Doctor's Visit

This post contains a lot of likely TMI material.  If you aren't interested in what's going on with my body & PCOS - you might want to skip this post.  :-)  Don't say you weren't warned...

With all of the fun things going in my life re: PCOS, I made an appointment with my OB/GYN to have a couple of exams done that would show what's really going on with my ovaries, uterus, etc.  

My appointment was today at 11:30.  

Without going into too much detail regarding the actual tests themselves, the results weren't terrible.

Basically, they were looking for possible cysts, polyps, fibroids, a possible miscarriage, and maybe even cancer.  The good news is that the tests showed that all of those possibilities to explain the constant bleeding aren't the answer.  The bad news is that she did see a bunch of little follicles on my ovaries.  Now, under normal circumstances, you want follicles on your ovaries, but when you are on CD13, and none of them have grown to be big, strong follicles, there's an issue.

I found a great article on vcuhealth.org that kind of explains this a little better than I can...

Basically, here's what the article says:

Women with PCOS may {also} have enlarged ovaries which contain multiple small cysts, thus leading to the descriptive term “polycystic ovaries.”  These cystic formations are called follicles and under normal hormonal influence one follicle will grow, rupture and release an egg, while the other “non-dominant” follicles shrink.  This is the naturally occurring physiological process of ovulation that occurs monthly in women of reproductive age.  However, in women with PCOS, whose hormonal balance is altered, these follciles fail to grow and rarely ovulate.  This hormonal imbalance leads to multiple immature follicles in the ovaries giving this “polycystic” appearance.

So now, we try to figure out what to do, either holistically or medically, to get these babies to grow!