A post for PCOS/PMOS
Copyright Jamie Zenteno Ministries
I wasn’t sure if I was going to write a post for PCOS/PMOS remembrance month or not. To be quite honest it been a hell of month and it seemed as if all my frustration about the ridiculous condition reached its boiling point this month.
For those that don’t know, PCOS was renamed earlier this year to PMOS. Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome. Do I personally think the name change matters? Perhaps and perhaps not. It only matters if they are actually going to put funding into research to figure out what causes are and how to actually help women that have it. But I digress.
The name change at least is now backed by some research stating that it is now recognized as a metabolic issue which can affect the entire body instead of just ovaries.
How do I know this to be true? Because I have struggled understanding this awful condition for 12 years and have equally struggled with my body just as much.
After the second miscarriage, my OBGYN started doing testing and saw that my female level of testosterone was elevated. Not in a horrible way … but it was enough to throw off everything else. In addition to that I did have cysts that would take me down for a few days when they burst. It is incredibly painful and would leave me doubled over on the couch unable to do anything. I was also extremely Vitamin D deficient and had some sort of clotting disorder that only presented itself when I was pregnant. I also experienced extreme shifts in cycle times. Sometimes it was spot on and sometimes it was 30/60 or more days in between them.
Fast forward to the last few years. Everything has changed.
I got off the pill because I hated the way it made me feel and quite frankly, I didn’t like forcing a synthetic mess of chemicals into my system. Since doing so I gained around 30ish pounds, started randomly bleeding mid cycle (which was 100% not normal for me and has never happened before), random pains I thought were bigger cysts bursting, cold flashes, hot flashes, bloating (more than normal), fluid retention and the list could go on and on.
I have been frustrated. I even thought am I in early perimenopause?! Is that what’s going on?
2025 I started asking questions to my OBGYN at the time and asked for a full hormone panel to be ran to get a better understanding of what exactly was going on with my body so that I could support it better. Because everything I had known to do was no longer working. However, I was met with, you’ve gained weight, eat more leafy greens, lose the weight by exercising more. Needless to say, she also didn’t run a hormone panel.
I felt unsupported, not listened to and extremely frustrated. I wanted to know the why’s. Why am I so tired? Why do I have no energy? Why is my body acting like this when it never has before? Why am I gaining weight and having fluid retention?
Fast forward to this month.
I finally got in to see an endocrinologist that I had been waiting to see for about 6 months. She is listening. And that is peace I didn’t even know I needed so much.
Several appointments, blood draws, and ultrasounds later … data is becoming available. I still have no idea what any of it means. As you know, even when tests are done you still have to see the Dr in order for results to be interpreted. You can ask my sweet man Matt, that I am struggling to be patient for that appointment three weeks from now. But he has been a great support system for me to encourage me to not go down the rabbit holes.
So far, we know that a lot of my blood tests are “normal”. I was told sometimes PCOS can go away years after having kids. I’m still waiting for that to be confirmed. My ovaries show no cysts currently so that is great news. There are still some other things left to be explained and I’m trying to wait patiently for what those findings mean.
To all of my PCOS/PMOS “cysters” … keep advocating for yourself and keep searching for answers that support YOUR body!! Do not let anyone tell you, “This is just how it is, lose weight, this is how late 30 and early 40’s feel.”
I do believe the answers for my body are there and I am going to keep digging until they surface.
To all of my readers who do not have this or to the spouses/partners of the ones that do … keep supporting us. We know it’s frustrating to see us not feeling ok and hopefully one day we will. But in the meantime, keep praying for our healing, supporting us and encouraging us.
And to this I finish this post with - this is tough but WE are tougher.
Sincerely,
Jamie Zenteno
#PCOSawareness #PMOSawareness
#IAM1in10 #september
