PCOS?

[jeccamay]

Hi guys in new to this forum so please be patient with me,

can somebody please give me some advice as I'm not able to get to the doctors as I'm working nights atm.

I'm currently 21, my periods have been regular until I was about 16 and the began to become slightly irregular.

However, I had not had a period for 6 months, I was due to have a blood test but I had a period just before and it was a very light period. 2 months later I have had another period and it is extremely heavy (bleeding through tampons and pads into clothes etc.)

I do have some bodily hair and I have began to gain weight since my periods became irregular.

Thanks Guys.

[OakTreeBlossom]

Hiya,

I can post the most common symptoms of PCOS here and if you have more than one I would ask your GP (when you can) for a blood test.

Physically you may be overweight and struggle to lose weight

Excessive and dark body and facial hair

Thinning head hair

Irregular periods

Painful periods with dark/brown blood

Pelvic pain (and during sex)

Trouble conceiving

These symptoms are because

Your testosterone levels may be high

Your estrogen levels may be low

You may have insulin resistence

Your iron may be low (or high)

You may have low progesterone.

If these latter observations show up on your blood tests you may like to talk to a specialist about PCOS. PCOS means you have abnormal hormone levels, which in one instance can create cysts on your ovaries that may be painful or stop ovulations (and therefore your periods), so that can be the most common trigger for more exploratory investigation.

But the real question is, do you need to know? If you want to conceive you need to sort your periods out right? If you want to lose weight and struggle with this, you may like to know what you're dealing with? If you just want to know, this is also a valid point. But many PCOS sufferers manage the condition with diet alone and you may like to explore this first. Otherwise, common first-trigger responses are for you to begin taking a POP or Combined pill (these are contraceptive pills so not usefull if you wish to conceive) to try to manage your estrogen and/or progesterone levels, remember all your hormones work together so when one dips another may rise and sometimes nothing will be affected when you treat one hormone so from here on in, is a real trial-by-error life and you'll find what's true for you at 16 or 21 is not true for you at 25 or 30.

Good luck x