PCOS & Our Bodies

I want to share my story as I think it’s similar to other peoples and is underrated.  

1. What year were you diagnosed with PCOS? I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was around 14.

2. What was your reaction when you found out?  Relief. I was so confused as to why I wasn’t getting regular periods, and when I found out, things started to make sense. I didn’t feel so odd any more. Whilst I now embrace my condition and deal with it, I hold more resentment than I used to!

3. Since being diagnosed, what changes have you made?  I have made a multitude of changes. At first I pursued a healthy lifestyle, and then I developed anorexia. I think when you’re given so much conflicting information about how to eat healthily and lose weight with PCOS, more girls than we recognise just give up and stop eating completely. I think there is a strong link between PCOS and anorexia, as I feel my old eating disordered thoughts come round in a monthly cycle. I don’t completely understand how, but knowing it is biological in some form helps a lot. Since then, i’ve gained a lot of weight, lost a lot of weight, and gained a bit back. Now, I feel like i’ve reached a great medium- eating healthily, losing weight slowly, and exercising to control my PCOS.

4. What medications were you prescribed? Birth control. Even though I was quite young, I wanted to know when I was getting my periods, and I wanted to feel like a woman. 

5. Had you heard about PCOS before being diagnosed? No!

6. Have you met any other females with PCOS? A couple! It’s generally something I don’t feel the need to talk about, but when it does come up, I find that people generally know someone with it, or someone in the group has it.

7. How did you educate yourself about PCOS? My doctor was very useful, but I think mostly I have had to learn about myself. Everybodys PCOS affects them in different ways, and so there is no remedy. I think that’s why I have struggled with eating correctly in the past, because I was trying to follow conventional guidelines- when really you need to learn your bodys own routine!

8. Is it difficult to talk about PCOS with family and friends? Do they show support? Yes and no. I find it hard knowing that my boyfriend knows that I have something which symptoms are ‘acne, facial hair and weight gain’, but explaining PCOS to the people around me has really really helped. It explains to them why perhaps going on a run is more important to me that sitting around and smoking and drinking- they now understand that I’m not growing up too fast, I just have to think about future consequences more than they do!!

9. What were your symptoms before being diagnosed? How are your symptoms now? Weight gain, definitely. I have also always had a more ‘male’ personality, which, controversially, I put down to my PCOS! But this is what my friends love me for-  being a little bit more fiesty, sexually orientated and having a bit more fight in me! I also suffer from the conventional PCOS symptoms.

10. Do you see an Endocrinologist or OB/GYN? INope! Saw a gyno for a while aftet being diagnosed, and now just the doc for regular check ups.

11. What are your interests/hobbies? Running! I have decided to run a half marathon in a few months in aid of PCOS sufferers and to prove to everybody what we’re capable of. 

12. What is one of your guilty pleasures? Cheeky G&T, chocolate cake and the occasional cig!

13. Is there anything else that you’d like to see on this blog? I think you’re doing great. Perhaps some pictures of girls with PCOS to show other people how wrong they are with their pre conceptions!! 

14. What do you think of the new category for meeting other females with PCOS? Great!