PCOS

I wanted to write a post about the not so fun syndrome that I have that seems to affect my life in not the best of ways. I don’t think women are very aware of this, because I wasn’t. I have always suffered with irregular periods and lots and lot of pain when it came to my periods. I have always had trouble with my weight going up and down. And I have lovely acne to go along with it all. I went to see many doctors about my acne and also my irregular periods. As a teenager it was not comfortable bleeding all the time (the longest I bled was for 8 months) and so heavy that it required an ultra tampon and a pad all the time. Finally after several doctors I had one tell me that he thinks I have PCOS. This is the main reason for all of my symptoms. I didn’t know too much about it. It wasn’t until I got married and got talking with my brother in law who is a doctor that had done lots of research on it and was able to inform me a lot about my syndrome and ways that I can help myself. The biggest one that I can say that totally turned my life around was going on a low carb diet. I learned that when I eat carbs I form these cysts on my ovaries. This is because cysts feed off of carbs and sugar. So when I ate it they grew and caused me more pain. This is why I was always in pain… but yet no one could ever tell me why. Once I started this diet my pain was almost cut in half. and the biggest upside was that I lost a lot of weight. Well as everyone knows this is a hard diet to live by because carbs are so yummy and they are everywhere. So I have gone back and forth. and that is why I am doing this blog because I know for my health reasons that I need something that will help me more motivated to eat healthy to help me be healthy. So here is the research that I have done on PCOS. (Thanks to my friend Stephanie Rona for doing some research for me because she was worried about me! So cute! I love you girly!!)

PCOS or polycystic ovarian syndrome is not really classified as a disease because it is not a specific and constant set of symptoms and physical characteristics. It is better described as a syndrome, with a collection of symptoms and physical characteristics. There are two consistent aspects: hyper-androgenism and infrequent ovulation. the most common characteristics of PCOS are obesity, hirsutism and irregular/infrequent/lack of ovulation and thus irregular periods and poor fertility.
Some things that research say can help with the effects of PCOS:
Caffeine containing beverages (coffee, GREEN TEA, black tea, oolong tea, and even some colas) were seen to lower estrogen levels. By lowering the estrogen levels it helps with the acne and the ovulation.
FLAX SEEDS and SOY, are two important foods relevant to the PCOS diet. The flax seeds again, containing lignans, which lower testosterone levels (which cause the acne and infrequent ovulation).
Licorice root extract can also help in lowering testosterone levels.
My brother in law put me on Metphormine. Which is a pill that is used to improve insulin resistance. It helps with acne, weight loss, and hair growth. It is not fun to share but I have very thick corse hair that grows places I don’t like it. And this pill helps it not to grow. I am lucky though I know a girl that had to have her face because of her hair growth or she would have a beard. So I still count my blessing
I hope that this might help any of those women out there that may be experiencing that same yucky stuff as me and now know something that they can do to help their situation. Stay tuned for some research on Low carb diets!