PCOS - Loosing your femininity

Through the struggles of hormones, infertility and a host of less than desirable symptoms, many women living with PCOS feel like something has been stolen from them, their femininity. As a result most women deal with shame and embarrassment about their symptoms and often have a hard time discussing it with others.

Why shouldn't they?

Many of the symptoms associated with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome are less than Glamourous and often ridiculed. What many do not realize is it male influence in these women that is the root cause of these symptoms, what do I mean... androgen excess - higher levels of testosterone

"Androgen Excess can affect different tissues and organs, causing variable clinical features such as acne, hirsutism, viralization and reproductive dysfunction" 
-Mohamed Yahya Abdel-Rahman, MD, MSc (Medscape) August 7, 2012.

In talking with many women with PCOS there seems to be an underlying theme, many use words such as abnormal, freakish, unwomanly, humiliating, as they feel there is a failure to conform to the "norms" of womanhood, the most distressing things to discuss among many of the symptoms being body and facial hair, menstrual irregularities and infertility.

As in the case of one woman on The Soul Cysters Board, a long standing message board community for women with PCOS Username Mstggirl85 states, "The fact that I walk around feeling like a man is probably one of my biggest issues. I have black thick hair growing out of my chin and my upper lip, my neck, my stomach, my feet and toes, and my legs. No matter how much I shave it, it will NEVER go away."

PCOS plays a major role in the lives of many women who are learning to deal with the myriad of symptoms, with the biggest frustration being the delay in diagnosis, the lack of information available and the general unwillingness of health professionals to take their symptoms seriously hearing things such as..  

Acne: you're not washing your face properly 
Excess Weight: you're not eating the right things and try working out a little harder 
Hair Loss: You're most likely under stress
Infertility: Sorry there is no hope, you might as well consider adoption
Menstrual Irregularities: Some Women have hormone problems try birth control pills

Another problem, many Medical Professionals still view the syndrome s a gynecological problem and only address the syndrome when issues of infertility arise.  As a result, single women, older women and those not trying to get pregnant have little change of being properly diagnosed. This in itself does not lead to empowerment and/or advocacy for ones health. 

When women finally do get the diagnosis, they are left overwhelmed and often handed a four letter word to research on their own when leaving the doctor with the news... (Ok we think we figured it out you have PCOS, thats polycystic ovary syndrome.) Then any security one may have in themselves goes right out the door. Thousands of women from around the world have experienced the same lack of response from the medical community with little understanding of PCOS, so why should they expect the public to understand, let alone themselves? 

Once they are able to come to terms with the syndrome and the associated symptoms, its now facing daily rituals, to "control" appearance.. shaving facial hair, applying acne treatments, diets and exercise. One study, (Greer, 1999) Femininity of women who are unable to meet the prescribed ideal is endangered - that their femaleness, their womanhood can be removed, taken away from them.

To truly understand this syndrome and its emotional affects, you have to be willing to listen, to look beyond idealism and to have the ability to accept people for whom they are with all their imperfections.  Without support and acceptance for what is truly going on in the inside, we will never be able to remove the stigmas associated with PCOS, we will never influence understanding amongst women living with PCOS, medical professionals treating PCOS and the public learning about PCOS.