How to Cure PCOS

I entered the world as a tiny thing, around 6 lbs full-term. When I was around 18 months old, my dad had to use a hacksaw to get me extricated from one of the old wooden style playpens, because I'd squeezed through as far as my hips and had gotten stuck. There wasn't a lot of fat on me.

Enter puberty, enter hormones, enter some serious sugar cravings... and BOOM, by highschool I weighed around 120lbs, 150lbs by graduation. And I was no lazy kid either. I played soccer. I played field hockey. I played softball and basketball. I was an athlete. I also volunteered at the zoo 10 hours a week, and if you think moving a wheelbarrow full of rhino dung isn't exercise, try it sometime!

My menstruation was never regular. I would go without for months on end, then have heavy periods from hell that lasted three or more months. With that came anemia so severe that I would come home from school, get as far as the livingroom floor, and that is where my mother would find me when she got home from work... totally zonked on the floor. I was tired and depressed all of the time. I could only wear dark clothes, because I never knew when "Aunt Flo" would come for an extended visit. It affected my grades, my friendships, my sports performance... it frankly, sucked cookies.

This continued pretty much until I was out of graduate school. A gynecologist diagnosed me as having PCOS, but the only treatment he offered (might have been the only option at the time, I'm not sure) was birth control pills. This did stem the flow, and allowed me to get on top of the anemia... but really it was only treating a symptom. PCOS is more than just irregular menstruation...

What is PCOS then?

PCOS is, as the theory goes, an insulin resistance disease. Your body kicks out more insulin than normal, for any of a number of reasons... genetics, too much sugar, etc... Because insulin receptors operate on a negative feedback loop, the receptors become less available when there is an excess of insulin, so you become "resistant" to insulin's affects, hence "insulin resistance". Your body then has to kick out even more insulin to get glucose into your cells... and you get into a loop, which can eventually lead to diabetes.

Excess insulin leads to greater fat storage, so one of the symptoms of PCOS is being overweight, especially around the mid-section, i.e. male pattern weight gain. Why male pattern? Well, excess insuline also for some reason stimulates the ovaries to produce more testosterone. We all have it, even you, Sister!