Hi everyone! My name is /Theresa /Soules and when I found this site I just about pooped myself I laughed so hard! I am a triplet and we are often called the soules sisters or soulsisters for short. What an awesome coincidence!
I would just like to finally come to it and share my story since I have been reading your forums for about 2 weeks now.
My triplet sisters and I thought we were "fat" growing up even though our mom and friends ensured us we were "normal". Now that I look back on it, I'd LOVE to be my old weight and I was pretty dang thin! Well, since 5/6th grade our periods have been normal. Once a month or so and lasted fairly heavily for about a week. We started gaining weight as soon as we hit puberty but not drastically. It wasn't until I hit 184 lbs my junior year of HS that I decided I wanted to lose wieght. I remember that the low-carb diet was very new and my mom also wanted to try it. I remember starting on Valentine's Day (must have been a depressing day-ha!) and we dieted hard until spring break 3 weeks later when we took a family trip to Florida. After that I felt great and continued to lose a few pounds though never had a scale around to find out what I weighed. Right around this time I started to have problems with my "beard". How traumatizing to have a beard...but my mom insisted that it could just be from losing wieght and reaching the end of puberty, etc. I went along with it for years. Back to junior year though...Then I spent my first year in drum corps with my sisters. We have been marching in Capital Sound drum and bugle corps out of Madison for 4 years now. For those of you that know this activity, you know that the average person loses 15-30 pounds over the summer due to all of the exercise and such. Well, it happened. We all lost 20 pounds or so and I felt incredible. Over the course of my senior year I gained some of it back and lost that great tan that hid my facial hair pretty well but what did I care? Another summer was right around the corner. We then entered our 2nd summer in Cap Sound. This time I was lucky enough to be chosen to be the assistant drum major of the corps. Now, instead of running around a field playing a high energy workout of a show on baritone I was standing on the sidelines conducting. I still managed to lose a little weight and get tan but not nearly as much as my first year. My sister Becky had problems with her arm and knee and ended up not performing in our last show let alone marching the many preceeding it. My other sister Liz was marching baritone again and managed to lose some weight too but again not as much. We had some problems that year involving the director which created much unneeded stress in the following off season.
The three of us had just entered our first semester of college. I was in student health services my second week of classes because I had felt so tired and had no appetite, with swollen glands. Turns out I had mono which boggled my mind because I didn't have a sore throat or anything but...whatever, I guess I know better now. So, with my loss of apetite with the mono I had lost some more weight and was close to my lowest weight since early high school. Well, I rested and soon was over the mono. Then we found out that Capital Sound was being "dissolved" by it's previous organization so we spent many of our weekends driving to Madison to try to change this. We ended up starting a whole new organization and buying the corps and having to start from scratch...a stressful process. We had no money and little members. To save you some time, since it's not really related I'll skip over that and just say by the end of the summer things turned around completely and we had gotten to march in our favorite corps and are back at it now and everything is going great. But why I brought this up is because after we were dissolved, we became REALLY stressed. We would comfort ourselves by going to Perkins and Taco Bell. We would eat ALL the time. Now, honestly the soules sisters have always been carb-o-holics but the 'rents kept our diets in check. Who's not around when you're in college? The parents! So we ate, ATE, ATE! And it showed...we blimped out and yes, it bothered us and we constantly were attempting and failing diets and freakin' now it was starting to mess up our periods we thought. Over last summer I got a period every few weeks it seemed and they lasted for about a day. My sisters starting having problems with their's before me and would go for weeks and weeks without a period. S
So here we are, entering our sophomore year of college, overweight, hairy, and stressed about it. Becky went in to student health to see if maybe she had mono because she was tired and her neck felt swollen. Her neck being swollen we now are pretty sure has to do with her enlarged thyroid gland which is a whole other long story in itself. While she was there they found that her cholesterol was high, blood sugar was high, triglycerides were high and she is "quite overweight". Well she had a few more appointments while they tested her thyroid and a series of things and the last appointment Liz and I went with. Right when they were about to send us away saying we were just fat and tired the doctor mentioned something about PCOS but dropped it almost immediately. After trying to get her to answer some questions, which was like pulling teeth, she finally reveiled a whole list of symptoms that come with PCOS. Once she saw our faces as she listed the symptoms, and all of the nodding in agreement, she told us to see a gyno and endo asap and she's interested to see the results but basically isn't smart enough to figure it out herself.
