I HATE PCOS

Rarely do I resort to all caps, but this title just required it.  I hate my PCOS.  I hate your PCOS.  I hate the PCOS of complete strangers.

Now that you know where I stand on that, let's get to the issue of how to live and deal with it.

Today is a huge milestone in my PCOS journey.  I was able to announce that I have lost 25 lbs over the last year.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It took me an entire year to lose 25 lbs.  Losing weight should be a simple equation; just burn more calories than you consume.  For every 3500 extra calories you burn, that's 1 lb lost.  Easy, right?

The problem with that is that with PCOS, it's more like trying to simultaneously solve quadratic equations and the Riemann hypothesis....while juggling.  Because of our insulin resistance, it is actually possible to consume fewer calories than use and still GAIN weight.

What?  How is that fair?

The first doctor that I saw listened to my symptoms, said she thought it was PCOS, and wrote me a prescription for birth control pills.  I was going through a divorce and not trying to get pregnant, so apparently my reproductive health didn't matter that much.  Let's just throw a pill at the problem.  I had so much other stress in my life that I didn't think to question the course of treatment and lack of testing.  I just said thank you and went on with life.

Unfortunately, this kept most of the symptoms under control but didn't fix anything.  Meanwhile, my insides were getting further and further out of whack.

Fast forward a few years....

I'm now married to the love of my life and the question of whether or not we will have any children that don't have 4 legs and fur becomes an issue.  By this time, even the birth control pills are not working.  I see another doctor who is appalled that the first doctor did no testing to find out what my hormone levels were before starting medication.  She tells me to stop the pills because she can't get accurate test results until I've been off them for several months.

More waiting and no answers.

Meanwhile, my regular doctor says that I'm pre-diabetic and starts me on 500 mg of Metformin.  I've heard this is an effective treatment for PCOS and helps with weight loss, so I'm looking forward to some relief.  Imagine my surprise when I continue to gain weight.  A year later, I had gained another 20 lbs and was ready to give up.

The last straw came last summer when we had family pictures done.  I knew that I had gained weight, but oh my goodness.  I sat and cried when I got them back.  It had happened so gradually that I didn't realize exactly how bad things had gotten.

My doctor recommended an app called My Fitness Pal.  What a lifesaver!  It does all the counting for you.  All you have to do is make sure that you enter everything that you consume.  It even compensates for the exercise that you enter so that you know how many calories you used and still have for the day.  I made my entries religiously, every single day.

Still no weight loss.

When I told the doctor this at my next appointment, she asked me if I was sure that I was entering everything that I ate.  I stopped seeing her, but kept using the app.

Finally, I found that I could make adjustments to what the app was counting for me.  I decided to add sodium to the list because I also have high blood pressure.

Here's where the tide starts to turn.

By tracking my sodium intake, I realized how much crap I was eating in the form of processed food.  I'm not a teetotaller, but we definitely made significant cuts to the things that came into our kitchen in boxes or cans.  That left me mostly with proteins and fresh fruits and veggies, which is exactly what I should be eating.

I still eat carbs - our bodies need them, but they need to be in balance with the rest of our plate.  I still eat sweets - but very sparingly and I try to avoid high fructose corn syrup like the plague.  Seriously, do a Google search about HFCS and PCOS.  I'm not saying that it is bad for everyone, but we PCOS girls find it nearly impossible to process HFCS.  It just doesn't compute.

The biggest piece of the puzzle has come in the last few months since I've been seeing my current doctors.

I had been in excruciating pain for nearly 2 months when I made an appointment to see Nurse Practitioner Withem.  I told her that I had been taking 500 mg of Metformin per day and she laughed.  I'm not kidding.  She actually laughed when she told me I should be taking at least 2000 mg per day.  That's right - four times the amount I had been prescribed.

I had been struggling for 4 months to maintain the 20 lb loss that I had achieved by Christmas.  Instead of celebrating a new victory, I had to make do with, "Well, at least I didn't gain anything."  Since I've started the correct dose of Metformin, had surgery to remove endometriosis and drain the ovarian cysts, and stopped being in pain every day of my life, I've not only maintained the 20 lb loss but added another 5 in the last 2 months.

So that's it.  No magic answers to how I lost 25 lbs.  I still eat junk sometimes.  I still drink soda sometimes.  Most days there's not much room for it, though, by the time I eat all the protein, fiber, fruits and veggies I'm supposed to eat.  By cutting out the processed, chemical-laden convenience foods that filled my cabinet and learning how toxic HFCS is to my system - and finding the right doctor who gave me the right medication and ran the right tests and did the right surgery - I am on my way to being a much healthier me.

