As I had mentioned in about me, I was diagnosed with PCOS about 5 years ago and ever since that I have gathered much knowledge from my doctors, reading on PCOS and out of my own experience. I am going to share all those gyan here. In my initial posts, I am going to concentrate on preliminary info like understanding PCOS, its causes, symptoms and stuff like that. That's because, I believe that understanding the Syndrome (I’d rather not use the word “Disease” as it make it look sickening) is the first step towards fighting it. Yes, we have to fight the syndrome and keep it at bay as there is no permanent cure for this as far as I know. (Please correct me if I am wrong).

Ok, So what is PCOS?

PCOS is Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (some call it PCOD which I don't want to). As the name states, you have multiple cysts in your ovaries when you have PCOS. But, there are also some cases where the Syndrome exists without multiple cysts. In either case, one has PCOS when the hormones in the woman’s body is out-of-balance. PCOS has become common these days (1 out of 15 women has PCOS). So you are not the only one crying “Why Me??” The symptoms in most cases are seen during the teen stage. Starting to attack PCOS at an early stage can go a long way to avoid future problems like the biggest one of them all – pregnancy problems and infertility.

What the heck are these Hormones?

Hormones are chemicals that are supposed to be present at certain levels for the body to run smoothly. Mostly one hormone is responsible for the generation of another. This make PCOS even more complex because if one is out of balance, it becomes redundant with all the other hormones. In general, the female ovaries generate a small amount of androgen (male sex hormone), but when one has PCOS, the ovaries generate an extra amount of androgen than what it should be. This causes anovulation (failure to ovulate), acne outbreak, growth of facial and unwanted hair (sometimes frustratingly with hair loss in the head). In most cases, this is coupled with Insulin resistance where the body refuses to assimilate the sugar content in the food. This raises blood sugar level and makes us more susceptible to diabetes in near future.
Next post topic: PCOS symptoms, causes, diagnostics and common treatment procedures