Hello all. I've been lurking on this site for two weeks because I strongly suspect that I may have PCOS. I know they say it's really important not to self diagnose, but I have like...90% of the symptoms and I feel that even if it turns out that I don't have it, this road will help me to become healthier and I'll still want to spread awareness of this syndrome.
My story is like many of yours; in the summer before I turned 13, my chest went from a cup size A to DD. I also gained about fifty pounds. My parents were scared, but thought I was just hitting puberty. But AF didn't arrive until I was 14, and then she wouldn't leave! I was only allowed to struggle on my own messed up menses schedule for eight months before the doctor gave me birth control pills, but the longest AF I had lasted 24 days of heavy bleeding. It stopped for three days, and then started again for another 20.
My doctors were never willing to do any kind of ultrasound or recommend me to anyone who might know what was happening. So as time went by I continued to gain weight on the BCPs despite swimming three to four hours a day in swim team. At the age of 15 my mom sent me to weight loss camp and this is when the acne and dandruff started too. I lost a lot of weight at camp, so much so that the other girls started complaining to the main office and I was kicked out...and all the weight came back.
Three months before my 18th birthday my mom and I decided that I was going to start on Depo Provera because my periods were still heavy; they would come the day I started the placebo pills and wouldn't go away until two days after I had started the hormone pills again. I've been on Depo Provera for 5 years now and the weight gain has stopped, but I'm still 275...
But this is just my history, and now I'm looking to the future. To getting treated and bringing my weight down and maybe, in my 30's perhaps, getting to enjoy all the things I didn't get to in my teenage years.
I'm so glad I found this website. When I started trying to learn more about PCOS, I found countless websites that made me more and more depressed. But you all help each other to stay positive and keep hope and help each other. It's beautiful.
My question is this; my mother and I have discovered that there's been at least four generations of women in my family who have PCOS, two that can't be proven because they're deceased, one that is proven (my mother) and one that is heavily suspected (myself). With these facts and hundreds of other reasons, my husband and I have decided to pursue permanent birth control for me. I've researched a lot of options and I want to get the Essure procedure (non surgical Tubal Ligation). This option would allow for me to pursue the medications I need without fear of an unexpected and dangerous pregnancy. I hope I don't offend anyone who is TTC with this terrible syndrome, I wish you all the best of luck and baby dust to you all; that was simply not the choice I made for me.
So my question to you all is this: For those who have gone through the testing to diagnose PCOS, are there any examinations needed where a blockage of the fallopian tubes would keep the doctor from properly conducting the test? Thank you all who help me to find the answer and I'm so thankful that I found this community.
For the most part the test that are needed are blood work to check your hormone levels and I don't think blocked tubes will mess with that at all. Sometimes Dr's will order an ultrasound of your ovaries, but again that doesn't have to do with blocked tubes... it isn't the most comfortable of procedures but it certainly isn't painful, you drink a ton of water to inflate the bladder for a better view, lay down in a gown on a table while trying not to pee, and then they insert a vaginal wand to get a clear picture of the ovaries. They will also do an ultrasound similar to what they do on pregnant gals. And all of these include pressure on your full bladder... when you finally do get to release your bladder it is the most wonderful feeling of relief!
New with a few questions... 
