My name is Steph and I'm 25 years old. I am 5'5, 114 lbs. I haven't been diagnosed with PCOS yet, but I've been doing a lot of research and I can't imagine what else it could possibly be. I go to my doctor in 2 weeks (for the first time in 4 years).
Here's my story:
I got my first period when I was 13 years old (yes, I'm a late bloomer). I never had any complaints about menstruating; no pms at all aside from tender breasts and the occassional pimple. My cycles were like clockwork.
I became pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl when I was 19. After the birth, I bled for 9 weeks which stuck me as a little odd, but I didn't know any better and so didn't mention it to anyone. When I went for my 6-week check-up, my OB-GYN told me he didn't do follow-up PAPs and that I should make an appointment with my family doctor to get one done...I never did (the last PAP I had was when I was 3 months pregnant, is that bad?) I breastfed her for 6 months and approximately 4 months after that I went to my doctor to talk about my birth control options. I told him I was thinking about depo provera and I walked out with a perscription...no questions asked.
I was very excited at first. I was looking forward to getting no periods and I felt very responsible. Then the bleeding started. I referred to it as my reverse cycle, because I would bleed for 28 days and have 7 days off. This went on for 9 months. Stupid, I know, but every time I thought to myself, "the bleeding will stop with the next injection". Right after my 3rd injection, a lot of things started happening at once. I was getting these awful sinus headaches that made me very nauseous and caused me to vomit on a daily basis. I stopped eating to avoid the vomiting and I began taking sinus medication several times a day to aleviate the nausea. I lost a lot of weight and went down to less than 100 lbs. I was also very cold all the time. Every day at about 1 pm, my heart would start racing and I would get very dizzy and light headed. I would sit down on the couch to rest for just a minute, and I would wake up 2 hours later. This was very scary because I was alone at home with my 1 year old daughter who would often be the one to wake me up. This is when I decided to get off of the depo. When I told my doctor I wasn't going to be taking it any more, he told me that he had never heard of any of that happening before and I got the impression he thought I was making it up.
After being off of the depo for about a year, I started noticing painful clusters of lumps in my armpits that would appear close to the start of my cycle and go away when it was done. After about 4 months of this, I decided to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic because I couldn't get an appointment with mine. The doctor shrugged it off and told me to stop shaving there. Shortly after I finally saw a doctor, my face started breaking out (I never had acne, even as a teenager). The acne was only on my chin and around my mouth and would not go away, no matter what I did. Soon after, hair started growing on my face and stomach and I was plagued with cronic yeast infections. The dizziness and lightheadedness never went away.
I'm not overweight and my cycles are between 26 - 33 days long. I haven't been trying to get pregnant, so I don't know if I could or not. It is possible that I'm not ovulating, but I don't know for sure...only thing I'm going by is the fact that when I was on the depo I bled for 9 months straight, and I wasn't ovulating then because I didn't get pregnant and was not using any other protection.
I'm so sorry this is so long. I just want to know if anyone else has gone through what I have. Am I jumping to conclusions in thinking that this is PCOS? I just can't think of what else it could be. Did anyone else start showing symptoms after being on depo provera? Any advice or info is greatly appreciated.
You should find another doctor and ask to be tested for PCOS. As to all the bleeding, could have been an infection, or PCOS. Hard to say... if your doctor thinks you were making things up, he/she doesn't sound like a good doctor and I'd move on.
I've never been on the depo shot, but my mom has been. She stopped taking it because she couldn't afford to go for it, and would bleed for months at a time. She's back on it, despite my constant attempts to try and get her off of it and on something else. She ignores her symptoms and continues to get worse with health.
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I am new here too and not Dx'd with PCOS but have many of the Sx.
I too was curious about depo-provera. I had constant break-through bleeding (not period heavy at all but a bit more than spotting) right after the first injection. I kept getting the injections because they said the bleeding would go away. I did this for about a year. Half way through they also put me on a progesterone pill to help with the spotting, which did, when I was compliant with taking the pill. I started putting on weight and then decided to stop the depo-provera and the pill. I went commando for a few years and my cycle soon went back to normal, and even better than before I was on depo.
Prior to depo my periods were regualr and would last 5-6 days and I would get slight PMS and menstrual cramping, nothing bad. After going off depo my periods were only 2-3 days and light, with no PMS, still regualar. It went on this way for a couple of years until I got a copper IUD and the heavier, longer periods came back, but still regular.
Two years after going off depo I started packing on weight and also had a huge (not PCOS related) ovarian cyst. Started with mild PMS, mild acne and all that has gotten worse the older I get, now leading me to question whether I have PCOS too. No Hx of pregnancy. anyway, just wanted to let you know I question the long term effects of having been on depo-provera too!
Your symptoms sound like an adverse reaction to depo. It can take a long time to get out of your system. There could be some PCOS there too, and I definitely think you should see a gyne to check your hormone levels. Good luck figuring out the problem.
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