Docs told me PCOS would mean I’d never conceive naturally – now I’m pregnant after losing 4st
WHEN Kate Smith was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it should have come as a relief.
For five years, she'd been struggling with irregular periods which only started when she was 17.
But after finally persuading her doctor to investigate, he warned the then-22-year-old that having PCOS would mean "men might leave (her) because (she) might not be able to have children".
"I was only in my early 20s," Kate, now 34, told The Sun.
"I was quite abrupt with him, saying 'well they're not worth having then, are they?'
"But obviously, that comment impacted on my whole thought pattern in regards to relationships and I didn't tell anybody about my diagnosis for a long time."
A common side effect of having PCOS is putting on weight and struggling to lose it, and Kate had battled with her weight since her early teens.
The Occupational Therapist from Co. Durham also lived with chronic anxiety and fatigue but was offered no help.
"Because of the lack of information, I was given the diagnosis and told to get on with life and because I was young, I didn’t match up all the different symptoms under the PCOS umbrella."
It was only when Kate hit 30 that her health took a dramatic turn for the worst.
"I started getting severe flare-ups of fatigue and digestive issues. I was going to the doctors for two years and started exploring more and doing more muscle and PCOS kept coming up.
"I started getting talking therapy because I started getting so anxious about food because it was making me so poorly.
";The therapist asked when my anxiety had started and I said that I didn’t think I’d ever lived my adult life without anxiety."
Kate spent years trying to diet - trying "every diet and club".
But it was only when she started doing that she noticed a significant change.
Beachbody on Demand offers a range of nutrition and at-home workout plans that last from 21 days to 60 days.
"When I started doing the Beachbody plans, you could eat so much food and the weight was coming off and I was feeling healthier," Kate explained.
Kate joined her coach's challenge group and did the Core de Force - losing 11 inches in just four weeks.
She also found her IBS symptoms, which she'd had her entire life, as well as her energy dramatically improve.
"Since then I have never looked back! I have gone from a size 16 clothes to a size 8-10, I have lost nearly 4 stone and I had a flare-up August 2018 which was the first in 17 months!"
Today, she has no IBS symptoms at all.
"I did have the periods of plateauing but it continued to flow - I never had six months of nothing changing. I was so committed in my mind to making my body as healthy as I could be and in the back of my mind, I kept thinking that I needed to give myself the best opportunity I could to start a family when that moment came.
"I needed to make sure I was the healthiest and most fertile I could be."
And sure enough, Kate fell pregnant - naturally.
"It was a shock!" she exclaimed.
"I think it was largely down to losing weight.
"I’ve completely changed my whole lifestyle - I’ve changed the way I eat, the way I view food.
"Food is now a medicine for me rather than a comfort."
The home workouts also played a huge role because she says And with the exercise, I used to use it because I hated my body and thought I had to do it but once I saw the benefit of it and started using it alongside food to help my body, the weight naturally came off.
"My mindset completely changed."
Although the baby news is a "massive blessing", Kate said that her pregnancy had also been a "massive shock" because she never expected it to happen.
"My whole life, I believed that I'd need to have IVF and wouldn't be able to conceive naturally.
PCOS can cause a few complications with pregnancy, with gestational diabetes and the risk of early miscarriage being higher.
Despite that fact, however, Kate claims that not enough support is given to mums-to-be with the condition.
She recently took to social media to share her experiences and was inundated with messages from other women complaining about the fact that no one had bothered to talk them through the specific health issues associated with PCOS and pregnancy.
All Kate was offered was a diabetes check.
Symptoms of PCOS
Women who have PCOS find themselves prone to putting on weight, and it can be a lot more difficult to lose it.
Clare Goodwin, the PCOS Nutritionist, previously told The Sun: "Weight gain in PCOS is usually caused by something called insulin resistance (or pre-type 2 diabetes), and up to 80 per cent of women with PCOS have some insulin resistance.
Failing to regulate blood sugar is what causes intense sugar cravings.
