Newbie here!!

Estrella85 · 04-17-2009, 12:31 PM

My PCOS story

Hello all, I’m new here. I’m 23 years old, and I’ve suspected I had PCOS for about 2 years, but I was “officially” diagnosed with it yesterday.

I first came across PCOS when I was googling hair loss for women. My hair was never thick, I’ve always had very fine hair, but it used to be a FULL head of fine hair. I started noticing that I could see my scalp when my hair was wet or unwashed, that my ponytails were super thin, and basically most hairstyles didn’t work for me because my hair had gotten so thin. Then I came across an article that explained that PCOS could be a cause of hair loss. I had all the other symptoms too: hirsutism, very irregular menstrual cycles, inability to lose weight despite a relatively healthy diet, most of my excess weight in my stomach, fatigue, etc. I was happy I had found the apparent cause for my problems, and figured my dr could easily correct it.

Not so fast. My first ob/gyn basically brushed off my main 2 concerns, hair loss and infertility. She said there’s really not much you can do for pcos, and that I shouldn’t worry about infertility until I was ready for children (I was unmarried and still in college at this time). So I took her advice, as my symptoms grew worse and worse. By this time I had graduated college, got married, and decided to try to have children. Frustrated, I switched ob/gyns about a month ago and brought up my concerns to my new dr. She told me, again, that there was nothing I could really do about PCOS but treat the symptoms individually (Nair my face, take provera/clomid for my menstrual cycles/ovulation, etc). I asked about Metformin, but she said that was only for diabetics. She did however, send me in for bloodwork, which turned out that my thyroid was abnormal and referred me to an endo.

The thyroid turned out to be a fluke after the endo did further testing, but I’m so glad it was abnormal that one time or I never would have met with him. He actually cared, and took the time to listen to all my concerns and questions. Finally he asked, “Has anyone ever talked to you about PCOS?” I wanted to jump up and hug him. I answered “No, I’ve tried talking to all my drs about it, but they just brush me off and say there’s nothing I can do about it.” Yesterday, he called me and I was told that everything in my bloodwork was normal except that I have high testosterone, and that I could start Metformin. I literally raced to the pharmacy for my rx, and picked up some evening primroise oil while I was there, since I read that helps with menstruation/ovulation and hair loss. I’m also going to start excercising regularly and follow a low carb/low gi diet. I hope this helps me. My main main issue, the one that stresses me out and makes me cry like a baby is the hair loss. The hirsutism, messed up cycles, and weight gain I can deal with. But NOT the hair. It seriously depresses me. I am going to go buy Nizoral shampoo, Nioxin, and Rogaine for women today. If all else fails, I will try a hair transplant. I still have “most” of my hair, but it’s soooo thin, my part is wide, and when I pull it back I have to check with a mirror from all angles to make sure I don’t have scalp showing anywhere. If I hear one more woman complaining about their “poofy hair that takes 2 hours to straighten” I think I will probably just die of envy on the spot. UGH!!!

Well that’s my story J