PCOS - a disease of fertility only?

1 in 5 women struggle with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrom). However, less than 50 percent of women are properly diagnosed. This means millions have no idea what’s causing their symptoms. PCOS is the most common hormonal imbalance in women, however, there are many misconceptions around the diagnose, because the name leads you to think that you have to have cysts to have PCOS. Which is wrong. Despite the name, many women do not have cysts on their ovaries. 

Because women have ovaries, and a menstrual cycle, and because PCOS disrupts the menstrual cycle, it is looked at as a disease of fertility, when it really should be looked at as a disease of cardiovascular and metabolic health. PCOS is NOT just a period and fertility problem. It’s much bigger, which is also why the name PCOS is misleading. (Changing the name has been suggested) 

When a young woman has PCOS symptoms, and she’s not trying to have babies (yet), the standard solution is the birth control pill, which puts a pause on the disrupted ovulation so you don’t really see the cycle disruption, so you «forget» about it. But the woman still has this underlying metabolic condition that is not being addressed. And because it’s not really about feritliy alone, but so much more, you can see how taking hormonal birth control is problematic as it will not fix the complexity of the problem. (Not that the pill fixes any other fertility problems either). It will only mask the obvious symptoms, which is the symptoms that shows up in your menstrual cycle. 

PCOS is a serious health problem and is associated with a long-term risk of diabetes and heart disease. As much as 50% of women with PCOS will develop type 2 diabetes by the age of 40. And when 20% of the female population has PCOS, that means that a fair share of people are going to develop the damaging illness that diabetes is. 

Symptoms of PCOS include

-Irregular cycles or missed periods as a result of delayed or lack of ovulation
- Polycystic ovaries
- Insulin resistance
- Excess androgens (like testosterone)
- Male pattern baldness and
- Hair loss
- Hirutism (excessive facial and body hair) .

There’s hope though. No matter what your doctor says.