"Insulin is your ‘storage’ hormone. When you eat, your body releases insulin to store that food (glucose) in your cells for later use.
"Insulin acts like a key in a lock, to let the glucose in. But insulin resistance is when the key doesn’t fit into the lock properly anymore. In response, your body produces more and more insulin - hoping that more insulin will be the key that finally fits the lock."
Clare says that the consequence is two-fold: Your body stores food as fat rather than energy, and insulin stays high - stopping the body from burning fat as energy.
And that's why it's so hard to get rid of body fat - because your body is actively working against you to store up any food you consume, rather than burning it.
That high insulin can also cause the body to over-produce testosterone, and it's that which is responsible for PCOS sufferers to have irregular periods, acne, hair growth or loss, and also makes the insulin resistance worse.
According to the NHS, symptoms are often be experienced in early twenties or late teens.
However, in many cases doctors can struggle to diagnose the condition.
Symptoms can include:
- irregular periods, or no periods at all
- excess body hair, including facial hair
- difficulty getting pregnant
- weight gain
- oily skin or acne
- thinning hair or hair loss
Having polycystic ovaries also increases a woman's chance of developing type 2 diabetes, depression, high blood pressure and high cholesterol and sleep apnoea later in life, the NHS warned.
Irregular periods can also increase the risk of developing womb cancer.
Apart from that, no one has acknowledged it at all.
"The only advice I've been given has been from an immune specialist who was going to do some other investigations.
";You don’t get any advice and no one bothers to guide you about anything.
"It’s only now with the immune specialist who is dealing with my other health problems that anyone has even bothered talking about it - should I have gone through so many professionals before getting even a tiny bit of advice?"
So, what advice does Kate have for other women living with PCOS?
Try a multipronged approach
I truly believe that you can’t just take one route and hope that it’s going to solve everything - you have to try everything," she explained.
As well as transforming her diet and exercise routine, she also tried acupuncture and Chinese herbs.
Food is medicine
"Look at food as medicine rather than anything else because we can naturally manage inflammation and heal our bodies using food.
"Particularly within the PCOS community, people can be very dependent on getting metformin (the diabetes drug) and other medication.
Don't diet
"I love carbs. You don’t have to do any faddy diets which involve cutting out food groups.
"The keto diet is really popular in the community but I just get a balanced diet - I like carbs so it’s about making sure that you’re getting the nutrients you need."
She says that eating for PCOS is a lifestyle change - making small tweaks for a big result.
"I certainly didn't wake up one morning and never ate chocolate again. I still eat chocolate now!"
Envision your goal
As with any weight loss or lifestyle goal, the endpoint can seem a long way away.
Which is why Kate stresses the importance of envisioning what is you want to achieve.
"I thought about how I wanted to look, my goal weight and I kept that in mind and that helped me to stay on track.
"With Beachbody I had the accountability of my coach.
"I’ve done Slimming World, WW, Atkins - name the diet and I’ve done it.
"The difference this time is the mental side of things. What I used to do at Slimming World, I’d think 'oh well, I can have this bag of crisps because it’s only x syns' - I saw I could still eat food with poor nutrition in it to lose weight.
"It was just about the fat loss. I wasn’t eating to fuel, heal and be full of energy."
Always demand a second opinion
But Kate's biggest thing is the idea that you shouldn't just accept what a medical professional tells you if you're unconvinced by what the say.
That doesn't mean ignoring the advice of your doctor but if you are unhappy with a diagnosis or lack of one, push for testing and ask for a second opinion.
Having PCOS doesn't mean that you can't have kids naturally and although there is no cure, it can be managed once you've worked out the root causes of it.
MORE ON WEIGHT LOSS
Around 80 per cent of PCOS sufferers have insulin resistance - meaning that their bodies struggle to metabolise sugar properly.
So cutting the refined carbs and limiting the number of free sugars you eat is a start.
But if you want proper help, you're better off going to see your GP before consulting a dietician or nutritionist.
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