All About PCOS

I am Dr. Rita Bakshi, the consultant physician in Gynaecologist and IVF specialist at the International Fertility Centre. Today, let us talk about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) which is commonly heard by every single person. Every young girl now has a diagnosis of PCOS.

Now, what is PCOS?

This is a syndrome in which the girls have abnormal cycles. Abnormal cycles mean prolonged cycles, they bleed frequently and also they have symptoms of excessive androgens i.e, an excessive male hormone. So may see these girls have lot of hormones on their chin, neck, on their breast, on their arms. And also they have Acanthosis nigricans that mean they have darkness in their neck and they have small cysts in the ovary. This is just due to the hormonal pattern disturbance in girls and instead of having one egg every month, they have a number of eggs start developing but not even one good egg. So these girls not only have abnormal cycles, hair growth, loss of hair from the head, but also they may have some difficulty in getting pregnant.

Now, if I speak about the long term problems of PCOS is that there are most chances of Diabetes. And not only in them, but the chances of Diabetes in their siblings are also higher. Also, if you go in even longer-term then the chances of endometrial cancer is also higher. So it is important to recognize this when it exists and how to treat it. 

Now these girls are taking a lot of stress. So you have to teach them to stay stress-free by doing yoga, change their lifestyle, getting rid of junk food and do some exercises every day. 45 minutes of exercise every single day is going to work a long way to help them normalize the hormonal patterns. Besides that, these girls sometimes put on over contraceptive pills to regularise their cycles. So there are some girls which are in slim PCOS and there are some under obese PCOS. So we have to treat two patterns differently, a lean PCOS and an obese PCOS. 

The girls should understand that this is not something for which they should be worried about. Yet it is a known entity so they should keep it under control and take help whenever required. It is important when we are trying to become fertile or trying to become pregnant that they can go to a specialist who is dealing with this problem and take some help. Because some help may be required to develop their eggs and help try to conceive.

One should know that their sister or mother or anyone is suffering from the same pattern. It is not something to worry much. My only emphasize is please do not get tensed, just change your lifestyle, do some exercise, take some help from doctors. And that is all you require to get overcome from PCOS.

Thank you.