Let's call this my PSA.

Warning to all my male readers....I'm about to discuss girly bits. Now might be a good time to go do some guy stuff....

I want to talk about PCOS....Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. A lot of people don't know what it is, and a lot of people don't know that they have it. I didn't. I just knew something was wrong with me. Not one doctor told me it had a name until about 1990. When I finally learned that it wasn't 'all in my head' I thought I would cry.

First of all, let's talk about what it is. It is actually the most common female hormonal disorder. It has a lot of characteristics, including excessive weight gain and obesity, irregular, heavy or completely absent periods, ovarian cysts, excessive facial or body hair, Alopecia (male pattern hair loss), acne, skin tags (growths from the skin), Acanthosis Nigricans (brown skin patches) high cholesterol levels, exhaustion or lack of mental alertness, decreased sex drive and excess male hormones. Other symptoms also include sleep apnea, thyroid disorders and depression and anxiety.A study in 2000 shows that women with PCOS have a higher risk of coronary heart disease.
An estimated 5-10% of women of childbearing age are affected by Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and it is one of the leading causes of infertility.

Ok...now that you  know what it is.....how do you know if you have it? Take this  test. Print out your results and take them to your doctor. And if your doctor shakes his/her head and says it's all in  YOUR head....find a new doctor.

Here's the way it went with me. I had a history of irregular periods from the time I first started having them. I married at 16. Even though no birth control was used, it was 8 years later that I finally got pregnant. Then another 5 years with no birth control before I got pregnant again. And in between, I had maybe 4 periods a year. That ain't right. At the time of my second Cesarean, I told my doctor I felt a cyst, and he said, no it's just the baby's elbow.....that elbow turned out to be a cyst the size of a ping pong ball.

I found it very very easy to gain weight, and nearly impossible to lose it, even though I didn't eat big meals, and I was chasing after two boys. My mother commented often that I should have been 'skinny as a rail', as active as I was. I had the hair growth and the skin tags and the exhaustion and the lowered sex drive and blah blah blah all that other stuff. When I did have a period, it was heavy and lasted 10 days.

When my younger son was about 5, I went to see another doctor and lo and behold, he did NOT tell me it was all in my head. He had a name for it.....PCOS. Not only did he have a name for it, he had a treatment. Surgery. So I underwent what he called a "Bi-lateral wedge resection". Which means that he cut a pie shaped wedge out of each ovary, which was supposed to remove the section that produced male hormones and thus solve all my problems. It didn't.

I finally had a total hysterectomy in 1995. That solved a lot of my problems, but the damage that had been done can never be repaired. I will always have the skin tags and the obesity, and the lack of alertness and the blah blah blah other stuff.

I'm not going to step over my bounds and try to give anyone medical advice. Other than this....if you take the test and it shows you MAY have PCOS, see a doctor who is familiar with it and can take you through the best treatment. Do it while you're young, and maybe you can prevent some of the damage it can cause.


Okay, fellas, you can come back now.