PCOS

I wrote about my endometriosis story a few days ago like that was my only problem....but I also suffer from PCOS, and lately it has been giving me even more grief than the endo. I thought I would write a quick blog just introducing all of you to PCOS and the smptoms and why having this disease along with endo is a double sided knife.

PCOS is basically an endocrine disorder that stems from an overload of testosterone. There are so many more things that stem from this than just ovarian cysts. Obviously this is one very big symptom but there are so many more that affect women everyday. Here are just a few....

• Oligomenorrhea, amenorrhea — irregular, few, or absent menstrual periods.
• Infertility, generally resulting from chronic anovulation (lack of ovulation).
• Hirsutism — excessive and increased body hair, typically in a male pattern affecting face, chest and legs.
• Hair loss appearing as thinning hair on the top of the head
• Acne, oily skin, seborrhea.
• Obesity: one in two women with PCOS are obese.
• Depression.^[4]
• Deepening of voice

I have more than a few of these. My periods have never been regular. I remember when I first started trying to have a baby with my ex-husband I never knew when to get excited because I would bleed randomly for a few days at a time without reason or schedule. I was told by my doctor at the time that this was normal.

Obviously I am having troubles with infertility.

I have hair that grown randomly all over....the ones that drive me nuts the most are the five long, thick, and deep-bedded hairs that just appear overnight on my breasts. Drives me insane. I shave them off and I always look and never notice them growing back and then one day I look and there they are....looking like they have been growing for weeks.

Acne. This is one of the worst ones. I have tried every single face wash, cream, treatment, anything you can think of for my face and nothing seems to help. My mother used to tell me that everyone gets acne and that it was normal, but the fact is that after a certain point it is no longer "normal" to get frequent breakouts of this nature. They are deep, red, and painful...."face cysts" I guess you could call them....all over my face, chest, neck, and back. There is no schedule to the breakouts....teenagers often break out close to their periods but in women with PCOS there is no rhyme or reason for these breakouts. They are the single most outward sign I have that there is something wrong with me.

I have always been a little overweight. I thought it made me look like a "real" woman instead of those girls out there that are tiny and all that. Come to find out the reason all my weight is all around my middle might not just be my genes. Even when I eat right and exercise I am still always just a little bit big around my middle. My husband is ok with it, and until I started reading about the effects of PCOS I was ok with it too. Now I am worried that if I somehow don't get my weight under control I will be in a world of hurt not long from now.

Obviously all these things can cause a girl to become depressed. There are girls out there who are overweight and think themselves somehow less of people because of that. I am depressed. I am sad because I can't have a baby and because when I look in the mirror I have to look away because my face is always broken out and I am fat. I hate that I have done nothing to deserve or even cause these things. My life revolves around just convincing myself to get out of bed in the morning.

The treatments for PCOS vary depending on who you talk to. Basically all I have been on is a very low dose of Metformin everyday, and I was only diagnosed that after three months of clomid not working. From what I have read I prolly should have been on at LEAST this med from the beginning....unfortunately the last doctor I had that I had to fire was a complete moron who didn't even tell me I had PCOS until she found a very large cyst after a few months of Clomid.

Long story short this thing that I have (on top of the endometriosis) affects my life every day. There is no cure, and like endo, no one really knows what triggers the body to have too many hormones that in turn cause it......my prayer is that one day there will be relief for me and the millions of other women out there living with PCOS.