A Hertfordshire woman spent decades enduring debilitating symptoms, believing they were normal while also facing a range of misdiagnoses
40-year-old Nicky George finally has an answer to the symptoms and concerns that have plagued her for the last nearly 25 years. The Hertfordshire resident faced decades of debilitating periods, suicidal ideation and erratic mental health, believing her period symptoms were normal or that she may even have bipolar disorder.
After years of being misdiagnosed and put on ineffective treatments, it was only as Nicky started perimenopause did she finally get the right diagnosis: premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). This condition is a severe form of PMS that can cause a range of emotional and physical symptoms every month in the week or two leading up to a period.
Nicky is now determined to raise awareness and help educate others out there who might be struggling as she did, encouraging conversations about women’s health. She said: “Anyone going through it, just know there’s groups out there, and people out there who will help you,. You’ve just got to find the right person and not give up, because you’re worth it, and people will miss you if you go, so hang in there.”
According to Mind, symptoms of PMDD include:
- Mood swings
- Lack of energy
- Feeling hopeless, angry, irritable, anxious, tense or out of control
- Difficulty concentrating
- Suicidal feelings
- Breast tenderness or swelling
- Pain in your muscles and joints
- Headaches
- Changes in your appetite
- Sleep problems
Nicky first started experiencing symptoms in her teens as the year leading up to her first period was “very moody”. When her period started at the age of 14, Nicky didn’t realise it wasn’t normal for it to be so heavy with painful bleeding and debilitating mood swings.
Nicky told PA Real Life: “I didn’t really know what was happening to me. I knew that I felt completely out of control. I thought everyone was like this, and that’s what periods were like, and that I just wasn’t coping very well, that I was weak, or something like that,” she said.
“School was really hard, particularly with the depression. I think maybe some people thought I was just a stroppy teenager.”
It would take just an hour for Nicky to soak through menstrual pads and she also experienced nausea, diarrhoea, constipation and cramps so bad it left her unable to walk at times. In a healthy person, a period and the normal symptoms that come with it should not be severe enough to prevent them from going about their daily life.
When she reached her 20s, Nicky’s mood swings had become so intense that she believed she had bipolar disorder. She recalled: “For about 18 days or so, I was in turmoil. I couldn’t really focus, I couldn’t think clearly.
“I just felt really down. It was hard to get out of bed. Then, the seven or eight days when my period started, I had to go through all of that, and then there were a few days of feeling kind of normal.”
The symptoms had a severe impact on her life too. She has never been able to keep a long-term relationship, struggled with her work as a teacher and her untreated condition even affected her friendships.
In her 30s, Nicky finally began piecing together her symptoms after speaking to other women and realising her menstrual experience was not normal. Seeking medical help, her GP put her on the contraceptive pill, which only exacerbated her symptoms and made her erratic and suicidal.
As the hormonal treatment pathway hadn’t worked, doctors believed it could be a mental illness instead and diagnosed her with depression and anxiety. Nicky tried various types of medications and doses to treat these conditions but over five years it became clear that these were also only worsening her symptoms.
She said: “It made me numb all of the time, but I still struggled to take care of my basic needs, like showering and looking after myself, eating well. I was able to get out of bed more when I was on it, but I just felt like a shell of a person on them.”
Nicky was passed between mental health teams and gynaecology teams, leaving doctors puzzled until she suggested the diagnosis of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). She added: “It was really hard to advocate for myself, because there was really a very small window when I felt strong enough to do that, and then the rest of the time I was in a deep depression.
“I think that’s one of the reasons it took so long to get where I am, because I just didn’t have the energy to fight it.”
In 2023, Nicky unknowingly entered perimenopause at 38 and the transitional phase saw her symptoms take on a whole new level. She said: “There were days when I felt like the world was ending. I was panicked, and nobody else seemed to get it. It was awful.”
She began hormone replacement therapy, but while it helps most people manage the symptoms of menopause, it had the opposite effect on Nicky and her health declined so much that she made a plan to take her life.
She was signed off work for nine weeks following her mental health crisis and, at that point, decided to come off the HRT and begin paying for private talking therapy. She discussed her belief that she may have PMDD and her therapist pointed her towards Dr Louise Newson who has a wealth of online content about PMDD.
Nicky recalled: “I just watched every single video I could find of her on the internet, anything she’d written or been involved in, and I couldn’t believe it, because it was my story in a lot of the videos. I was like, ‘This is me’.”
In May 2025, Nicky went to a private women’s health clinic and was ‘immediately’ diagnosed with PMDD. In the next moment, it was also confirmed that she was perimenopausal. She was prescribed progesterone and saw a near instant change.
Nicky said: “Within 48 hours, I felt different. It was like a blanket had been lifted off me, I just had energy to do things, and I felt good. For the first time in I don’t even know how long, I actually felt happy.”
“It’s still a bit of a journey, but I haven’t had a single day off work since I came back in September. Before, every cycle, I was having time off – at least a few days – because I couldn’t cope with my symptoms when they were very, very bad in the luteal stage.
“I was absent often, and my work performance dropped during the luteal stage, and this was questioned by managers. I had to move jobs every five years as people’s patience had run out, and I often had outbursts at work with other staff – though never the children – and would often be overemotional at work.
“Even though I’m not always feeling 100% and I still have tough days, it’s considerably better, and I haven’t once felt suicidal since I went on it.”
