It Took 13 Years For Medicine To Prove I Have PCOS.
A Battle I Am Tired Of Fighting. But I Won't Give Up.
Storytime!
It was 2007, and I was 12 years old when I got my periods one bright October Sunday afternoon. Yay me!
For 3 years, all was well until, in 2010, they decided not to be so anymore.
My regular and uncomfortable-but-manageable periods turned irregular and confusing. I started gaining weight, growing facial hair, and pimples became my common friends.
My mother, realising the situation's gravity, took me to the doctor. They'd give me some meds, and I'd have my periods next month. But then, the month after, it was back to square one - even when I had the meds and did everything the doc told me to do.
We also got the necessary blood work and sonography done, but all turned out to be perfect. According to the reports, I had no problem. But I know I did.
Over the course of 10 years, we have been to 13+ doctors of all varieties, and nobody could help me figure out the root cause of my irregular and now physically painful and emotionally turbulent periods.
Each of them tried to put a band-aid on it without helping me heal from the root.
There was this one particular female doctor whom I'll never forgive. She was the last straw in trying to get professional help solving my PCOS.
She did two very wrong things -
One, she body-shamed me and accused me of being irresponsible with my health.
Two, she gave me birth-control pills (the regular meds you are assigned to get your periods), but the kind she gave me turned me murderous and suicidal after one dose.
The feelings coursing through me at the moment were worse than the PMS that comes with periods.
From that day onwards, I have had a major distrust for doctors. And I have met other doctors since then (not for myself, but for family members), and they continue to prove my scepticism correct.
Meanwhile, as is the case in the day and age of the Internet, YouTube came to our rescue. My mother poured herself over YouTube and discovered I showed signs of PCOS. This led to me trying to help myself through diet, exercise and supplements.
Again, these changes would work for some time and then plateau again. I'd try again and fail again.
10 years of fighting this battle, and I was tired.
The mention of doctors, diet, weight loss, and PCOS triggered me. I have a hard time accepting the body I am in, and I feel guilty for eating or even thinking about eating anything.
Therefore,
I accepted that I'd spent 2-3 weeks of every month dealing with the pre-during-post symptoms of periods.
I accepted that chances are I will never lose the unhealthy part of my weight.
I also accepted the fact that chances were I may not have children because I will not be pushing syringes and tablets of chemicals in my body to do so.
So now, my only goal was to take care of my body to the best of my capabilities and deal with whatever my reproductive system throws at me.
Then June 2023 came.
I hurt my back and had to get an X-ray done. With that, my mother suggested getting sonography done as well. My reaction was, "Fine, whatever you want."
While lying on that table and getting my fallopian tubes and ovaries pushed, the doctor said, "You have signs of PCOS."
"Oh," I replied, but in my head, I said - tell me something I don't already know.
I asked her to recommend a gynaecologist I could go to, and I added, "Tell me a genuine gynaecologist who will actually help. 'Cause I have been to 13, and they couldn't help me."
That shocked this doctor, and she recommended one she thought could help and added, "But PCOS is a lifestyle problem. Meds don't help much."
True, I thought.
With the sonography in hand (Finally, Medicine has come to the page as my physical body), I went to our trusted Homeopathy doctor. She assured me that it was curable and started my meds immediately. What I am doing here is getting some medicinal help (that I trust in) while I figure out how I want to go about this situation.
The second half of June went into that. Here's what I learnt.
My major culprit is Stress.
I grew up in a stressful household. My father was an idiot (to put it politely), and the trauma he unleashed on my mother, my brother and me still haunts us. We also didn't have any money and lived hand-to-mouth every month. School, and later college, weren't fun either, for I was a people-pleaser who was taken advantage of. I still deal with body-image, economic-image and social-image almost daily, even though we are in a better place now.
The lack of sense of stability and security is ingrained in me so deeply that it's hard to be, feel or imagine the opposite.
I fell ill mentally, emotionally and spiritually, which resulted in falling ill physically.
I knew that Stress is one of the major players in PCOS, but what clicked this time was that my body would continue to hurt itself until I healed my mind, heart and soul.
The generally prescribed remedies won't cut the chase for me. If they could, they would have in the last 10 years. The diet, exercise, supplements and meds didn't work out because they were trying to keep the facade looking good while the inside was rotting.
What I need is DEEP healing. That's an inside job, and that's a job only I have to do.
I am tired of fighting this battle with my reproductive system. But it's a part of me and deserves all the love and care I can give her. So, I'll dust myself off and try again.
Wish me luck!
(Also, I am open to any PCOS-related advice you have. Drop them in the comments, and let's get chatting. Thank you!)
