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I need help i was Diagnosed with PCOS?
Filed under Women's HealthApr 24
Hi i was recently diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrom and i need some natural remendies for weightloss, regularity etc… Please if anyone knows anythign let me know thanks!!!
3 Responses to “I need help i was Diagnosed with PCOS?”
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Clarissa said on April 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I’ve seen a lot of people online who have said that gluten free diets are really effective for pcos.
Quite by accident I found this out. I started doing a gluten free diet for other reasons and all my pcos symptoms improved. Then I started doing research and found a lot of stuff about it. Let me know if you have any questions!
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GirlWhoSangTheBlues said on April 27th, 2008 at 5:57 am
I was diagnosed with PCOS almost ten years ago. Doctors will probably recommend going on Metformin to control your blood sugar and prevent you from developing diabetes as well as birth control to regulate your hormones.
If you have your heart set on using naturopathic or natural treatments, however, one of the most effective is simply changing your diet. PCOS is considered a “pre-diabetic” condition, which means that your body is naturally insulin resistant and you are therefore more likely to develop diabetes. You need to avoid sugar and processed carbohydrates as much as possible. Try to follow a low glycemic index diet (like the GI diet, South Beach, or Atkins). You don’t have to give up starches altogether, but try to choose more healthful ones, like wheat bread instead of white or whole wheat pasta instead of bleached. For natural sweeteners, consider honey and/or stevia (a plant-derived sweetener that doesn’t affect your glycemic levels.) These are a natural alternative to chemically derived artificial sweeteners like aspartame (Equal) and sucralose (Splenda). Many sufferers have claimed to be “cured” simply by changing their diets.
As for other “natural” remedies, you can buy the chromium picolinate, a nutritional supplement that’s supposed to naturally lower blood sugar levels, or you can supplement with cinnamon, which is supposed to have the same effect. To treat fluctuating hormonal levels, you might increase your soy intake (supposed to have an estrogenic effect on the body) by drinking soy milk or taking a supplement, or by taking Black Cohosh, an herb that supposedly ups estrogen levels in the body and was also used by Native Americans to treat infertility (just keep in mind that it can interfere with birth control if you’re taking that as well!) -
Aunt Minta said on April 28th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
PCOS sucks! I absolutely hate it!
That said, lots of people conceive with PCOS. Some have been able to get the disease under control enough to do it without fertility drugs, others have turned to the ovarian crack (that’d be me) but lots of us have made it to conception and the vast majority to an actual baybee. I have not made it to baybee-land, yet, but I have more problems than just PCOS.
Here is a PCOS crash course. I hope it is helpful and hopeful…
1) Chart. You need to know if you’re ovulating. With PCOS you can get the LH surge (ie test positive on an ovulation predictor strip), but not ovulate. The best way to determine if you ovulated is your basal body temperature. If it goes up and stays up you O’d (not the fun kind, but the important kind).
2) Insulin is the devil. Especially for you, because PCOS and Insulin Resistance are twin sisters and they hate you. If your insulin resistance is fair to normal, you can control it with diet. Lower carb, no sugar/flour, lots of fruits and veggies. Good book to check out is Fertility Foods by Jeremy Groll. Designed for PCOS.
3) If your insulin resistance is pretty bad and diet isn’t doing the trick, you may need some drugs to help out Metformin/Glucophage is a big helper. If that doesn’t do the trick Actos can be brought to the party.
4) Did I mention charting? You really need to know if you’re ovulating or not. Because if not, you may need some ovarian stimulation ala Clomid. It’s dirt cheap as these things go and is pretty effective with the PCOS set. I personally have gotten pregnant with Clomid.
5) Take your vitamins. Start your prenatals now. They help. And they do wonders for your hair and nails.
6) Exercise. I know it sucks, but it really helps with the insulin resistance. You need 150 minutes of exercise a week, preferably 100 minutes of cardio and 50 of strength training. Muscles are good for fighting insulin resistance. This is the area where I really suck at meeting my goals.
7) If you’re overweight, lose some weight. A loss of just 5% can have a tremendous impact on your insulin resistance.
Use full fat dairy if you use dairy at all. The lower fat dairy has a disproportionately high level of androgen hormones which can exacerbate PCOS.It really can and does and will happen. You may not need any of the above, you may need all of it or just some of it. But there is hope for you. Get the book, it will help you understand the disease better so you can fight it better.