Pain, Pain, Go Away

Considering the fact that I went through my divorce so openly through this blog and my addiction to Face Book, it may come as quite a surprise that I am a VERY private person.  And I've been holding out on my friends and family.

About a month ago, I started having excruciating pain.  You know the 1-10 smiley/frowny face scale at the doctor's office?  I only wish I could have seen a 10 from where I was sitting.  At one point I ended up at the emergency room and actually consented to a shot for the pain.  A shot....you know, with a needle.  I don't do needles willingly.  Ever.  But when you haven't been able to work for 2 weeks, can't sleep, can't sit or stand up without being extremely dizzy, you'll do just about anything for some relief.

Over the last 3 weeks, I have had 3 rounds of blood tests.  That's right, more needles.  There have been some invasive tests that I'd rather forget.  And still no answers.

All this begs the question:  Why couldn't I tell anyone?

Usually, my first reaction would be ask my prayer warrior friends to add me to their prayer lists.  What could be so bad that I refused to tell even my closest girlfriends?  We've been through everything together.  There's nothing I can't say to them.

But there is.

Then I realized that for years I have been talking loudly to anyone who will listen about depression.  Because of the years that I struggled without knowing what was wrong, and the stigma and isolation that still goes along with mental illness, I decided that I never want anyone to feel that alone if I can help it.

Well, I'm about to do that again with a different illness.

The reason I have been suffering in near silence is because my pain is estrogen related and we don't talk about that in polite society.  That's right, my uterus hates me.  There's a sentence I never thought I'd put in my blog.  But there it is.  My doctors still have yet to find what is wrong.  The list of possibilities is still very long and still includes cancer.  Despite enduring the pain of an endometrial biopsy, cancer still hasn't been ruled out because it wasn't a large enough sample.

Are you kidding me???  I almost passed out from the pain, couldn't move for 2 days without feeling like I was being stabbed, and you're telling me you didn't get a large enough sample to tell me if I'm going to die?

Now, before you mothers start sending me hate mail because the biopsy couldn't be half as painful as childbirth, I would just like to point out that our bodies prepare for that.  There is a whole chemical process leading up to it. There's no natural preparation to have a chunk of your womb ripped out of you.  There's also a beautiful baby at the end of the childbirth pains to make them all worth it.  After the biopsy, all you get are some painkillers, a few days of painful recovery, and lots of empty hours of waiting to find out if you have something that might kill you.  And in my case, a repeat of the process in a few weeks.

Four days ago I walked into yet another doctor's office with 2 questions.  Do I have cancer?  Will I ever be a mother?  Type A personalities don't do well with the unknown.  But that's all I have.  Many questions, no answers, medicines that make me almost sicker than I was before I took them, and no end in sight to the tests ordered by the doctors I am trusting with my life.

How many of our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, and friends have suffered alone because we're not supposed to talk about "womanly issues"?  How many of them have waited until it was too late to get the proper treatment because they were too embarrassed to tell anyone, even their doctor?

Girls, these are medical problems just like anything else.  It's time for us to stop being self-conscious or humiliated because it's not the flu or a broken arm.  Stand up for yourselves.  Take care of your health.  Talk to your girlfriends and daughters and neighbors so that they know they are not alone.

Gentlemen, please, for the love of Pete, put aside your awkwardness with the subject for just a little while and be supportive if a woman in your life is facing a health issue that involves a trip to the gynecologist.  You don't have to know all the gory details, just don't visibly cringe if she says the word ovaries when she's telling you what the doctor said.  It could make the difference between her actually following up with the doctor and sweeping the problem under the rug and pretending everything is fine.

I saw a billboard recently to encourage men to get their check-ups.  It said "Thousands of men will die this year of stubbornness."  Ladies, let's not follow their example and die of embarrassment.

Where Have I Been?

Now that we are on Snowmageddon 7.0 and I'm surrounded by snow as far as the eye can see, I kept thinking back to a blog post I wrote a few years ago. I was shocked when I went looking for it and realized that I haven't posted anything in over 2 years! Well, there's good reason for that. I've been busy being happy.

My Sweetheart

It seems that I only have the itch to write when I get depressed and need some cheap therapy.

Terrible.

This blog was there for me through my divorce, through losing my grandmother, through being single again, through finding my sweetheart. Then as soon as things are going my way, bye bye, blog.

Shameful.

So, get ready, kids. I'm starting a new chapter in this writing adventure. There are some new characters since the last epoch, some twists and turns - oh, and I've become a talk radio junkie, so I guarantee there will be politics involved.

Fasten your seat belt. We've got some catching up to do.