eliminate the need of medications, or reduce the need for medications. And the overall emotional regulation for that person is likely to benefit as well.

Intervention with EEG biofeedback has been found clinically successful in helping individuals who suffer from both the physical and emotional symptoms of PMS. Early on in EEG clinics the patients were not referred for PMS but were referred for specific symptoms which were causing them trouble, such as sleeplessness, irritability and depression. Over the course of time it was observed, however, that PMS responded well to EEG biofeedback training.

The mechanism by which biofeedback helps the individual experiencing PMS is regulation of the brain. The client is fed back information on her various brainwave states. Through the process of training the individual begins to learn how to bring these brainwave states under voluntary control. Over time she learns to regulate the deregulated brain. Since this is a training process, once it has been learned, the individual continues to maintain control over these dysfunctional states. Therefore, repeated treatment is generally unnecessary. On some occasions a person may need a “refresher session” but not at the intensity initially required. Now the individual is no longer vulnerable to the volatile changes that usually occurred during the premenstrual period.

Brainwave biofeedback training for PMS generally takes somewhere between 20 and 40 brainwave sessions. I would like to keep these brainwave sessions in close proximity. It is preferable to see the individual two or more times a week particularly during the initial stages of training.

For information on biofeedback training fro PMS as well as other physical and emotional disorders contact K. Hogan Pesaniello, MD at (757) 336 6544