PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome)

You may have heard females asking, ‘Is there any cure for PCOS?’ The answer is no. There is no cure for PCOS, but you can manage the symptoms by making some lifestyle changes, along with the proper medication by your doctor.

PCOS (Polycystic Ovaries Syndrome) is a condition seen in women that includes infertility, enlarged ovaries, menstrual problems, high levels of male hormones, excess body hair, acne, and obesity.

 The prevalence of PCOS is between 5% and 10% in women between 15 and 44 or during the years when you can have children. Women in their 20s and 30s discovered PCOS when they have difficulties getting pregnant. However, PCOS can occur at any age after puberty.

Causes of PCOS:

PCOS’s exact cause is unknown. Most experts believe that a variety of factors, including genetics, are at work:

  • Androgen levels are high– We know androgens as “male hormones,” although all women produce those androgens in small amounts. Androgens regulate male traits, such as male-pattern baldness. Androgens regulate male traits, such as male-pattern baldness. 

Women with PCOS have higher levels of androgens than other women. Higher androgen level in women can prevent the ovaries from releasing an egg (ovulation) during each menstrual cycle, as well as cause extra hair growth and acne, both of which are symptoms of PCOS.

  • Insulin levels are high– This hormone converts into energy food. Insulin resistance occurs when the body’s cells do not respond to insulin. As a result, your insulin blood levels rise above normal.

Women having PCOS often have insulin resistance, are overweight, have poor eating habits, lack physical activity, and have a family history of diabetes (type 2).

Effects:

We can see its effects as:

  • Menstrual cycle irregularity: Women with PCOS experience missed periods or have fewer periods (fewer than eight in a year). Their periods may occur every 21 days or more frequently. Some PCOS women experience a pause in their menstruation.
  • Excessive hair on the face, chin, or other areas of the body where men have hair. We know this as “hirsutism.” Up to 70% of PCOS women suffer from hirsutism.
  • Face, chest, and upper back acne
  • Scalp thinning or hair loss are symptoms of male-pattern baldness.
  • Gaining weight or having difficulty losing weight
  • Skin tags are small excess flaps of skin in the armpits or neck area.
  • Depression: Hormonal changes and symptoms such as unwanted hair growth can have a negative impact on your emotions. Many people develop depression and anxiety because of this.
  • Multiple small cysts (Fluid-filled sacs or pockets in an ovary or on its surface) on the ovaries. 

Presence of ovarian cysts alone does not make up a diagnosis. Many women with this syndrome don’t have cysts on their ovaries. While others have it.

Therefore, it is very important to consult with your doctor if you notice any of these symptoms,

Medication for every woman will be different, but bringing some lifestyle changes can help you manage your PCOS to a great extent and prevent its complications.

Lifestyle changes:

  • Exercise: Exercise not only aids in weight loss, but may also lower testosterone levels in the blood.
    Most of the females are overweight in this case. Short-term weight loss can help to restore fertility and ovulation, as well as improve insulin resistance.

 According to the researchers, intense exercise has the greatest impact on BMI, fitness, and insulin resistance in women with PCOS.

  • Mind-body workouts: Exercises improve our mental health too. Exercises that engage both your mind and body can be beneficial. Yoga, tai chi, qi gong, and Pilates are examples of these. 

Till now, researchers haven’t identified a specific type of exercise that is best for females with PCOS.

Instead, they claim that many types of exercise can benefit people with PCOS. ‌Regular exercise is the best type of exercise.

Including aerobic exercises like brisk walking, biking, swimming, and other activities can be helpful along with resistance training that increases endurance and muscle strength, such as sit-ups, push-ups, leg squats, and weight lifting.

  • Herbs: Two out of five women with PCOS consume herbal medicine. According to a review of scientific research on herbs and PCOS, data shows that herbal medicine may help regulate ovulation and improve fertility.

A study of 122 women with PCOS, who took herbal medicine along with lifestyle modifications, had better symptoms than those who only made lifestyle changes.

A well-balanced diet and at least 150 minutes of exercise per week are some of the lifestyle changes. Cinnamon and licorice (Mulhatti) roots are among the herbal remedies which you can use.

To understand the effects of herbs, we need more research.

  • A well-balanced diet: Maintaining a healthy weight, maintaining a well-balanced diet, and maintaining good insulin levels can help people with PCOS feel better.
    A PCOS diet should focus on whole grains, fresh produce, and plant-based proteins while limiting sugar, processed foods, and trans fat. 

As I mentioned above, every woman is different, so depending on your overall health need and body type, you need to adjust your diet and consult your health care provider from time to time. 

