Becoming a Cyster March 21, 2010

As I said in my other post, I was diagnosed with PCOS at 17, but we suspected I had PCOS for a little over a year before that. What happened was, while we were living in Tennessee my mother discovered I wasn’t having periods. Now this had been going on for some time, and she really hadn’t noticed because I have three older sisters so all the female supplies were being used. When she found out I hadn’t had a period in more than a year she took me to the doctor. After asking a ton of questions the doctor handed my mom a single sheet of paper that had a brief description of PCOS as well as the suggested treatment options. Then the doctor scheduled an ultra-sound to see if I had cysts. This doctor didn’t order any blood work as far as I remember, just the ultra-sound. So I went and had it down and it showed no cysts. So the doctor decided, as 99.9% of doctors do in Tennessee for young women, that she would prescribe birth control and I’d be just fine. Didn’t do the blood tests that were mentioned on the sheet, didn’t talk about the other medications.

Well mom wasn’t exactly happy with this and since we knew we were going to be moving in about a year we waited. Well we moved to Iowa that summer in late June, early July. I started school, got a job, and was pretty much a hermit for the first half of the year. Then in February she made an appointment with a local family practitioner, Dr. Holsinger. We went in, got all the paperwork done to establish me as his patient and did the whole family history thing. Well when the doctor comes in to see me mom tells him what the doctor in Tennessee said and why we hadn’t gotten me treatment there. So he asks me all the same questions as the other doctor did and then he immediately puts me on birth control along with ordering blood tests to see what my hormone levels and other things were doing. He also explained that after the tests came back we’d decide on where to go next, he also wanted to see me in a month to make sure we didn’t need to change the birth control dose. Well about a week later we get a call about the tests, I was showing all the levels that pointed to PCOS (I can’t remember what all the tested). So after about a month we went back in, and he put me on Metformin. Again we waited a month and he ordered some more tests about a week before I was supposed to come in again to check my potassium levels along with my insulin levels. The showed normal so at the next visit he put me on Spironolactone. And again we waited another month. At the next visit he said he didn’t need to see me for another six months and that I’d lost weight. Over that summer I lost 21 pounds, and went from a size 20 womens to a size 18 regular. Then the weightloss stopped and I’ve stayed in the 230 pound range ever since.

So anyway, now I’m 21, and I still take all three of the medications and they’ve helped with my symptoms. Though when I moved out here to Montana I had a bit of trouble finding a decent doctor. And I still get questions from people who see what medications I take, “Are you diabetic?” No I have PCOS, “Oh is that like Borderline Diabetes?” Not really. Get’s a bit annoying when people haven’t heard of something that I know is becoming more and more common, or at least more and more recognized, in women.

Barbara