A Little History on Me

Hello ~





I have PCOS and all that that entails.





A whole slew of symptoms and chronic illnesses that come with it. I know there are many women out there with the same problems and with different problems. In this blog I would like to talk about all the problems that come with this horrible disease, and maybe we can all help each other.





I know now that this disease starts early in life and until recently went undiagnosed for decades. It's only been recognized in the medical field for a few years, and a lot of doctors still do not recognize it.





When I finally had an answer to my weight problems that would not go away, no matter how much I "dieted" or how many doggone carrot sticks I ate, hardly a pound would drop off of me!!! I went for years being told I ate too much, I ate too many sweets, I sat around being lazy.......it's all your fault...pat me on the back and say you need to loose weight. Well, don't you think I knew that? and don't you think I tried month after month with no results, until I gave up for a while, and then I'd find new gumption, and start dieting again.....with the same results, and higher and higher weights. As a child I went to Dukes Clinic for Children and was put on a strict diet, yes I lost weight, but as with most people once I started doing well, my parents slacked off and being a child who wanted to eat what everyone eats, didn't keep it up. As a child my parents also took me to nutrisystem, same results, I've done the cambridge diet, weight watcher's, Dr. Joyce Virtues Your Image Diet, the cabbage soup diet, Stop the Insanity Diet, and many more......DIETS DO NOT WORK!!!





PCOS is a horrible disease that makes loosing weight very hard, and when you add on the problems that come with PCOS weight loss is nearly impossible. I have managed to loose 100 pounds in three years, which hardly feels like anything. A lot of it being water weight due to a wheat allergy.





I was thin enough in college to snag me a husband. Thank goodness he liked "chunky" girls, I was the thinnest I have ever been when we got married. I had always had horribly heavy periods and they were painful. When I got married I went on birth control pills, and my periods got very light and less painful, and eventually went away. Well as much as I liked this, the pill made into a person I didn't like. I went off the pill, and did not go back to a Gynecologist, mostly because I was living in a different town and just didn't go through the hassle of finding a new Dr. (Besides I don't like Dr.'s very much, they blame everything on my weight, even sore throats....jk... but it felt that way) We used other methods of birth control, and I always had this feeling that something was wrong because I never got pregnant by accident, as so many people do.





Well we quit using any birth control, my periods were very sporadic, and a friend of mine talked me into going to her Dr. This is after I moved back to my home town. Well I liked him very much, he didn't blame anything on my weight, just gently reminded me I better loose it before I get to old because it gets harder to loose with age!





Well he found a giant cyst, the size of a grapefruit on my left ovary. He did a procedure close to an amnio, and drained it, it was full of very clear fluid, he made the comment "You had your very own water tank!" Well within three months it was back. So he decided to do surgery and remove it. Well turns out he had to take half of my ovary and fallopian tube on my left side, because it was diseased, whatever that meant? So my periods returned to normal, and he said it may take us longer to get pregnant but that in no means would it prevent pregnancy. So we go on not really trying hard but definitely not trying to prevent. Well, my Dr. moved out of state. So I didn't bother finding one for a while.





I was a waitress at the time and overheard some customers of mine talking about PCOS, so I inquired who they were and could I have this disease? As it happens she is a nurse practitioner and her specialty is PCOS. So she gave me her card, I set an appt. She diagnosed me with PCOS and referred me to a fertility specialist at Duke. I made an appt. he said he would help me, but felt that I would feel better if I lost some weight first. But he would help me right away if I wanted. Well I would like to loose some first....another year or so passes.





A friend of mine told me about her gyno Dr., who was also a fertility specialist, well I made my appt. He felt I would be better off for my fertility problems with another Dr. So I made the appt. (thank God for health ins. at this time) Okay this Dr. gives me the run down.....meanest Dr I've ever been too. He tells me I'm cute as a button, but he wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole.....not at my weight, I could die, so could a baby....no wonder my husband couldn't get me pregnant, his equipment wasn't long enough because I was so big, on and on like this. He does go on to give me a vaginal ultrasound, a list of things to start doing, and a pat on the back with "loose weight and come back"





Back to square one.





So I work on the list but declare to never go back to him. I keep working another year goes by....I tell a customer of mine that I am considering Bariatric surgery...even though I personally know of three people that have had it and lost weight very quickly at first, but slowly gained it all back as they ate more and more and stretched their stomachs back out, and one person who was a customer died on the operating table while having the weight loss surgery. But I am desperate and don't know what else to do.....she begs me to try her Dr. before I go that route. So I make the appt. I immediately love this Dr. and will stick with her, I know I do not do things as quickly as she would like I am slow to follow....but I can tell she really cares about the person, not just the file # and the paycheck. So here i am three years later 100 pounds lighter, and still trudging ahead, I have a lot of the problems and chronic illness' that come with PCOS, but I trying.



With this blog I hope to help and get help telling about all the things that PCOS entails.