Another newb with a longish story (sorry!)
ravenstar25
Posts: 126 Member
Not to PCOS, just to this group.
I was an extremely active and athletic teenager - like EXTREMELY, and in fact anorexic. In spite of being excessively athletic and engaging in self-destructive levels of food restriction, I couldn't get my weight below 135 (at a height of 5'5" so no one ever caught on or felt I had a problem.
I recovered and quit the excessive athletics and self-starvation - which caused me to gain about 20 pounds. This made me unhappy but I found I could live with it. But as I grew a bit older and began a sedentary job I realized at one point I had been gaining a little weight and my always irregular periods had stopped altogether for several months, although pregnancy tests kept coming back negative. I was shocked - absolutely shocked - when I got on the scale at the doctor's office and found I had packed on 55 pounds in 6 months. How was this even possible, I asked, fighting back tears. They didn't have any real answers. "Hormonal imbalances," they suggested mildly.
Now at 200 pounds, I was in a panic and looking for answers. I knew I wasn't binge eating. I tried going vegetarian and organic on some theory that it was chemicals in animal products but that didn't help. I walked more, and although I had great leg muscles, I didn't lose much weight. Occasionally I would lose 10-20 pounds if I went to extreme lengths to take it off, but it would come right back the minute I slacked off in the slightest. Then I had a baby. I developed pre-eclampsia and almost died. My recovery took a long time, and I wasn't really focused on weight loss during this time in my life. I did finally lose the baby weight after a year or two, however, to get "back" to "only" about 200.
But when my son was two, we moved up north from the deep south where the winters are very cold and the walking I was used to doing became impossible a lot of the time. I lived there for ten years and, on average, gained about 10 pounds a year. I can't forget the day I stepped on the scale and tried leaning every which way I could to try and make the needle not go over 300, and it just wasn't happening.
By now I had actually been diagnosed with PCOS but for whatever reason my doctors didn't (and still don't) want to give me metformin or anything but birth control pills. I do get spiro because of high blood pressure, although it hasn't helped with that UNFORTUNATE FACIAL PROBLEM much *sighs*. BCP makes my migraines worse, and with high blood pressure and my age, I can't take them now anyway (plus they make me fatter).
The good news is that I have found something over the last six years, through trial and error, that has slowly (oh ever so slowly) but steadily worked for me. Although I still have yo yo weight swings depending on how "good" I am at sticking to it, the trend has now gone down by ten pounds a year for the last six years which is a definite improvement. I'm using mfp to help me track calories and exercise and for support along with doing what I do, which I eventually found out is sort of a modified version of intermittent fasting - eating very little for breakfast and lunch; or no breakfast at all, a small, high protein, low carb lunch, and a normal sized, reasonable supper. Or even a slightly large supper so I can feel satisfied. Plus cutting out a lot (but not all!) sugar and high glycemic foods. I have to have a few treats or I will go crazy and binge. Although I find I crave them much less than I did when I was younger.
SORRY FOR MY WALL OF TEXT! I'm going to try to check in here more, feel free to add me and kick my butt, haha; one of my nye resolutions is to ride that recumbent bike 5 days a week. I do it while watching netflix tv, so it's fun
I was an extremely active and athletic teenager - like EXTREMELY, and in fact anorexic. In spite of being excessively athletic and engaging in self-destructive levels of food restriction, I couldn't get my weight below 135 (at a height of 5'5" so no one ever caught on or felt I had a problem.
I recovered and quit the excessive athletics and self-starvation - which caused me to gain about 20 pounds. This made me unhappy but I found I could live with it. But as I grew a bit older and began a sedentary job I realized at one point I had been gaining a little weight and my always irregular periods had stopped altogether for several months, although pregnancy tests kept coming back negative. I was shocked - absolutely shocked - when I got on the scale at the doctor's office and found I had packed on 55 pounds in 6 months. How was this even possible, I asked, fighting back tears. They didn't have any real answers. "Hormonal imbalances," they suggested mildly.
Now at 200 pounds, I was in a panic and looking for answers. I knew I wasn't binge eating. I tried going vegetarian and organic on some theory that it was chemicals in animal products but that didn't help. I walked more, and although I had great leg muscles, I didn't lose much weight. Occasionally I would lose 10-20 pounds if I went to extreme lengths to take it off, but it would come right back the minute I slacked off in the slightest. Then I had a baby. I developed pre-eclampsia and almost died. My recovery took a long time, and I wasn't really focused on weight loss during this time in my life. I did finally lose the baby weight after a year or two, however, to get "back" to "only" about 200.
But when my son was two, we moved up north from the deep south where the winters are very cold and the walking I was used to doing became impossible a lot of the time. I lived there for ten years and, on average, gained about 10 pounds a year. I can't forget the day I stepped on the scale and tried leaning every which way I could to try and make the needle not go over 300, and it just wasn't happening.
