Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome also known as PCOS, haunts thousands of women in the U.S. and around the world.
You may read the name of the disease and think to yourself that cysts can be removed, what's the big deal? Well, PCOS just so happens to be detrimental to not only a woman's physical health but her emotional health as well.
Earlier in science and medicine when we weren't so advanced, PCOS was a death sentence to any dreams of a woman becoming a mother or having control of her femininity.
PCOS is still to this day incurable. Some of the many symptoms of having this disease that make it so terrible are irregular periods that make it difficult to live a normal life with never knowing when Flow will be at your doorstep.
It also makes it difficult to conceive, which is another miserable side effect of the disease.
Speaking of periods, women with PCOS may never get their period or when and if they do it is unimaginably heavy and lasts for weeks. A good friend of mine with PCOS said that when she was started on the pill (doctors will prescribe birth control to women with PCOS to regulate their periods) that she had to go to the hospital and needed a blood transfusion due to all of the blood she had lost.
Along with the abnormality of periods, women with PCOS are prone to being obese and overweight. These symptoms lead to most women with the disease developing diabetes.
A woman with PCOS will oftentimes have terrible acne and oily skin because of the abnormal hormones in her body.
The disease is caused by her having a higher amount of testosterone than other women which unfortunately throws off her whole body for the entirety of her fertile years.
Not only will a woman with this disease struggle with conceiving, she will have unwanted masculine features such as abnormal hair growth such as on the face, or hair loss and thinning hair.
The woman may also struggle with depression because of the hormonal imbalances within her body.
As mentioned earlier, doctors will prescribe medications such as birth control to regulate periods in order for the ovarian and uterine walls to not thicken and then develop cancer.
This is a disease that is slowly losing its grip on women. Today, it has never been easier for a woman with PCOS to have children and live normal lives. However, there is still a cure out there to be found.
