I'm in my early 40s... I don't notice much in the way of PMS, but my periods are seriously *awful*. They've never been fun, but I can't remember them being this bad.

I get about a day or so, early on, with extremely heavy bleeding. And the only way I can function with the cramps is to take alternating doses of ibuprofen (4 at a time, 3x/day) and tylenol. I was taking even more ibuprofen, but I had some issues and my current doctor told me it was too much, to only take it 3x/day if I need 4 pills at a time, and to use the tylenol in between.

I try to do stretches, self-massage, sometimes heat... those are all OK and helpful. But, I still feel like I'm dying. And, I'm at the point where I don't want to make any kind of plans to do things in the future, but "what if I get my period that week?" - which sounds lame, but it's really disruptive.