Letter: PMT and very little sympathy

I READ Jane Hanson's article on pre-menstrual tension ('This is not imagination - it's devastation', 11 April) just after I had written a letter to Dr Precilla Choi, one of the doubting Thomases of the British Psychological Society. Unlike Jane, I have a sympathetic GP who agreed to refer me to a consultant gynaecologist. The sympathy and understanding ended there.

The consultant told me he treated hundreds of women whose symptoms were far worse than mine, although he did start me on a programme of hormones. The second time I saw him, he left me sobbing on the shoulder of a nurse and did not even recognise that he had a pre-menstrual woman in front of him. Neither did he recognise the exhaustion that I said was like a lead blanket. It was merrily brushed off with the comment: 'I would feel tired if I had done what you had'.

The British Psychological Society is not alone in not understandng PMT - it is just willing to pretend to do so.

Prudence Blake

Beverley, East Yorks