I Finally Received the Answer to the Question I've Been Asking for 6 Years

If you have followed my blog since the beginning, you will know that I have struggled with hormonal imbalance, birth control, spotting, and weight gain basically my whole life. I have always suspected I had PCOS; even after directly asking countless doctors and gynaecologists about this, I have always been brushed off.

Finally, this year, I received the diagnosis I had been waiting for. This is my story of how I finally got diagnosed, the symptoms that led me to believe I had PCOS in the first place and how I am feeling about it now.

I have always had painful periods, I remember being in boarding school and having to walk home to lie down in the middle of a school day because I just couldn't handle the pain. Then came all my struggles with birth control in University, please feel free to read through that blog post if you're new here. Then as I got older, I started to notice how hard it was to lose weight which is when I suspected all these issues may be related and it must be something other than my metabolism slowing down.

I spoke to my GP about this and she just asked me all the usual, typical questions 'well do you have excessive hair growth?' 'Are you having irregular periods?' both of these I answered no to by the way, and then that was it. No further tests, I had answered no and so therefore I didn't have it.

As I got older though, my symptoms started worsening. I was gaining more and more weight, I was spotting more, ovulation started becoming horrendous as well as having awful period pain and I was starting to notice more hair growth. I became so obsessed with my weight that I hired a personal trainer, on top of my very physically demanding job. I was in the gym 5 days per week for an hour at a time for about a year and saw basically no change in my appearance and only lost 3kgs. Bearing in mind, I had a professionally trained chef cooking balanced and healthy meals for me every day, one of the perks of being a stewardess on a yacht, and I was on my feet at work running here there and everywhere for about 9 hours a day and still not much changed. I should have lost loads more than 3kgs!

I was seeing a well-known gynaecologist in Monaco at the time, and I again expressed my concerns that I either had endometriosis or PCOS. At least this doctor listened to me and somewhat took me seriously. She performed a vaginal ultrasound and sent me for a full blood workup. Both of which came back clear.

I was exasperated by this point. People would tell me it was a good thing that my tests came back clear but for me, it was so frustrating. You know your body. You know when something is wrong and I knew it. I could feel that something was not okay with me but you trust the doctors you are with. They're the professionals, they have the degree, and they know what they're talking about. Right?

I started blaming myself for my weight gain. Intrusive thoughts would consume me. 'You're clearly not working hard enough' 'You obviously doing something wrong at the gym' 'You're not eating right' 'You are just terrible' 'You're getting old and your metabolism is slowing down' 'Better count those calories' over and over and over again.

I decided to leave yachting at the beginning of 2022. It was a hard decision to come to, but I made it for a few reasons, mainly it was starting to take a toll on my mental health. Squeezing my body into a uniform made for garden gnomes wasn't doing my mental health any favours whatsoever, I was missing my friends and my family and I knew it was time to come home.

This is when I decided to put my health first. One of the first things I did when I came home was register at the doctor's. I thought to myself: 'If I am serious about doing land-based work then I can allow myself the time to be looked over by a doctor properly'

I was starting from scratch; a new doctor, in a new country, getting seen by someone who doesn't know me or my medical history. It was the best decision I have ever made. I explained everything to her, I told her about my history with crazy spotting, about all my issues with birth control, about all my concerns about hormone imbalance and that I was convinced something was wrong with me.

She looked me dead in the eyes, this young female doctor who must have only been out of med school for a few years, and told me 'Yes, that does sound like either endometriosis or PCOS, let's get you checked out.'

For the first time, I felt seen, heard and mostly, believed. Finally, someone is taking me seriously. This doctor followed the same procedures my Monaco gynae did. Vaginal exam, blood test then a vaginal ultrasound.

During the vaginal exam, she also found a cervical lesion which was causing some of my symptoms. She recommended I got this cauterised. She also recommended that I have the Mirena coil inserted to counteract some of the symptoms that both endometriosis and PCOS cause- so if it did end up being one or the other it would still help the symptoms of both.

