calmwaters

I found this article after being intrigued by Kat's posts on PCOS and Stress. I am CONVINCED 1) that I have PCOS and 2) that it was stress induced.

My first symptoms did not apear until after resolution of about 20 months of severe stress (losses, school with full time job, moving 4 times, financial, relational, husband's health problems, husband losing job, deaths, personal health problems, you name it stressors). It was a tough time and I am a tough woman. But after the waters calmed is when I broke!!! It's like I was on adrenaline so long that once the stress was gone and the adrenaline with it, I have been exhausted for 6 months now. Looking back over the last 6 months of recovering from my stressors, and my newly emerging symptoms, and think I've had PCOS symptoms longer than I thought.

Only in the last 2 months did I suspect PCOS, when finally after 6 months of: anxiety, depression, generalized feelings of being surreally ungrounded, panic attacks, mood swings, anger/rage, weight gain, extreme emotional sensitivity, a strange, unrelenting lump in my throat sensation for 2 weeks, tons of irrational crying (after years and years of no crying - I'm really not that kind of gal!)... my periods went wacky on me. AFTER all the stress and AFTER all the previously mentioned symptoms which are actually slowly abating by now. That's what perplexes me.

I don't know the correlation, but I suspected a hormone imbalance and per the suggestion of my mom and MIL started using natural Progesterone cream. THEN is when the 6 months of symptoms above started getting better. But, just before the cream, I started having ovulation pains and bleeding (never a problem before - even with that huge ovarian cyst I had which was totally asymptomatic), and also spotting for 4-7 days before my period and random days inbetween. My periods have always been and still are regular, despite all this recent spotting. The progesterone cream has helped my emotional well being but not the period problems.

I only began to suspect PCOS when my hormone profile came back with high free testosterone and low SHBG, and my HDL was low with a high LDL. I had been getting sparse darker hairs on my upper lip and chin and belly, but really not bad enough to alert me to PCOS, and acne too (which I've always had to some degree but is getting much worse now), still didn't think of PCOS.

The most interesting thing about that article above is at the very, very beginning of my trial of stressor after stressor, I had developed a single, huge ovarian cyst (from all I've read, completely unrelated to PCOS) which I had to have major surgery for. Since then, I had another surgery for a very rare disease called Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis X (also theoretically not PCOS related). Interesting that in addition to cortisol levels being elevated by stress, apparently physical injury (surgery being a major "injury") causes a huge increase in cortisol. So, any stress I was already having was amplified by both surgeries and health problems I was having during those times. A maladaptive snowball affect.

Who knows! I do know that just over a year ago, half way through my really hard times, I had gotten obese (5'4" 183 pounds) and developed hypertension which I am still on meds for, though I have since lost 22 pounds by diet, exercise. At that time, my cholesterol levels were terrible and my CRP 4.1 indicating at the age of 28 I was 5 times more likely to have a heart attack in 10 years than someone with normal levels. That all scared me, and so I started making strides to better my health. But the stress continued and got much worse! Despite all that, my cholesterol is now better (though I did mention the not so good HDL/LDL ratio is still outta wack). I am still overweight and have hit a plateau for the last 6 months (ironically, the same time all the aforementioned symptoms emerged) at 160 pounds which now I suspect is Insulin Resistance related to PCOS.

Sorry this is sooo long. I am seeing an endocrinologist in a week and hopefully this will help me wrap my head around what's been going on inside me for so long that I didn't have time/energy to do when life was so hard before. Just sharing. God bless!