Date: 2 September 2004
Originally published in: Het laatste nieuws (Belgium)
Written by:
“My menstruations have determined my life for years. One week each month I felt bloated and bad-tempered. Eventually my husband got out of sight until ‘it’ was over.” In a revealing interview Kim Wilde (43) ‘outed’ herself about the premenstrual syndrome abr. PMS, in the common language also known as ‘it’s about that time of month’. Applause for Wilde, because speaking about thát side of the female hormone store as a singer, is not evident.
To make it clear: the premenstrual syndrome occurs a few days before the actual menstruations. Although sometimes it may be laughed off as ‘imagination’ or ‘comedy’, it is a medical fact. Symptoms are amongst others: bloating, tender breasts, water retention and bad temper. Especially the latter happened to Kim Wilde, as she declared recently in an interview with the British newspaper Daily Mirror. “I’m suffering from PMS ever since I was a teenager” says Kim. “It drove me wild, ‘Wilde’ but then in a very unpleasant way. It began a week before my menstruations. Suddenly I changed in a mad version from myself. Anyone who got near me, risked to get the full load. After I was raged out, I felt so ashamed of myself.”
“Even my career would suffer from it”, says the star from the ’80s, who made a comeback last year in a duet with Nena. “As a public figure one is always attended to be gentle and talkative. It didn’t work having PMS. I tried to avoid interviews on these days, but if I had to do a performance somewhere and it had to be in the papers the next day, I could hardly say no. But this is nothing compared to what I put my husband through. A lot of times I would try to argue with him over nothing. He knew it was ‘that time of the month again’ and tried to avoid every sensitive issue. Or he got out of sight. But you can’t keep on running from each other.”
“I’ve often thought: I really have to do something about this. But if you’re on tour or perform all the time you put this aside as it is awkward but isn’t deadly. Especially since I would feel great again from one day to the other. For a while, I was hoping it would be over when I became pregnant from my first child. I was midst 30 and heard that sometimes the hormone levels get balanced with age or pregnancy. The PMS would get milder or even vanish completely. But the reverse happened. I become irritated more quickly, although I did my best not to lose my patience for the children. (Wilde is mother of Harry, 6 years and Rose, 4 years old).
Two years ago I decided that I had to look after my health radically. I went on a diet and started to work out. I ate a lot of fish, fruit, vegetables en had a few fasting days. Physically I started to feel better but had to cope with my mood. I heard about magnesium, primrose oil and vitamin B6, which could help so I started to take these supplements. I noticed a difference after one month, and the months hereafter my symptoms became less. My family is very happy with the new ‘me’- although they are still on their guard.”