So, I booked myself in to have this procedure, and to the ladies who have had this and said it wasn't that bad. Get out. I'm joking of course, it is different for everyone but this was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life and I like to think I have a pretty high pain tolerance. This experience deserves a whole blog post on its own so I won't go into too much detail but long story short, some women have the cauterisation done under a general anaesthetic, I, however, had a local one. It was so painful, the nurse had to hold my hand during the procedure. Afterwards, I fainted, almost puked and had to have rubbing alcohol smeared all over my face and chest and shoved up my nose to stop me from passing out again. It was a wild ride.

Aside from the pain, no one tells you what an emotional experience it is. It is so violating to have someone poke, prod and burn your most private parts. I may or may not have shed (sobbed) a few tears during this incident.

Anyways, cervix burnt and healed up nicely and the Mirena coil sitting all pretty, I was starting to feel the effects. I was feeling better! Ovulation was less painful and my periods started becoming less and less. After all that, it was definitely worth the trauma.

A few months later when I had recovered, and let's face it, it was the NHS, I could only get an appointment a few months later, I had my vaginal ultrasound. I have had many of these before due to reasons I would prefer to keep to myself for now, but this one was like nothing else. Normally, the doctor or technician will insert the wand into your vagina, take a lovely pic of your uterus, move it slightly over to get a lovely pic of your left ovary then over to the right to get the last lovely pic and then out the wand comes. Done, dusted and easy as that. This one was like that but when the tech was taking pictures of my ovaries he moved the wand so far to the side that I thought he was trying to say hello to my kidneys and took so long I thought he was sketching the images by hand.

It was uncomfortable in the moment, but now I look back and I am so grateful that that technician took his time to get good images. He spoke to me afterwards and asked me a bunch of questions about my symptoms but in a way that wasn't scary or made me concerned. I left there feeling seen and looked after again.

A couple of days later I was called back to the doctor who sat me down and explained that my ovaries were, in fact polycystic. However, and I will give you this fact for free, did you know that you can have polycystic ovaries and still not be diagnosed with PCOS? To have PCOS you have to have at least two of the 3 main symptoms. This could be irregular periods, blood tests showing high levels of testosterone or a scan showing polycystic ovaries. For me, I had the dodgy ovaries and the irregular periods and so it was concluded that I do in fact have PCOS.

What they don't tell you about getting diagnosed is the emotional side of things. Even though I had suspected for years that I have PCOS I was still an utter mess when I found out. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Then had to go and meet my newborn nephew for the very first time so I had to pull myself together for a full ten minutes and then I sobbed the whole way home.

Half of the reason I was crying was the fact that I felt like my body had failed me, I looked down at myself and just said, you already suck at breathing which is the most normal thing all living creatures do, thank you to my asthmatic lungs, and now you also suck at having a normal reproductive system. The two basic reasons humans are alive are to breathe and to have babies and now I struggle to do both. Great.

I was also crying because now I knew for sure I was going to be dealing with the symptoms for the rest of my life, I was now going to have to go and read and learn about this syndrome and figure out the confusing puzzle that is hormones and what is going to work best for me.

The other half of me was crying because I was relieved. Finally, someone

told me what I've known all along, finally, someone saw me as a person who was struggling, finally, someone found a solution, finally, finally, finally.

It's only been a month since my diagnosis, and I am still coming to terms with it. The diagnosis was just the start. I am still figuring out what I am going to do about my weight now that I am in a desk job and burning far fewer calories than I ever was before. But the thing that is weighing the most on me is the emotional side of it as opposed to the physical symptoms.

I have been struggling so much mentally, I've been going over things in my mind constantly. It's really made me think about the future and what I want it to look like and this is something I am still figuring out as well.

I don't have it all together yet, I'm not even close but I wanted to share my story to encourage you. Don't give up. You know when something isn't right with your body and you keep going back until you get the answers you need. Don't let anyone dismiss you if you truly feel that something is wrong. Be persistent, put your health first and listen to your body.