| Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: The Great Pacific Northwest
Posts: 16
My Mood:  Points: 1,333.86 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 1,333.86 |  New Cyster in Washington State
Hello everyone. First, I want to say I am very pleased to have found such a wonderful support site. All your stories I've been reading, and everyone battling PCOS has inspired me and makes me feel less alone. I am now working up the courage to write to y'all.
I've always been somewhat of a hypochondriac. So much, that I neglected my care for years. I had irregular periods, obesity, small amounts of hair growing in places they shouldn't be growing on a woman...yet I brushed it off to "stress and I need to lose weight." While, I know stress and obesity are factors in my everyday life, strictly losing weight and eliminating stress would not cure me from PCOS.
I was just diagnosed last week and I already knew the diagnosis. I didn't even learn of PCOS until a year ago when I started researching fertility. Well, September 06-May 07, I kept gaining weight and my husband and I stopped using protection, but I never got pregnant. But then again, I had maybe 3 cycles.
June of 2007, I joined weight watchers. Dropping the first 35 lbs made me have 2 cycles back to back for the first time in years. I then skipped a month, and started taking FertilAid. 2 weeks later, October 8th, AF showed. I felt I could no longer deny the obvious, my hormones were out of whack and I just didn't feel right.
I have an over-obsessive attitude about cancer and terminal illness. I was convinced my years of irregular periods, ignoring paps and pelvic exams had led me to not only have PCOS, but Uterine cancer and/or cervical cancer as well.
I found a caring, compassionate nurse/midwife who has SO much experience in PCOS. She scheduled me for 90 minutes of her time, the appointment lasted well over 2 hours.
She said I do have some of the classic symptoms of PCOS, she looked over my blood work from my primary physician from July and said my cholesterol, glucose, triglycerides and thyroid were fine, but with me being obese and having some of the classic traits, she was pretty sure it was PCOS, although thank god she said it was one of the more mild cases she'd seen.
I still started crying, saying I was sure I had endometrial/uterine/cervical cancer. She didn't tell me I was crazy, but wanted to rule it out for me. Although she said uterine cancer is RARE for women under 40, there was still a possibility of endometrial hyperplasia, that left untreated, could lead to cancer down the road. So I said, fine, whatever you want, I will do it.
She did the pap smear and manual pelvic exam, and I felt some sense of accomplishment. This was something for years, I couldn't bring myself to do. I was facing my fear head on.
A good thing came out of the manual pelvic exam, she said my cervix felt fine and my uterus moved a lot and felt normal. She said because of my weight, it would be harder to feel my ovaries, but IF she could feel my ovaries, she'd know they were swollen/enlarged. She could not feel my ovaries. So, she's sending me for a pelvic U/S to check the thickness of my endometrial stripe due to irregular periods and to check for Polycystic Ovaries. She fully expects, or so she says, that it will come back just fine and not need further testing for CANCER, but possibly just show PCOS.
She also did a UA, found out I've had a bladder infection since my regular doctor failed to diagnose me, in July! I had blood and bacteria in my urine from July and my doctor never even mentioned it. She did another urine sample and still had the same problem. She checked everything under the microscope to rule out bacterial vaginitis, and said it was just a bladder infection that my doc didn't treat, so she gave me antibiotics for that.
She then gave me an Rx for bloodwork, to test all my hormones.
Finally, she started me on Metformin 500mg 2xd. Today is my first day on it, and I feel fine. Tomorrow I am getting bloodwork, and Wednesday is my ultrasound. My pap results should be back anyday. I am just sort of waiting and worrying and scared of what the future will bring.
My husband and I want to conceive a child SO bad, and I know PCOS makes it SO much harder. The nurse/midwife was optimistic for me, and said with Metformin, if it didn't get me ovulating and pregnant after 6 months, then she would add Clomid. She also told me to keep taking FertilAid, as it appears to be working, and to keep losing weight, staying active, drinking lots of water and eating right.
I am just scared - scared that I may have waited to long to ask for help, scared that I may NOT be okay. I am 26 years old and I just want to focus on my future baby, but I don't know if I can. I am disappointed in myself, but proud at the same time, that I finally did it. The range of emotions is almost too much to handle.
Thank God for my supportive husband, friends and family and for this forum. I know I've sat here and talked about myself, I just really needed to vent and let it all out, to people who understand. Thank you for listening and I promise to pay it forward and listen and help other people too.
-Sadie |
