“You don’t look like you have PCOS,” said a doctor during a routine visit. I was a new patient and was bringing him up to speed on my medical history
Thank you.” I took what he said as a compliment, after all, what he meant without actually saying it was I didn’t resemble most patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) because I wasn’t overweight. At the time of the appointment I was carrying 140 pounds on my 5’4″ frame, placing me on the high end of a normal weight. What he didn’t know was I used to be a twig of a woman, weighing in at 105 pounds soaking wet.
I was diagnosed with PCOS years earlier by an OB/GYN I was seeing when my husband and I realized we were going to have a rough time getting pregnant. A transvaginal ultrasound was negative for the tell-tale cysts, but my free testosterone was slightly elevated. Elevated testosterone and anovulation are all that was needed to label me as having PCOS, which is why the disorder is also called “functional ovarian hyperandrogenism.”
It is estimated that as many as 10 percent of women have the disorder (some more conservative estimates say between 4 and 7 percent). It is a leading cause of infertility nationwide. Symptoms include irregular menstrual periods, infertility from anovulation, increased hair growth, acne, obesity and skin tags. Other than the irregular cycles and infertility, I was by no means a text book case.
Get the Diagnosis
The complicated thing about being thin and having PCOS is it is harder to get those in the medical community to treat you seriously. I floundered about from doctor to doctor and underwent numerous tests (often repeats of the same tests) until I finally found one to take me seriously. Remember, obesity is only one sign of PCOS.
If you think you may have PCOS, ask your doctor to test for it. He or she may look at you a bit funny, but that’s okay. Treating PCOS is very important, as having PCOS does put you at an increased risk for other diseases, like diabetes. Or, if like me, your goal is to get pregnant, you’ll want to explore options as soon as possible.
Get it Under Control
Many believe that PCOS is caused by insulin resistance, which causes your body to gain and retain excess weight (especially around the middle). A lot of women have gotten control of their PCOS through special low-carb, low-glycemic diets.
There is a popular book called “The Insulin Resistance Diet” by Cheryle R. Hart M.D and Mary Kay Grossman R.D. that offers great advice on controlling insulin resistance (and therefore PCOS) through diet.
Like a lot of women, I also had a lot of luck on the drug Metformin. Metformin is a drug frequently prescribed for type 2 diabetics. This drug helped my body get my insulin levels under control and soon regular cycles returned.
For me, I could not shed the pounds no matter how hard I tried, I never tested positive for insulin resistance, but the fact that I lost weight through diet and Metformin leads me to believe that my insulin levels were unbalanced for me, even if they fit within the realm of “normal” by medical standards. Through this, my weight returned to a twig-like state and I ended up getting pregnant.
