You have probably heard the term Polycystic Ovary Syndrome or PCOS. You may have even been diagnosed with it. The National Institute for health reports that up to 10% of women in the United States will be diagnosed with this condition (1). That represents a large number of women. It can very profoundly impact your quality of life atnd your fertility. This is a devastating issue for many women.
Symptoms of PCOS include fertility issues, irregular menstrual cycles or missed periods, decreased sex drive, acne, fatigue, excessive hair growth on the body and thinning hair on the scalp, an increase in male hormones for women, weight gain and trouble losing weight, and even anxiety and depression.
The main form of treatment in the Traditional medical community includes birth control medications or other hormonal medications, fertility medications such as Clomiphine citrate (which goes by the brand name Clomid), and insulin lowering medications like Metformin. This problem is that this doesn’t find and fix the root cause of the issue. In fact, many women with PCOS are in a state of Estrogen Dominance and using birth control pills containing estrogen can actually be making the issue worse. Birth control medications also have a negative effect on gut health and that, in turn, can worsen symptoms of anxiety and depression.
So, how do you naturally address PCOS in a way that works? First, it is important to recognize that the vast majority of the cases of PCOS involve insulin resistance. This is a situation that is not unique to PCOS only. Insulin resistance, pre-diabetes or Metabolic Syndrome is very common throughout the United States. The abundance of carb-laden, high sugar foods makes this a huge problem for a large number of individuals. You can start by cutting back on carbohydrates and making sure you consume a diet high in vegetables, fruits, healthy fats and organic, pastured meats.
Exercise is always another part of the equation when trying to tackle the issue of insulin resistance. Make sure to get 30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week. You can check out this article for more on exercise.
Another really important piece of the puzzle with PCOS is to avoid products that can interfere with your hormones. A big, fancy word for that is an endocrine disruptor. These can be found in many cosmetics and beauty care products. Things like Parabens are some of the worst offenders. You will want to choose natural products. I really like the Environmental Working group as a resource for this. You can visit their site at www.EWG.org. They also have a free app called “Healthy living” that you can download to see how your products rate on toxic ingredients. I have an article that goes into detail on this as well. You can read more here
Sometimes the above strategies are enough to help. Sometimes, you might need a bit more analysis and help finding the root cause of the issue. Lab testing that looks at blood sugar handling and insulin resistance as well as comprehensive hormone testing like the DUTCH test can be very valuable. Stress is a major player also. Many times people do not realize their bodies are in a stressed out state until we do some functional testing. It’s so normal to them that they don’t even recognize it any more. If stress hormones are elevated, insulin can be very hard to manage. There are many supplements and herbs that can also be used as part of the healing process, depending on what the root cause issue is.
If you are in need of an in-depth analysis for this or another health issue, please feel free to reach out to me and schedule a FREE Health Discovery call where we can connect and see if we are a good fit to work together. Thanks to modern technology, I am able to consult with people all over the country, and I absolutely love helping people reach their full health potential.
To your health,
Dr. Jeni
(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6266413/