You can use this general list as a starting point, but you must consult your dietician, as they will help you or may recommend bringing some changes as part of your specific PCOS diet plan.

  1. A low glycaemic index (GI) diet: Foods with low GI level means they do not cause insulin levels to rise as much or as quickly as other foods, such as some carbohydrates. Whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, fruits, starchy vegetables, and other unprocessed, low-carbohydrate foods are all part of a low-GI diet.
  1. An anti-inflammatory diet: Anti-inflammatory foods like berries, fatty fish, leafy greens, and extra virgin olive oil may help with inflammation-related symptoms like fatigue.
  1. The DASH diet: Doctors recommend the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet to reduce the risk or impact of heart disease. It may also help with PCOS symptoms. A DASH diet is high in fish, poultry, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

We know PCOS can disrupt a woman’s menstrual cycles and make it challenging to conceive, along with other serious health issues. Lifestyle interventions are frequently the first treatments that doctors recommend for PCOS, and they often work amazingly.

So implementing basic lifestyle changes will help you reduce their symptoms and improve your quality of life and make you feel mentally and physically active, fit and stable.

This is enough for today as I don’t want to overwhelm you with tons of information, so I will bring more juicy information next time.

Till then, keep smiling and cheering.

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Hey, that last line is totally my style. Hi guys, this is your favourite health blogger FGW. This blog is written by a friend of mine. Her name is Rani Kumari. She is very kind enough to write a complete blog for me on a very short notice. So, thanks to her for this amazing blog.

Shower some love by dropping likes and comments. You can connect with Rani Kumari by clicking on her name.

I will see you next week, Shine!!!

140 responses to “PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome)”

    • Thank you so much for reading (you always read anyway).
      .
      Happy raksha bandhan to you. It’s an Indian festival of brother and sister. Where sister ties a thread on brothers hand. And, brother swear to protect her from everything.
      Good morning from india!!!
      I’m sure, you are the Batman. I mean, it must be late there 😅

      • That’s nice! Happy Raksha Bandhan to you too! 🙂 Thank you for sharing that with me. Haha, it’s not too late, almost 8 PM. Although, I wish I had Batman’s gadgets, and car.

      • Here it’s 8:40 am, when I write this.
        So we have 12 hr and 30 mins difference.
        If Batman gadgets are given to you ,first thing you need to do is kill tim boy.
        .
        Hey, btw, I’ve recently learnt that you are a hurricane slayer. Sound cool(and scary). I hope you are fine now.

      • Haha! Poor Timothy.

        Lol, yes, I used to live in the southeast part of North Carolina and I saw some action out there with the weather. I had to evacuate one year and we drove down to Florida in the middle of the night with the kids in the car. The next year we stayed home during another hurricane. Never prayed so hard in my life, but we woke up the next day so, it worked! 🙂

      • You are a hurricane slayer then 🦸🏻‍♀️👈🏻
        I’m glad that you are fine.
        It’s a blessing to able to read your blogs.
        Kindly, never stop writing.

  1. Thank you for talking about this important and little known condition, Rani. Your article was in depth and detailed! I’d like to add a little a bit about an anti-inflammatory diet, since I follow it for a different health condition. I avoid milk products and gluten as well. Thanks.

    • Yeahh you are right.
      This problem is common nowadays but people don’t talk about it muchh.
      So thought of sharing this article with you all.

      Hope you got the insights in depth.

      • Actually, you can’t fix it forever. 😛
        Wp will again start doing it randomly.
        Happens a lot. This ruins the experience. Because, I want to comment and show my appreciation towards the content. This ruins everything.
        But, thanks for responding sis. You are very humble.

      • You are right this is really bad for creator bc may be your readers can think that you are being rude to them and not responding to their comments.
        Thanks to you for telling me this so next time I’ll take care of this and check it on regular basis.. Thanku you are sweet and humble too .

      • Actually sis, this happens a lot with me as well. I had your comment on my post, so I thought, I should inform you on my posts. This is also bad for the blogs, as if someone is trying to connect, they couldn’t. If people see comments on your blogs, they will see that this person is responsive to the comments. Then, they will also comment. Atleast, this is what I see in a blog, other than content. I see if the author is responsive, then it’s good to connect with them

      • Actually ! interaction is really important with your audience to connect with them more. And they would love to comment on your Post’s.
        Thanks for all the advice. 😊

  2. Really informative post. I know someone who has PCOS and it can be difficult to deal with the symptoms but lifestyle changes do seem to have helped her a lot. If I’m not wrong, PCOS is more prevalent in South Asian women.

