Merry met ladies and gentlemen.

Where to start?

I've been radically irregular since I was about 14. Like, once a month, once every three months, twice a week, once a year, three weeks long, one day long, miss another two months, one day long, skip a week, two weeks long...

Doctors and stuff all said 'Oh you're just irregular...' I ended up in the hospital the first time about two years ago after a six week long menstrual cycle. That is not a misprint. I thought I was hemmoraging. [sigh]

Well, I guess I was officially (?) diagnosed with PCOS about a month ago. My ob/gyn sort of muttered something about irregular ovulation and we started playing the birth control pill go round.

We haven't quite managed to convince the ob/gyn to do the full battery of tests, but after doing a lot of homework and tripping over the INCID pages on PCOS (a godsend) we hit the same page. I'm hoping I can convince him to do the whole shebang soon and confirm it.

The first set of pills, I gained 45 lbs. On a woman who already weighed 180 lbs and was only 5'6", this wasn't exactly a great idea. So after some complaint, we changed pills. The new pills were so weak that if I missed them by an hour I bled.

After a year of this abject stupidity, I got him to change them AGAIN. Now I'm on some kind of 35 mcg a day acne cure or something, but I seem to have stopped gaining. I'm retaining enough water to douse a forest fire, but we can't have everything.

My testosterone levels are about double the maximum female normal, so I'm a pretty furry beast and I carry all my weight in the front. No breasts, no butt, a beard and a beer belly, as I explain online to folks.

I'd love to try Metformin, but first we must convince the doctor that my problem is not merely that I'm fat and lazy. [shaking head] Some days I could gratefully punt him.

About a year ago, I went through a stupendous five alarm nervous breakdown and basically ended up on Celexa and nine months of downtime. My weight has been kind of a joke since, since a rather stubborn inability to lose seems to be a side effect.

At one time, I actually weighed 140 lbs. Nobody who's known me in the last 6 years believes me, but really I did. [sigh] Two years of college and a nervous breakdown will do that to you.

I suspect I have thyroid issues, but my ob/gyn won't touch it because he says they're normal. My basal body temperature is about 95.8, so I don't know HOW... but okay. (Maybe he's just reading T4?)

I have spent time off and on on the Atkins diet (or some personally tweaked variant thereof) for a number of years - I was living it when I was 140 lbs and I thought I was fat and gross and needed to lose at least another twenty before I'd be presentable.

My how things change.

I fell off the wagon when I went to college and haven't quite managed to climb back on. It's just so DEPRESSING to walk an hour a day and try to eat right and get nowhere. Especially when you know your pills (BC and AD) are working against you.

I'm hoping to find the courage to give it one more go and stick with it this time. It's frustrating to realize your waist measurement has exceeded your ribcage. (46/42 respectively). If I think about my weight, I get suicidal. I have a very loving partner who doesn't seem to care, but I hate myself.

I've had doctors point out that I probably should be dead of a heart attack. My blood pressure is fine, but I just seem to be stuck - I can't even bring myself to care anymore. I've been fighting with the whole pretending I'm perfectly acceptable the way I am and I know that's such a load of bull because *I* can't make myself believe it...

A fair amount of the information I've read implies that the insulin problems, depression, water retention and thyroid issues may be related to the PCOS so I'm trying to look at killing the body of the hydra instead of lopping off heads and having them grow back.

I've invested in some thyroid supplements on my own and an herbal/amino insulin sensitizer (similar to Metformin) and am going to experiment with those a bit and see if they help me feel enough like I'm not roadkill anymore to try going back to the AWOL. [shrugging]

Mostly ranting, I guess. It's nice to find a Canadian support group. There isn't really all that much in town here, but if I can find folks online to help, it's a start.

-Shadow-