New to PCOS, treatment and advice

[Lulu1196]

Hi,

I am a 21 year old recently diagnosed with PCOS although I expected it for a while. I was put on the contraceptive pill(Yasmin) and also metformin as a constant treatment for my PCOS. I have always disliked all the hormonal pills being put into my body, and have heard of a few women treating there PCOS with just metformin and diet and excersise. Has anyone had experience with getting their periods only on metformin. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Ps. I am from Sydney, Australia and I feel like PCOS is not spoken of much here. I couldn’t find any forums where I could talk to other women struggling with PCOS.

[Hols969]

Metformin is primarily a diabetes drug and is not licenced for use in the UK for pcos and should only be taken by PCOS ladies who are insulin resistant so you need to be tested for it as the worry is what it will do long term if you are not insulin resistant or diabetic, I don't know what the rules are like in Aus.

I have been on and off yasmin (or equivalent) for over 30 years and for me it masks the symptoms and makes everything a lot easier. If you can, look at the Horizon program on BBC iplayer as it had a really good documentary about the pros and cons of it.

Exercise and good diet (low GI) can help to a degree - there is a great diet called 'theanswertopcos' which has proven to help ladies with their pcos symptoms and also for ladies to conceive naturally, along with losing weight for some, they have over 1500 babies born to pcos ladies that have followed the diet.

[Ruby26]

Before metformin my cycles were 40-90 days and now I’m on 1500mg of metformin, my cycles are 30-35 days so much more regular. For me, I had a good diet and exercised but my cycles were awful. Metformin seems to be the only thing that helped my cycles