[sophiew]

How long did it take between your diagnosis/starting meds for you to 1) get your period, 2) lose weight and/or 3) get pregnant?

This week I was finally diagnosed with PCOS. I have always had somewhat irregular periods but this year when I finally started trying to exercise, eat right and get healthy so I could start TTC, the periods stopped coming completely. It's been almost 6 months. It turned out I have high blood sugar (6.4 Hemoglobin A1C) and cholesterol too. I also have adult acne and always gain all of my weight in my stomach area. My doctor diagnosed me and I started Metformin on Monday.

How long after starting medication did your period resume? Did treatment help you with weight loss at all, and if so how long did that take? How about success TTC?

One reason I am asking is that I am starting on 750 mg Metformin ER. My doc says if I don't get a period in 40 days I should increase that. She also said I could try Clomid but I am not sure how long to give the Metformin to work before I try it. Any thoughts?

And was there anything else you did in addition to meds that helped ovulation start up again?

[butterflymama]

Ok so my story is pretty long so I will spare you all the details and will just highlight some stuff.

I was first diagnosed with Insulin resistance and then a week or so later with PCOS in 1999. I started on metformin I believe 750mg a day right away. We also Started on some fetility treatment stuff, I think clomid but I can't remember exactly. I tried following the diabetic diet but found it really hard to stick too and to exercise. i was really depressed and wasn't mentally ready. Anyway things didn't really work for me and my eggs grow big enough that first cycle and well I just found it too depressing to try that route again so after about 2 mons or so stopped taking the Met and kinda went into denial.

I would occasionally have a period on my own but mostly would have to induce one with provera when my Dr. would feel it had been too long without one. This went on for about 4 years or so.

In Jan of 2005 I realized that I was living in denial of my PCOS and that this was really not healthy. I had resigned myself to the idea that I may never have children but I still needed to do something about my PCOS and weight so I joined TOPS (non profit weight loss support group) I made a commitment to eat breakfast every day and to exercise (walking and belly dancing) I was losing some weight but my periods still weren't coming on there own so in March of 2005 I went to see a new Endocrinolagest who started me on Metfromin again starting at 500 mg but want me to work my way up to 750 mg in a few weeks (I had horrible nausea and vomiting with the Metformin) I started this the end of March. About Mid April i had a period on it's own. I stayed at 500 mg as I was happy with the results. We went away beginning of May for a week. I didn't get a period in May but did have some spotting towards the end of May. I saw my Endo the second week of June and she was disappointed that I didn't have a period in May so gave me a script for Provera and told me to take it. I didn't take it right away as I wanted to see if my body would spontaneously have a period on it's own in June. Well I didn't and I thought I was having a horrible time tolerating the metformin as my Nausea had increased and I had even vomited at work a few times. Well I had decided I would take the Provera at the end of June however my family Dr. had told me to always take pregnancy test before starting it just in case. I took a home pregnancy test expecting to see the not pregnant sign again as I had so many times before. Well it said Pregnant which I of course did not believe so I waited and took another the next morning and that one said pregnant too. Yep I was about 8 weeks pregnant and my "intolerance" to the metformin was actually morning sickness

After I had my daughter my PCOS "went away" my periods came back regularly I blood sugars were normal and when we decided to try to conceive again I was not on anything but was exercising (running and going to Curves) and eating healthy and charting my basal temp. We got pregnant on the second cycle of trying with not optimally timed intercourse (day after I ovulated) I had also gotten pregnant by accident while on vacation 8 mons after having my daughter and 7 mons before getting pregnant with my son but had a miscarriage at 9.5 weeks.

Ok so I know this is a long post and I wish you lots of baby dust and regular periods.

Oh and my PCOS and Insulin resistance ended up coming back after I had my son and gained a bunch of weight back but is now under control again without Metformin but with diet, exercise and natural supplements.

[Violet73]

I wasn't diagnosed with PCOS. I was just told I didn't ovulate very often This was in 1996 though and PCOS wasn't as well known as it is now. I maybe had 4 periods a year at the time. I was married at the time and we wanted to have a baby. The first OB/GYN I saw wasn't aggressive enough so I switched doctors. The next doctor I saw was very aggressive with a plan to help me get pregnant and had an actual plan laid out in which he wrote out by plan and gave me a copy It's been a long time ago and I'm sure I'm forgetting some things but I remember hormone levels on specific days and also have an HSG (test to make sure the fallopian tubes are clear). I took my basal body temperature every morning before my feet hit the floor and charted it (this was before ovulation kits). He gave me Provera to start my period when it was obvious I wasn't ovulating and then I took my first round of Clomid. I didn't get pregnant. I took another round the next month and got pregnant! Ovulation showed on the chart and it was accurate My daughter is now 13

Another thing that might have helped is that I took Robitussin every four hours. My doctor told me to do this to help thin the cervical mucus in order for the sperm to swim through easier. Robitussin doesn't only thin the sinus mucus evidently Sounds crazy but it must have worked!

If all of this wasn't going to work then the next step was going to by IUI (intrauterine insemination). During this process we had found out that my husband had a low sperm count so we had a few things going against us. The good thing is, is that it only takes one sperm

My periods are pretty regular now. I may skip a month here and there but it isn't like it was. I'm a lot larger now so I'm not sure why they have straightened out. I've just been recently told that I have probably had PCOS all this time and I DO have a lot of the symptoms.

Good luck in your process and stay strong.

[sophiew]

Wow, thanks for sharing your stories!! Sounds like you both went through a lot. I'm glad I finally got a diagnosis and that I found a doctor who figured it out pretty quickly. Although I can't believe no one else ever figured it out in the past 15 years (since I started my periods, which were always irregular).

I am pretty nervous about the possibility of it taking forever to conceive and then even if I do conceive, with facing the higher miscarriage rate. Very happy to hear you managed to get it done and, it sounds like, pretty quickly after you got on the right meds for you.