pandoura

Hello all,
Just thought I would introduce myself and share my story. My name is Casey and I'm 22 years old. I consider myself lucky to have been diagnosed as early as I have been. Some women go for years and years before finally getting their answers. I am hopeful that having been diagnosed so early will help my chances at success with coping with this devastating disorder.

My journey with PCOS began at the ripe age of 15. I was rushed to the emergency room with what doctors believed to be a "teratoma", which is a benign tumor that can you can be born with on your ovaries. I was rushed in for surgery to remove the tumor, but my surgeon was surprised to find that there wasn't a tumor at all, but rather an enormous cyst that had ruptured. He did not remove the ovary, but instead recommended that I be placed on the bcp. Blessing at the time, however it masked my symptoms until the age of 20.

At age 20, I moved out on my own for the first time, and being the adult that I was, I was dropped from my mother's health care plan... oops! I decided to not get insurance on my own to save money, and could not afford to continue taking the bcp. This is what would begin my journey leading to diagnosis.

In a matter of months, I began skipping periods and had put on an ENORMOUS amount of weight. Approximately 80 pounds to be exact. I was tired and sluggish ALL of the time, and being in nursing school, I did some research and decided that perhaps I had a thyroid condition. I called and made an appointment with my GP and asked if he'd see me. At my appt, he told me that he thought my problems were weight related... even though I explained that the weight was completely a shock to me. He did agree, however, after many minutes of pleading to check my thyroid levels and do some blood work. A few weeks later I was phoned the results that I dreaded, my results were completely normal. Devastated, I decided that perhaps he was right and made it my mission to shed some weight and see if that would help.

In May of 2008, I began a new relationship, and as most women do, I wanted to look my best. It was the motivation I needed to drop the excess weight. I began to drop significant weight as soon as I stopped eating. I would fast for days on end. I knew it wasn't healthy for me, but I was beginning to feel somewhat better, and had gotten a "normal" period for the first time in months. By the time I began eating regularly again, I had lost 55 lbs. As I began to eat again, I slowly started putting the weight back on, but this time only about 15 lbs. My periods had returned though, so I assumed that perhaps my doctor was right. Beginning in August of 08, though, those thoughts changed.

I had been having regular periods, and cycles, until August when I skipped a period. Knowing that I had been regular for months, I went to drugstore and bought a hpt. Negative. Phew! Just assumed that it was a freak accident, and went on. I went 2 months with no cycle and made an appt with a local nurse practicioner to have blood work drawn to see what was going on. In October of 2008, my fiance and I were scared, but thrilled, to find out that I was PREGNANT! I was so shocked. Two days before Christmas, I began bleeding heavily and had severe pain. He rushed me to the ER, just days after we announced our news at a family dinner, to find out that I was having a miscarriage. It went downhill from there.

I went 3 months after the miscarriage with no cycle, and began to have other strange symptoms I could not account for. My hair was falling out, and I had sprouted black, coarse hairs on my neck and chin. I was horrified. I was moody, crabby, *****y (pardon the language) and EXTREMELY tired all of the time. On the 27th of March, my period finally began.... and went on, and on, and on, until I finally called and made an appointment with an OB/GYN. All in all, my cycle lasted until the 28th of May. TWO MONTHS of bleeding. During this period, I began looking online to see what I could turn up and found a PCOS information site. You could have put my picture by the symptoms. There were symptoms listed that I had not even THOUGHT would be related, but ones I had none the less. I went to the appointment optimistic to finally get an answer, but instead of being pushy, I decided to see what he said before I asked about PCOS. He came in, did the examination, and after I got dressed he came right in, flopped down and said to me that he had interned with a reproductive endocrinologist, and that he was 99% sure I had a condition known as PCOS... "Have you ever heard of that?", he asked. YES!! Was the answer! I was so excited to finally have the answer I was looking for. I was placed back on the bcp, as we are still coping from our loss and do not wish to get pregnant right now, and I am just now on week 4 of my first round of pills. I am thrilled to report that for the past week, I have had energy, lost 9 lbs this month, and I feel all around better. I feel like Casey again. No more mood swings, no more sleepiness. It's like someone handed me my life back! He told me that there can and probably will be complications with pregnancy, but that if I use this time to get my PCOS under control, it will help tremendously. He didn't elect to start me on Metformin, but said that if the bcp didn't help completely, we would try it in a few months.

Anyway... that brings me to today. I wish all of you the very best of luck in your journies, and look forward to reading, getting, as well as giving, information to all of you. We will get through this together!

Thanks for reading!!!! =)