Are all women with pcos in danger of diabetes?

lilbea89

So I just got diagnosed with pcos a couple days ago. I always had my suspicions but my gyno said my ultrasound and menses patterns were consistent with pcos and I'd have to take horomone therapy (which I will start soon). She didn't say anything about my blood sugar or insulin (I didn't have a blood test either). Are all women with pcos in danger of diabetes or are there only certain diagnosis that include insulin resistance? I eat a vegan diet so I have a lot of carbs (I try to make them from grains, fruits, veg, etc). But I want to make sure if I need to lower my carb intake so I avoid complications later.

WarriorCupcakeBlydnsr

There are other factors involved, but we do have a better chance. I would suggest discussing with your primary care physician about seeing an endocrinologist, just to get everything checked (remember, primary docs have a little knowledge about a lot of things whereas a specialist has a lot of knowledge about a specific thing, you need that specificity for this). An endo is going to look beyond the basic blood work to see if there is anything out of whack and order tests that your primary would not even think of ordering and if you at least get it checked out, you have a jump on the situation.

I suggest this only because had I gone by what my primary was saying, I never would have found out about the hypothyroidism or insulin resistance because my primary wasn't testing everything that needed to be tested, simply because she didn't know what to order beyond a TSH and a basic thyroid panel and a CMP or what to look for. My endo looked at the TSH and thyroid panel she drew (which was high) and the two I'd had earlier in the year to see the progression, to see that I was in early stage hypothyroid. She looked at my consistently normal fasting blood sugar and my through the roof c-peptide which told her that for me to have a normal fasting blood sugar, I'm producing 10 times too much insulin.

Knowledge is power, use whatever resources you can to gain the knowledge you need to take care of yourself.

Dragonwolf

Do not take any medications, especially hormones, without first getting the appropriate bloodwork done!!

If your doctor has not tested your hormone levels, then she can very well make matters worse!

The typical doctor response to PCOS is Metformin and birth control. This is bad! Metformin only works if you are, in fact, insulin resistant. Without a fasting insulin test, you have no way of knowing if you're insulin resistant (not all women with PCOS are). Birth control will exacerbate matters (even worse, it will do so while masking the symptoms), because the usual one is primarily estrogen, which many women with PCOS are already high in. Without running tests for your hormones, there's no way of knowing what you actually need to balance your hormones properly.