interesting comment from the doc

osmom · 05-15-2008, 06:56 PM

This was new to me. I was chatting w/the doc about all these horrible symptoms we have and he informed me that in his experience, typically the worst of it for women is sometime during their 20's, gets better but not gone during their 30's, and for most women the damage is done around 45 w/out it getting much worse. I thought "kill me" that means i have 12 more years of the potential for these symptoms to get worse. I have been feeling better lately, still dealing with the dreaded chin hair, but wow, my hair is still thin, but I have regrown a ton of baby hairs that if they will get thicker, I will look like a different person. Now, I'm depressed again. According to him, most PCOS women experience a 20-30 year "window" of dealing with the worst of the symptoms. HOLY COW!!! Have any of your docs ever said anything like this?

Purple_monkfish · 05-17-2008, 11:02 AM

All my doc ever said (and he's an idiot so I hardly take much heed in anything he says) was that PCOS tended to get worse with age. Suffice to say, that didn't help my mood.

I think hair growth particularly can get worse, my chin hairs have gotten more and more prevailant as i've gotten older but since I started shaving they've stopped being so much of an issue. That said, I do have to shave pits/legs and belly every two days thanks to super fast hair growth.. grrrr. I think it's something we just have to get used to and deal with however we can.

Guess we'll have to wait and see who was right aye? fingers crossed things improve!

JosieFB · 05-17-2008, 12:41 PM

My experience was that I had hair on my belly by the time I was 12. The hair on my arms turned dark, and I started getting stray chin & neck hair in my mid-20s. It stayed about the same until I hit my mid-40s. I gained 30 pounds in a year, acanthosis nigracans appeared under my arms and my facial and arm hair got worse. I was diagnosed in my mid-40s, started Met and Spiro, took Yaz for a year, and had laser hair removal. The hair on my arms is muchy lighter, and I don't have many dark hairs left on my face. I still have some coarse white hair and I think I have too much fine blonde hair, but I may just be OCD when it comes to the facial hair.

Even women without PCOS get dark hairs on their face after menopause.

lizcharles · 05-17-2008, 12:53 PM

it makes sense that it gets better with age. as you get older you produce less androgens, so by the time we hit our 40's we will probably have the androgens of a person in their 20's. in the book "PCOS the hidden epidemic" he talks about how women with PCOS tend to have really easy menopause because we dont experience the drastic drop in estrogen and testostrone, because we have too much to begin with.

etuc · 05-17-2008, 01:25 PM

I hope he is right, I will be 45 soon and am the hairiest I have ever been! It has been progressing rapidly since my 30s, if I didn't shave I'd look like an ape.

Eva37 · 05-17-2008, 01:37 PM

not heard this before. But my hair got worse in my 20s and 30s. Until i started spiro etc
eva

osmom · 05-17-2008, 01:45 PM

i gues in the grand scheme of things, it's different for everyone. my doc definitely believes, though, that pcosers see the worst of the symptoms by around 45. if i understood him correctly, i think he meant that whatever my symptoms were like by my mid 40's is what i would put up with for the rest of my life. my symptoms aren't terrible now, but i have to admit, i live in fear most of the time. and he definitely didn't make me feel better, because if what he believes is even remotely correct, i have many years ahead of me before i can even hope that the symptoms will at least stay what they are. oh, pcos is sooo much fun.

DalaiMama · 05-18-2008, 07:54 PM

I am 42 and I have found what your doctor said to be generally true, meaning that nothing has really gotten worse since I was in my 20s. Also, I had twins when I was 36 and nursed them for 2.5 years, and that normalized my periods for a while - so perhaps that was a factor in things not progressing. I am pretty aggressive about managing my PCOS with diet, exercise, and supplements, but I don't take any drugs.

pal · 05-19-2008, 03:38 AM

I've "been there, done that" already, since I'm age 55 and post menopause. My PCOS was diagnosed early (in my early 30s) but never really treated because at that time they didn't really know too much about it. So, I can (sort of) agree with the doctor, based on my personal experiences.

I'd say the excess hair problem stayed pretty much the same since my teen years. Certainly didn't get better after menopause. I did laser on my face in my 50s, which really helped my self esteem. Still get some long white hairs (which I pluck out) since the laser can only kill off the darker hairs.

My weight and skin were at it's worse during my teens and early 20s. I had AN patches at that time, so was most likely borderline IR, although it didn't show up as full blown diabetes (which doctors checked for at that time).

My skin got worse again around menopause...it wasn't acne at this point, but my skin had a major change...suddenly much dryer, lots more skin tags, very sensitive to everything (foods,makeup, soaps, shampoo, etc.) I also started to lose hair on my scalp (which was a first for me) and my scalp itself got worse.

My AF issues were at the worst during my 30s, even though my weight was pretty good. I had two kids with natural conception in my early 40s. The ovarian cysts themselves are now gone, which I attribute to lots of regular exercise (I developed a pretty healthy lifestyle around age 30, probably trying to get this condition under control!) Fertility issues tend to get better as you age, according to most medical info, so my experience may be typical. Both of my pregnancies were complicated, in my opinion, by PCOS, but no doctor ever asked me about it and I didn't know to mention it. I was able to breast feed for a long time, but looking back, think my own health (but not the baby's) suffered because my insulin was unstable. (I had to have a large cyst surgically removed.)

I got really bad hypoglycemic attacks around menopause, although I wasn't officially IR. I was very tired sometimes, often in the evening after dinner or if I ate lots of carbs. The meds really helped me to establish a constant energy level.

I had horrible mood swings as a teen (which wasn't helped by my mom's less than helpful attitude towards my health and weight issues!) I had depression and other problems throughout my 20s, stabilized somewhat in my 30s, was overjoyed and happy to be a mom in my 40s, so that took care of lots of mood issues! (even though I was sometimes pretty sick physically), and then had the biggest mood swings of my life at menopause, which was pretty scary because my life was pretty stable and I was generally settled and happy. Due to the mood swings I found out that I was probably bi-polar (another PCOS related symptom) and went on mood meds and Met.

I'm feeling pretty good currently, have regular exercise built into my life, wish I had started the meds earlier, work hard to try to stay on an IR diet, and I worry about heart disease (which seems to be a problem of PCOS as you age.) Hope this long range perspective gives others a bit of insight!

DalaiMama · 05-20-2008, 12:23 AM

Wow, Pal, thanks so much for taking the time to post that. It's so hard to find this perspective from post-menopausal women with PCOS. How wonderful that you were able to have your daughters naturally!

osmom · 05-20-2008, 01:14 PM

Honestly, sometimes I feel at a loss with the whole thing. My lack of periods was around age 18-maybe 20 or 21. The doc told me i would probably not be able to have babies. I had terrible body hair at the time, but no face hair really. I started taking saw palmetto and it regulated my periods and the body hair went away, but now it's on my chin. (which for me having it on my face is worse.) I have a daughter, I have been regular on the periods for 10 years or so, ovulate every month (confirmed) and i'm told by doc i am almost too thin. my hair is thin, but flaxseed oil is helping. i guess with the reg periods, ovulating, and not being overweight, i struggle with how to help myself. i do take herbs. I love them and always will. It's no wonder our docs don't always know how to help us, when our symptoms seem so different.