Ok, so then after looking online a bunch I realized I, and my sisters on nearly all, have the following symptoms:
Weight gain
Facial hair
Skin tabs
Dark, velvety skin patch near armpit
Irregular period
Oily skin, dandruff (we use dandruff shampoo every day and it's bad!)
I passed a whole bunch of online tests for being insulin resistant
the weight I have gained had almost all been upper body. I have a fricken Man gut.
And stress causing some odd mood swings.
We are waiting until January for our parents insurance to renew before we go to the gyno in town. In the meantime, it's hard to exercise when it's 20 degrees out with snow so we have been just low-carb dieting and exercises what we can. Since dieting for almost 2 weeks now, I got my period for the first time in 3 months and though I hate periods, I feel relieved. I hope there are meds we can take for the hair and such because I hate plucking and Nair.
I will keep you all updated on our journey through this dang PCOS.
Thanks for having such a wonderful, helpful forum!!
Theresa Soules
__________________ Truly a soulcyster/soules sister.
If you're looking for low carb help, check out Diet & Exercise. There's lots of support there for you and your sisters. I recommend the IR Diet. Check out my sig for my diet plan.
Christa
__________________ Age:37
Dx PCOS Nov 1999, Dx To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Nov 2000
Med free since Feb 2001.
Brief stint on Woman's Precious Jan-Feb 2004--no results.
Eating Snickers for breakfast on To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. , and it's working!
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To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. - See Section 2.10 for blood tests and normal values.
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SoulCyster since August 2001
Quote:
"Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end." -Unknown
Hey it's great you found this site! I hope you find it as informative and helpful as I have
I'm a huge drum corp fan, though I never was in one (though I wanted to be). I marched all through HS and in college some, though, and my boyfriend during the time was in the Blue Devils.
__________________
Leila (28), DH (32) Darling girl E - 4/27/05 Darling boy N - 4/1/08
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Just want to say a warm welcome from the UK And thanks so much for taking the time to share your story with us - please take time to look through all the forums to find any anwers you need and good luck with the doctors in the New Year...any questions, please ask away.
Hey there Theresa, thanks for sharing your story! A lot of what you related makes total sense to me....I'm a senior in college and have just recently been diagnosed a few months ago. I was in marching band for three years in high school and three years in college. During those years were really the only times that I lost substantial weight...instead of gaining the freshman 15, I lost about 20! But I had to quit this past year due to several health problems...since I quit I gained back all the weight plus some. Luckily, I've started seeing a nutritionist and am now back to the weight I was freshman year, which is the lowest weight I've been in almost 8 years!
Anyways, point is I understand the stress and stuff you're going through. (Funny, I also am a multiple...have a twin sister!) The student health system is SO frustrating...I didn't get diagnosed until I went to my regular doc under my parents insurance.
Hopefully, you and your sisters get all the help you need and aren't too stressed with school. I'm glad you have your sisters to lean on! My twin is fraternal and doesn't have PCOS, so she doesn't really understand.
Alright, talk to you later!
-Dances
__________________ Guildenstern: You can't not be on a boat. Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats. Guildenstern: No, no... What you've been is not on boats.
-"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"
"My school colors were clear. We used to say, "I'm not naked, I'm in the band.'"-Steven Wright
I'm new and what an ironic site name this is... 
So another wisconsin cyster! I hope you find all the info that you need! Good luck with a new Dr.!!
Luckily, I've started seeing a nutritionist and am now back to the weight I was freshman year, which is the lowest weight I've been in almost 8 years! 
