Why I'm Thankful for PCOS

My Turkey Doodle

I've seen a lot of posts on various social media sites/blogs/text messages about what people are thankful for this year. Generally it's the usual family, friends, pets, job, etc that almost anyone is thankful for, even if they don't always express it. There's nothing wrong with expressing your thankfulness for these things but this year I wanted to do something different. For the past week or so I've been trying to look for the silver lining as they say, and come up with why I can be thankful for my PCOS.

I've only been able to come up with one reason: it gives me oily skin. Normally that is nothing to be thankful about, but due to my situation it is indeed a blessing. Ever since I can remember I suffered from eczema, which is sort of the opposite of acne. It is a very itchy condition that would lead me to scratch myself until I bled. It also tends to get itchier as it heals, so the closer I would get to being healed the more likely I was to re-open them again and re-start the cycle. It was very bad all the way down my right arm, from my shoulder to my hand. So bad that at one point I couldn't even remember what it felt like not to itch. I also had to be very careful what kind of soap products I used, and when it got really bad couldn't even take proper showers (there's a special no water necessary cleaning solution my dermatologist would give me for those times).

Thanks to my PCOS this all got incredibly better after I hit puberty. I now really only have to worry about one spot on my right hand, the bottoms of my feet, and the top part of my right ankle (like where my ankle meets the top of my foot, I can't think of how to describe it other than that). I can pick up and use pretty much any body wash I want, use whatever hand soap is lying around, and even use hand sanitizer when the spot on my hand isn't bothering me! For the most part people can't even tell when they look at me, which is much better than looking like some scaly dinosaur. I still can't wear rings, but overall my quality of life greatly improved skin-wise.

In a way I can also thank my eczema for keeping my oily skin in check. So many women have horrible acne problems and that's something I've never had to worry about. I'll get the odd pimple now and then but nothing that would give me scars. Basically the two cancel each other out and that's something I'm thankful for.

My Story

I thought it might be wise to post about how I got to where I am today instead of just diving in to the problems of the present. I suppose this is really sort of the TL;DR version of the About Me page.

I'm the one standing up

When I was little, I was quite skinny. I had always had health problems but weight wasn't one of them. I think in a way it's worse this way as I know what it's like to be on the "other side".

Right around the time I hit puberty I just ballooned. At the time we though it was due to bad habits, as I had taken to a very stationary lifestyle. I didn't want to do anything other than lie on the recliner and watch TV. Looking back, I think it was the other way around; all the weight gain made me depressed. My mother tried very hard to get me up and moving as she was sure if I did I would feel better and go back to being healthier but it was of no use. Honestly I think it actually made me feel worse because somehow I knew nothing was going to change. I knew I would never be that skinny girl again and just had to deal with it my own way, on my own time.

When I finally got my period I only got it one month and then not again for about a year. I had heard that adolescents are often irregular so it didn't bother me at first. After that first year I would get it every 3-9 months, so while it wasn't as bad as a year it wasn't near regular either. In a way I thought I was lucky because I didn't have to go through the horrible pain every month like other girls. However every year I would start to get a little more worried until eventually avoidance and denial set in. I knew in the back of my mind that this wasn't right, that something was wrong, but I was scared of the possibilities so I just kept telling myself it was normal.

Speaking of horrible pain, I also thought that was normal. I remember one time early on I had my mom take me to the doctor because I was in so much pain. It was a Saturday or my normal doctor was on a vacation or something so I had to see a different doctor than normal. She asked me if I had started yet, and if so when my last cycle started, and I sort of meekly told her "now". She totally blew me off and said "oh well it's just cramps, take some aleve" and that was it. She made me think the pain I was in was normal. I saw the other girls and they didn't seem to be in as much pain I was, you couldn't even tell! So I tried my hardest to hide the pain because I thought otherwise people would see me as weak.

It wasn't until I was out of high school that I decided to do something about it. One of my good friend's mom was an OB/GYN, so one day I went up to my mom as calmly as I could and asked if she would make me an appointment. I thought she might freak out about it but she didn't. We went to the appointment and that's when I found out none of it was normal. I had a ton of small cysts all over my ovaries and I wasn't ovulating. I was going to have fertility problems in the future, but technology was improving vastly so I should be fine with a little help. She put me on birth control to regulate things and also help with the pain. She also said she could give me some pain medication if that wasn't enough. I was relieved and scared out of my mind all at the same time.

Being on the birth control made me very uncomfortable. I was a very good, proper girl and I didn't want anyone to get the wrong ideas. It didn't help that as soon as my grandmother found out I went to see an OB/GYN she started asking questions about me being pregnant. But as I saw the improvements I got over it. My cycles were regular, they were shorter (off hormones it can last easily 10 days), they were lighter, still hurt like crap but a little better, and I even started to lose weight!

Me and my husband, December 2010

Unfortunately that didn't last long. Once or twice a year my hormones will get all wonky and I'll get a period that lasts a month+, the whole time having cramps that keep me from living a normal life. The way this was fixed was through changing my BC to a new brand. This worked for the most part but meant going through another three months of bad side effects like morning sickness until my body got used to the new medication. At this point I can't even remember the number of times this has happened or how many brands of BC I've been on. With some BCs I lost weight, but with others I gained so I've been yo-yoing ever since then.

One such time (or so we thought) was earlier this year (2011). In March I started having problems and by April was on new BC. Unfortunately things were no better by the end of July. I was only bleeding on and off but I had cramps the whole time and thus was on prescription pain medication the whole time as well. My doctor decided it was time to go in and look to see if I had endometriosis. I had laparoscopic surgery in August and was diagnosed at that time.