As I’ve mentioned before my wife has a hormonal disorder called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). The name is somewhat misleading because it’s no longer just used to describe women with cysts on their ovaries. It turns out that the root of the problem is actually hormonal. The root problem is that PCOS women produce too many androgens (male hormones) and it throws their body out of whack. Symptoms can include cysts on the ovaries (for which the syndrome was originally named), erratic ovulation (menstrual cycles can be longer than normal, irregular, or stop altogether for months or years on end), infertility (mostly due to the menstrual problems, but there are other issues) and extreme weight gain. In fact, PCOS is the leading cause of female infertility. It’s estimated that 5-10% of women suffer from PCOS, although many are undiagnosed.
My wife is 23 and was diagnosed with PCOS in her late teens (just about at the time we got married). We got extremely fortunate, in that she got recommended at one point to one of the leading specialists on PCOS in the nation.
If you have PCOS, go to a specialist. Seriously. Trust me on this. Even if you have to pay out of pocket. The state of knowledge on this disease has increased dramatically in the last decade and most of your run of the mill gynecologists aren’t adequately trained to treat you. They think they are, but they’re very out of date. You will get much better treatment and advice from a fertility specialist even if you’re not trying to get pregnant.
The good news about PCOS is that it’s highly treatable with diet and exercise, especially if you catch it young before the weight gain gets totally out of control. Many PCOS women end up morbidly obese by their early 30s, at which point it’s extremely difficult to treat the problem. Interestingly, despite the fact that it’s the androgens that are out of whack, PCOS turns out to be primarily a problem with insulin, which is why weight gain is such a common symptom.
The typical recommendation for PCOS women is a low or lowish carb diet. Our doctor specifically mentioned the South Beach diet. We’ve had extremely good success on a paleo style diet (which actually isn’t all that different from South Beach), and many, many PCOS women also report good results from a paleo style diet. After a few months pretty solidly on a paleo style diet, my wife and I had both lost a decent amount of weight and her periods, which had completely stopped before, started up again. Along with her regular cycles, her sex drive came back as well. This is also pretty common – many (but not all) women with PCOS have drastically lowered libidos.
Unfortunately, you pretty much have to stick with the diet. It’s not a case of “try it until you’re cured and then go back to eating whatever you like.” It’s more or less a lifetime dietary change. We got pretty busy and stressed out in the latter part of 2010, mostly due to moving twice within six months. One very unfortunate side effect of that is that we started neglecting our diet and exercise. We’ve both gained a little bit of weight back, and my wife’s periods have stopped again.
About a week before Lent started we made a push to get our diet back on track. We also made sticking to it a bit of a joint Lent resolution for ourselves. We’re already seeing good results again only a few weeks in. Our weight is starting to drop again (albeit slowly). My wife’s hormones are starting to pick back up again. She’s showing signs that her cycles are returning… but they’re moving slowly right now. The shitty part is, she’s been slowly moving through the PMS part of her cycle for almost 3 weeks now. We’re quite confident that if we stick to the diet and exercise things will straighten themselves out.
But let me tell you, three weeks of PMS sucks.
Recent Comments