By now I had actually been diagnosed with PCOS but for whatever reason my doctors didn't (and still don't) want to give me metformin or anything but birth control pills. I do get spiro because of high blood pressure, although it hasn't helped with that UNFORTUNATE FACIAL PROBLEM much *sighs*. BCP makes my migraines worse, and with high blood pressure and my age, I can't take them now anyway (plus they make me fatter).
The good news is that I have found something over the last six years, through trial and error, that has slowly (oh ever so slowly) but steadily worked for me. Although I still have yo yo weight swings depending on how "good" I am at sticking to it, the trend has now gone down by ten pounds a year for the last six years which is a definite improvement. I'm using mfp to help me track calories and exercise and for support along with doing what I do, which I eventually found out is sort of a modified version of intermittent fasting - eating very little for breakfast and lunch; or no breakfast at all, a small, high protein, low carb lunch, and a normal sized, reasonable supper. Or even a slightly large supper so I can feel satisfied. Plus cutting out a lot (but not all!) sugar and high glycemic foods. I have to have a few treats or I will go crazy and binge. Although I find I crave them much less than I did when I was younger.
SORRY FOR MY WALL OF TEXT! I'm going to try to check in here more, feel free to add me and kick my butt, haha; one of my nye resolutions is to ride that recumbent bike 5 days a week. I do it while watching netflix tv, so it's fun
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Replies
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My story is very much the same, starving myself and never getting skinny, unreasonable weight gain...migraines from BC, even down to the pre-eclamptic pregnancy...
But this is the best place I've found for helpful information and support...take some time and look through the message boards here, there's a ton of helpful information on strategies, and things that may help or work. I can't take BC either, as it causes estrogen induced migraines. Which I found out actually makes sense as my hormonal profile is of estrogen dominance (which I suspect so is yours). Once you add an estrogen based BC, things just spiral out of control.
I'm currently having great success with naturopathic treatment. If you can afford or your health insurance covers, look into this option. If not there are a lot of us that use herbals here and can recommend where you may want to start.
I sent you a Friend request, as I'm sure some of the other ladies will too.
Best of luck you're in the right place m'dear!0 -
I'm very interested in research they are doing on this condition even as I work to get my body back into balance - I find out more about my own physical quirks all the time, and I feel better than I did in my 20s now, in a funny way! One thing that is maybe related too - my brother last year developed a severe case of ulcerative colitis, which is also autoimmune - he had to have emergency surgery! I have to wonder if the two are related...0
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PCOS is very related to becoming auto-immune, and it is a chicken/egg situation sometimes. With your brother's issues, it sounds like you have a genetic predisposition to it, so I'd be on the watch. While I never went the self-starving way, almost all the rest of this is very similar for me, too. It makes me so angry that so few doctors have any idea about these issues. I am 38 and have only been treated for the last year or so for PCOS that I was diagnosed with but not told about for years before that.
I'm hypothyroid in addition to my PCOS, and have had neuropathy (related to B12 deficiency - which no one warned me about years ago when I could have stopped it in isn't tracks - my nerve damage may now be permanent...) for a couple years in my hands. I am what most doctors hate in a patient - I am considered some what of a mystery medically - I'm extremely difficult to diagnose with anything because I am almost always missing at least one major symptom or factor from traditional diagnoses.
Luckily for my, my endocrinologist is willing to do a "try and see" treatment system addressing my symptoms even when not supported by bloodwork. I'm finally starting to feel slightly human again for the first time in decades... Good luck to everyone.0 -
I don't think I've been tested for b12. I know I have a severe vitamin D deficiency - I'm not sure if it predates or post dates me taking topomax (I take it for severe intractable migraine) which can suck the calcium and D out of your system. My mother had mentioned once she used to need b12 shots when she was young. But I don't think she has PCOS she's a lot smaller than me and had three kids easily.0
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The B12 isn't specifically PCOS related. It can be leeched much like the VitD is by topomax. Meds that complicate B12 absorption: metformin, birth control pills/any hormonal med, antacids, antipsychotic meds, and so many others, but these are the biggest culprits. I was off and on the top three since a teen (I'm 38 now), the most recent addition was the metformin, and I'd had mild never sensitivity in my first three digits on each hand which turned quickly into nerve pain/shooting sensations, etc. When I'd already been supplementing heavily, I had my level tested, and I'm at the very bottom of the acceptable range, which is still at risk of continued nerve damage, so I don't understand how that is acceptable, but whatever.
Much like Vitamin D, Vitamin B12 influences so much, particularly alertness, quality rest, nerve and central nervous health and all of that. So I would make sure you have it tested, just for your general health, and because of all the hormonal/insulin related flux that happens with PCOS in general, even without meds affecting it further. Just a general health warning. I've discovered in my research that by the time you have nerve pain or any major symptom, you've generally been deficient for years and years, and a lot of the problems are not reversible, and what is worse is that most doctors don't warn about it or test for it!!!
Though regrettably, that seems to be the case with almost all of the issues any of us in this group have or have ever had.0
