By Azeeza Rawat
Edited by Humairaa Mayet
Azeeza Rawat shares her experiences on living with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). Dr Kerusha Naidoo, PCOS specialist, provides her input on the condition.
They say the perfect woman has a healthy appetite but is always slim and trim, toned from head to toe.
They say she doesn’t wear too much makeup – no, we prefer the natural look, but her skin is always flawless.
Not a hair out of place, not a hair to be seen on her face or body, but a thick shiny mane of hair on her head.
The perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect woman.
I’ve never felt like this perfect woman, not as a woman with PCOS.
Azeeza Rawat
Growing up, my mother had always suspected that my sister and I had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). Among many other tell-tales, I’d lay in her bed with excruciating period pain.
My flow would be heavy, thick with blood clots, and later would be one of the contributing factors for my chronic anaemia. I was overweight, I had pigmentation and anxiety. I ticked many of the boxes for PCOS, but without an official diagnosis.
Early on in life, I realised PCOS is not just a condition. It is a lifestyle; it controlled, and still does control, so many aspects of my life.
Dr Kerusha Naidoo, a homoeopathic doctor who specialises in PCOS, described it to To EmpowHer as a genetic, hormonal, metabolic and reproductive disorder that affects women of reproductive age.
Dr Kerusha Naidoo - Homoeopathic Doctor
Dr Naidoo stated that the main symptoms that I see in practice are commonly irregular periods (if a woman’s cycle is shorter than 21 days or more than 35 days).
Other symptoms, as shared by Dr Naidoo, are “acne, an increase in the male hormone; testosterone, a poor digestive system, inflammation, weight gain (due to insulin resistance), and darkened patches (acanthosis nigricans) around the neck, underarms, between the thighs, among others”
There’s also “loss or thinning of hair on the head, increase of hair growth on the face, chest and abdomen, constantly feeling tired or fatigued, brain fog, insomnia or trouble sleeping, mood swings, anxiety and depression, sugar cravings, infertility and cysts in the ovaries.”
Photo: Dr Kerusha Naidoo
As a woman with PCOS, I had, and still have, many of these symptoms. They came along with countless doctors’ appointments, pills and supplements to take in the handfuls, blood tests and weight loss treatments. Yet the word PCOS rarely came up during doctor’s consultations when I was younger nor were any actual treatments to manage it mentioned by my healthcare practitioners. What was always mentioned, however, without fail, was the fact that I needed to lose weight.
Without even asking for a description of my current habits, doctors would don a concerned expression on their faces, and suggest that I’d need a complete lifestyle change. Exercise and healthy eating were explained to me as if it were an obscure physics equation that I just didn’t get. “Azeeza, if you stop eating so much and exercise more, you’ll lose weight. It’s that simple.”
But my doctors didn’t seem to mention that when you throw PCOS into the mix, the whole equation is thrown off.
Not only can weight gain be a symptom of PCOS but having PCOS can make it extremely difficult to lose weight. In combination with the fatigue and low mood – also a symptom of PCOS – what we have here are women who are struggling with a condition yet are often blamed for being too fat or for not even trying.
Yet I’ve been on numerous and varied diets, with the biggest result not being significant and sustained weight loss, but other symptoms such as dizziness, acne, dry mouth, liver issues and increased fatigue have come about as a result.
Dr Naidoo stated that in practice the main cause that I am able to identify in my patients is insulin resistance through blood tests and physical examinations, but that other possible causes of PCOS may include inflammation, post pill i.e., oral contraceptive pill (this is usually temporary), adrenal (which is rare).
It’s important to note that while an unhealthy diet can affect insulin resistance, it is not the only cause. Acute and chronic stress, along with genetics, can cause one to become insulin resistant.
Photo: Dr Kerusha Naidoo
So, I lived most of my adolescent life feeling as if my body was not functioning optimally, but not having tangible blood tests or any results that definitively validated what I’d been living with. It was only in 2014 when I went for my first ultrasound, at the age of seventeen, did my doctor notice a large cyst on my ovary. And that’s when it suddenly became real. I felt as if there was this “monster” inside my body, and we had no clue if it would go away with medication or if I needed surgery.
I suddenly had intense anxiety about something I’d never thought about before. And while the cyst went away with medication, there’s no guarantee I won’t continuously develop these cysts on my ovaries – there’s no guarantee it won’t be a problem in the future.
In 2017, three years after discovering the cyst, I was able to undergo laser hair removal.
I was always hairy, but after the laser, I ironically started noticing that the hair on my chin and neck had grown darker and thicker. It was a devastating shock, since in my Indian community, facial hair is seen as a “crime” on the face of a woman.
For a while, I’d shave every morning. But I felt masculine and ashamed, so I stopped, turning to more “feminine” cosmetic forms of hair removal. But waxing at home doesn’t remove the thicker hairs, and often I’d have to tweeze each hair. The social stigma surrounding the symptoms of PCOS, such as the hairiness and the weight gain, affected me more and more.
Most importantly, PCOS can affect the chances of a woman being able to conceive a child.
Women who have not tried to have children yet, must live with the possibility that they may never be able to.
As a woman living in a traditional community still deep in cultural ideas of gender roles, this may be a difficult idea to wrap one's head around.
Dr Naidoo shared a similar story of her own “I was diagnosed with PCOS at the age of 13 years and was immediately prescribed the oral contraceptive pill and told to lose weight and at that young age I was so scared that I just listened without questioning. But as the years passed, I had recurring cysts which I had to be hospitalised for and many complications that would result in me being admitted in hospital for a substantial part of my teens and early 20’s.”
Eventually I took matters into my own hands and spent countless hours learning as much as possible about PCOS. I began treating myself by going off the OCP and putting myself on supplements along with homoeopathic medications. These helped me and inspired me to help other women.
Dr Naidoo recommends certain medical treatments, but also ‘at home’ treatments that can be used to manage PCOS. These include lifestyle changes – eating foods that nourish your body and balance your hormones, exercise – low resistance workouts and weightlifting exercises.
Photo: Dr Kerusha Naidoo
What a doctor like Dr Naidoo can assist with is homoeopathic medicine. This alternative medicine approach treats each patient according to their individual symptoms because no two PCOS patients are the same. By using homoeopathic medicines tailor-made according to each patient’s symptomatology has been proven to be beneficial in my practice,” and “supplementation – this is based on blood test results of the patient, consultation and discussion of symptoms.
I personally enjoy dance walking which I find videos for on YouTube, in conjunction with light weight lifting and pilates. I also take Insumax, Glucophage, Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Vitamin D and Omega 3.
So, while I may not feel like society’s version of a perfect woman, I can get closer to the perfect idea of myself, with or without PCOS.
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