    • Women go through a lot. 😥
      Oh I didn’t know that about South asian women.
      A great topic to research upon.
      Will research about it and let you know.
      Thank you so much for your relentless kindness Pooja. 🙇🏻‍♂️

    • Yeahh Pooja you are right , it’s really difficult and i can understand that very well as my friend is PCOS diagnosed,so she shares with me her problems 🙂.

      Yeah it is mostly prevalent in south Asian women’s .

      Thank you so much Pooja for appreciating ☺️🤗.

      • I’m sorry your friend is suffering from that too and I thought it was more prevalent in S.Asian women but wasn’t sure. My pleasure ☺️

  3. Hey, i think you should replace the term ‘women’ with something more inclusive like ‘people who menstruate’ or ‘people with ovaries’. The reason behind the same is that some women don’t menstruate and some people who menstruate don’t identify as women. I would also suggest making the language more gender neutral, in general, by changing terms like ‘male/masculine traits’ etc

    • Hey Upasana, thats a brilliant suggestion.
      I really thank you for that.
      You are very kind enough to actually spend your precious time in educating about this thing. I really appreciate that.
      I will definitely remember that in the future.
      .
      Also, as now we are able to talk, I wanted to tell you that many of my comments are going into the spam.
      I tried to tell you, but that comment went to the spam as well.
      I used to read a lot of your blog.
      And I felt that, if my comments are going into the spam and just a like is visible, kt will seem like as if I’m some random liker.
      I love and appreciate your content. But, I want to interact more.
      Please look into this matter.

      • Hey, i had checked my spam and had read a few of the comments you had made in April. But, i couldn’t respond because it had been slightly late (i had liked the comments, though).
        Thanks for appreciating my work 🙂

  4. Thank you, Devang and your friend, Rani, for writing this post. I do know a lot about this subject as this was a condition I had to battle with many years ago. I had all the signs and symptoms that you described. I was on a medication called Metformin – which reduces some of the hormone activity in the body. I also had three large ovarian cysts. I had to have three operations to remove them as they grew so large. Believe it or not, two were the size of an orange, and one was the size of a grapefruit. You can imagine how painful that was – extremely. I had the acne, too, which was horrible as I was then in my 30s and early 40s and felt very embarrassed by this. This article is so interesting and informative. I would have loved to have read this when I was experiencing PCOS, as no one told me about natural and alternative therapies at the time. Now that I’ve had my menopause, I don’t have the condition anymore, thankfully. Thanks to you and Rani for sharing 🌞

    • Gladd to hear that you aren’t suffering from that 🤗.
      I know how tough it becomes when we suffer from all this symptoms as my friend is suffering from this now🥲.
      But bringing this type of changes surely helps.
      I have heard about this medication – Metformin but i didn’t add up here coz as u know every is having different body and one medication might not suit all .
      But thank you so muchhhh for sharing your experience Ellie❤️

      • How kind of you to reply, Rani. Thank you for your understanding words. I’m sorry your friend is troubled by this condition. You are quite right about Metformin – it’s a prescription only drug so would only be given under the guidance of a doctor, but as you say, it might not be the right drug for everyone with this condition. I tried to follow the link that Devang shared to connect with you, but link led only to a Linkedin page as opposed to your blog. I’m not on Linkedin so was unable to connect with you. Is it possible for you to send me a link to your blog, please? Many thanks. Ellie x 💖

    • Dearest Ellie.
      I’m Sorry for what you have went through. I hope you are at good health now. Women go through a lot.
      I am glad that you like the blog.
      I was really waiting for your comment. Your comment and interaction is very crucial to me. Keep smiling.

    • Heyy ellie❣️
      Actually i don’t have my own blog site ☺️ but we can for sure connect over Facebook and would love to be in touch with you.

      Here’s my Id- Rani kumari

      Cheers,
      Will see you there.
      🥂

      • Hi Rani. That is so kind of you, but, unfortunately, I don’t use my blogging FB page anymore. I only have a page for my family messages and posts. It is such a shame as I would have liked to connect with you. I’m on Instagram if that’s any help, although I don’t have a lot on there either. I am hoping to add to my account soon as I haven’t had it very long. You are welcome to send me a friend request on there if that would suit you. My handle on there is Elliest888. Ellie 🌞

  5. Great informative post.. I suffered from this disease some years ago But thank God I recovered within 3 months.. The doctor Gave me the same medicine taken by the people who suffer from diabetes.. At that time I had some obesity also.. She advised me to lose weight..
    Keep giving dear friend Devang 🌷

  6. I didn’t knew much about PCOS but this blog was really informative, I got to know so many things about this important and sensitive topic. Thanks for sharing it with us.

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