Earlier this month I wrote a post on the facts of PCOS. This post will be about the affect it has had, or it has, on other people.


My experience with PCOS has been quite short in a way, but looking back from during diagnosis and afterwards, I think in a way it has been a lengthy one too. Ever since I started my periods they have been horrendous – heavy, long, never knowing when they were going to start/end. At school I was put on tablets because they were so heavy, but they made me sick so I stopped taking them. And then I went on the contraceptive pill about aged 13, which kind of regulated them and made them not so bad. Then, when I stopped taking it around aged 18 (in 2005), the troubles started again. Mainly irregular periods & very quick weight gain, which I also found very hard to lose so just gave up when I tried (also some excess hair and acne). Then when we decided in 2008 that we would start trying to conceive in the January of 2009, this is when I noticed my periods were worse than ever, not knowing when my next was going to arrive, then when it did lasting for weeks and weeks and weeks, until I finally went to the doctor each time to get norithisterone to stop it. And then many of my readers will know that clomid worked for me in helping to conceive. That’s as far as I will go regarding that, as the rest of my history is here. So, looking back, I’m pretty sure there was something wrong with me before starting the pill, most likely a mild form of PCOS, and the pill made the symptoms worse? 




B’s experience


“When I was told at 19 I had PCOS it totally destroyed my confidence. I knew little about it, but thought that it was just my periods that were messed up. I didn’t know about my hair falling out by handfuls, the huge weight gain and the awful mood swings I get. It’s an invisible disease and no one can understand how it controls a lot of your health (I also suffer from insulin resistance due to PCOS). All of these came to second to when I was told I could never have children. Got everything they crossed the come out with a better treatment for PCOS than metformin”


N’s experience


I know I should go to the GP and talk about it and my infertility but I’m instead hiding away about it, because if it just doesn’t happen I can just say it’s one of those things, we never even went to the GP or anything. But if I go through the tests and the clomid and it still doesn’t happen, there’s just no hope left”


I briefly mentioned about metformin in my previous post about PCOS, which is a drug used to help with weight and regulation of periods/ovulation. There are mixed opinions from users of metformin. One reader (M) says “Metformin actually works and is very effective with PCOS… I had not seen one single AF for a whole year and when I started taking it I lost 12 kilos and I got my AF back”. Another user (L) debated this saying “I’m thinking along the lines that metformin doesn’t always work, I’ve been on it for 6 months now and I haven’t seen AF since”. Both of these readers also mentioned about how they have suffered from depression, as well as a lot of other ladies that I know of who suffer from PCOS.


So, we can see that the physical effects it has on an individual, can vary from person to person, but many emotions remain the same across the board.