Hello all! My name is Ryan, and I’m a 31 year old woman with PCOS.
I was diagnosed when I was 23 years old, after YEARS of misdiagnoses, suffering and confusion. When I was 12 I got my first cycle, and I was regular for all of about 8 months. After that the severe cramping started, along with periods of heavy bleeding and fatigue. Being that my father was raising me alone, he had NO clue how to even begin to help. So he took me to doctors.
Lord the doctors!! One said I was too young to worry about the irregularness of my cycles, one said it was IBS, and one even had the nerve to say it was all in my head!! So I suffered silently until I was 18. I married my first husband and he immediately started in on me to have a baby. We tried and tried and eventually he got sick of all my “issues” and ran off with another woman less than 2 years after we married.
I turned to my best friend at the time, a young man that I had been friends with for some years. We started a relationship and after about a year I was pregnant. Unfortunately we found out about the pregnancy in the ER where I was having to get an emergency blood transfusion due to massive hemorraging. I was having a miscarriage. I was devastated.
I felt like I was less than a woman. Eventually my depression and self-loathing drove him away. We are still friends, forever tied to one another by this secret, but we are both married and trying to build families. After a year or so I tenatively starting trying to date. I met a young man a bit younger than me, and we started our relationship.
After 3 years he asked me to marry him and I agreed. Three months later I found out he was cheating on me with my sister. He had the nerve to tell me that he thought he could handle the stress of what my PCOS would entail as far as us getting pregnant, but he was wrong. While I was in Basic for the sheriff’s department he packed up our apartment and moved in with her.
I found our a few weeks later that she was pregnant. I was devastated. So of course I started down a self-destructive path. I truned to drugs and blew all my money. I totally screwed up my law enforcement career. Eventually I realized that this was NOT where I wanted to be, and I was NOT going to let this beat me. I went back to college and got my degree in Criminal Justice, reconnected with old friends, and eventually married my husband, who was an old high school sweetheart 🙂 Now we are wanting to start our family, and I’m struggling with some serious weight gain issues and health issues.
I am trying hard not to get discouraged. I’m currently seeing a GP who has been monitoring my blood levels. He prescribed me Metformin and is helping me work through the weight issues. I am currently looking for an OB/GYN in the Raleigh area that specializes in PCOS. I’m wanting more help with my PCOS than a GP can offer me. I’m hoping to be able to get a lot of information here as well as maybe being able to help someone here with my experiences! I look forward to talking with you all!!
Want to connect with me? My name is Withers on the SoulCysters Message Board.