A Question About Teeth June 9, 2010

So I have a question for you all. Do you have teeth problems? I mean do you seem to get cavities or chips in your teeth at the drop of a hat? I do, and it didn’t start until after I hit puberty and had all my adult teeth. I’ve had something like 14-16 cavities filled and recently one of my lower front teeth chipped while I was just sitting there chewing at my lip a little bit. Now I’m not the best at keeping up with brushing my teeth or flossing or doing the whole mouth wash thing. But I do actually do it when I remember to. Yet I know people who never brush their teeth and have no cavities, no chips, nothing wrong with their teeth at all. And my sisters never seem to have much of a problem with cavities and the like. So could this be a side effect of PCOS?

I’m curious about your take on it because PCOS has such a huge impact on the body, and teeth aren’t something normal doctors look at.

Other Options May 10, 2010

I know there are other birth control options out there that don’t involve taking a pill every single day. But I can’t use them. Why? Because I’m not taking them for the birth control aspect, I’m taking them for the hormones that make me not PMS 24/7, basically I’m taking them for my PCOS. Now the reason I can’t use the other options (IUD, or the one that goes in your arm) is because they all only use Progesterone, and me I need the estrogen progesterone mix! I understand that the companies who make these other options probably haven’t considered women with my (our? Anyone else kinda miffed about this?) because in comparison with women who have “normal” cycles we barely rate on their radar. Which means they don’t feel that there are enough of us to warrant the expense of developing something for us. Or atleast I think that’s the reason it’s entirely possible that they have looked into it and couldn’t find any way to get the two hormones to work…but somehow I doubt that.

The other thing that kinda makes me mad is that most doctors refuse to give a woman who hasn’t had children these options. And places like Planned Parenthood refuse to give a woman one unless you’ve had 2 or more kids! I’ve read the literature on them, yes there are some risks but the pills have risks too. And they are relatively easy to remove so why the heck can’t women who haven’t had kids yet, or may not ever want kids have them? Because having babies is apparently the one thing every woman should aspire to.

But if you think about it, giving it to women who don’t want to have children makes more sense than giving it to a woman who is thinking of children in the near future. And that’s the end of that rant, wasn’t sure if it should go on here, but here it is.

Relationships May 2, 2010

So I’m sure many of you all have been in or are in relationships. Have you had to suffer through his/her family making comments about your weight? I know I have. My own experience was, I sent this old picture from way back in high school to my boyfriend. He’d sent me one of his earlier and I figured I’d reciprocate. Well he ended up showing that picture to his mother. Who in turn remarked on my weight and how it’d make it hard for me to have children. She didn’t tell him this to his face until much later, but I heard it from his brother who I’m friends with. Remember I have yet to meet this woman yet. Eventually when my boyfriend was able to get leave to visit she told him what she thought and he I guess got a little upset at her. And he was hesitant about telling me.

Unfortunately this is probably going to make me a bit nervous when/if I meet his mother at some point. Because I know she already has a less than happy opinion of me based on a photo that is something like 5 years old, and from before I was diagnosed. And in that time I lost a little weight in the areas that I needed to so I have a woman’s figure. I won’t say that it didn’t hurt hearing about this but I can roll with the punches. How about you? What have you all dealt with when being introduced to your significant others family?

Barbara

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

Hello Cysters! March 19, 2010

Welcome to Cysters United! I’m Barbara, and I was diagnosed with PCOS at 17. Now at 21 I’ve faced only a few of the trials that women with PCOS face everyday. A week or so ago I was doing more research about our shared syndrome, but unfortunately none of the information I found was what I was looking for. All of the books published out there concentrate solely on dieting, how to get pregnant, and what PCOS can cause later in life. I have that information already, and I’m sure many of you do as well. What I was looking for was information for women with PCOS by women with PCOS. I wanted to know what other women had gone through while dealing with it. I wanted to know how they handled things:  criticism about their weight, questions about when a baby would be on the agenda, callus remarks from strangers, doctors not really listening, etc.

Then after posting on my own blog about this lack of personal input from women like us, a friend said we wouldn’t find anything like that out there unless we did it ourselves. As a result I asked for help from her and from the other women in a small yahoo-group that we’re a part of. So here we are creating this blog for women with PCOS, by women with PCOS, about everyday life that doesn’t revolve around rules for dieting, treatments or suggestions on how to get pregnant, doomsday prophecies of diabetes and cancer, or doctors who no longer care about patient well-being beyond their own bank accounts. After all, we’ve heard those shpeels a thousand times over already.

Barbara (pezzdemon)