177. The Non-Expert Guide to living with PCOS

Living with PCOS can feel overwhelming, confusing, and deeply isolating, especially when you’re told to “just lose weight” or given unclear answers about fertility and hormones.

In this video, I share the non-expert guide to living with PCOS, from personal experience, research, and walking this journey alongside my spouse.

This is not medical advice, but an honest breakdown of what PCOS looks like in everyday life, how it affects marriage and fertility, and what helped us move forward.

In this video, you’ll learn:
 • My personal struggle with PCOS and the emotional toll it took
 • What PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) is and how it shows up in daily life
 • How PCOS is diagnosed and why it’s often missed or delayed
 • Why PCOS affects weight gain and weight loss differently
 • How PCOS impacts marriage, intimacy, and fertility
 • How couples can navigate PCOS together instead of letting it create distance
 • Why finding a NaPro / restorative reproductive doctor changed everything
 • What to do next if you’ve been diagnosed with PCOS

If you’ve ever wondered:
 • “Why is my body not responding like it should?”
 • “Is infertility inevitable with PCOS?”
 • “How do we stay united as a couple through this?”
 • “What happens after the diagnosis?”

This video is for you.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hey everyone, just Monitor David here from Two Become Family today because I want to talk about some lady stuff. So I have the privilege of chatting with a lot of people in marriage prep and online because I've shared for a long time that I was diagnosed with PCOS back when I was 19 or 20 years old. And I discovered alternative ways to try to help care for my body, care for my female cycle since then without using contraception and birth control. And that has led to a lot of questions, a lot of really great conversations, and a lot of good health care. And so I wanted to come and kind of just put all of my thoughts in one place and share my experience in one place. If this is part of your journey, if PCOS diagnosis, if infertility, if having trouble trying to conceive, if irregular periods, irregular cycles is a part of your experience, and whether it's part of your marriage or part of your own life, here's just some things that I've learned in the last over 15 years of living with PCOS. So how do I know all of this nerdy information? And why am I not citing any studies? Because I am not an expert in this, but I have a lot of life experience and I've done a lot of blood work and a lot of ultrasounds to work with my PCOS to get diagnosed. And that really started in my early teen years. My cycle was really irregular when I was a teenager. Like a good mom, my mom brought me to the gynecologist. We shared my experience, and the doctor said, well, to regulate your cycle, you could go on the birth control pill. Especially being a teenager, there wasn't any um desire to be trying to conceive pregnancy or care what my ovulation was doing. And so I was on the pill from about the age of 14 to 19 or 20 years old. It was at that time when I turned 19 that I read a book, um, Life Giving Love by Kimberly Hahn. And in it, there was a whole chapter on contraception, on charting your cycles, on Naprotechnology, which is a specific type of gynecology, natural procreative technology, gynecology that really tries to focus on how the woman's body is supposed to naturally function and help her body function in that way without using too much artificial stuff to help it work that way. And so I read that book, and like a very normal 19-year-old who thinks she has all the answers and makes really rash decisions, I threw away the pill, which I do not recommend. But I I decided I didn't want to experience regular cycles because of birth control pills, and I wanted to try to figure out how to help my body in another way. So I threw away the pill, and a few months later, I had a ginormous cyst grow on my ovary, and I was in the hospital. And so that plan did not work out very well. But because of that, I started looking for a Naprotechnology doctor. I found one in New York City, Dr. Ann Nolte. She is an absolute queen. And as a young woman, like not even engaged or married yet, she helped take care of my body, taught me what PCOS really was, showed me what my hormones were supposed to be doing, showed me what my hormones were actually doing. And so she helped me regulate my cycle at that time by using post-peak progesterone. And because I wasn't ovulating regularly, I was able to regulate my cycle by just using progesterone on cycle day 18 through 28. Um, and that helped me to have a monthly period. As we um got engaged and got married, because I was not ovulating regularly at all, we knew that infertility was going to be a part of our marriage story. And so um I'll share a little bit more about that later. But Naprotechnology was also able to help grow our family. And because I have used Naprotechnology, because I've charted my cycle, because I've lived with PCOS for such a long time, um, I have seen how it affects just so many different parts of my life that I really wanted to understand it and I wanted to help advocate for other women and help them understand it because contraception is not the answer. Contraception just shuts down a woman's cycle, makes it pretend that it's doing what it's supposed to do without teaching it how to work properly. So basically, the pill takes over the system instead of encouraging a woman's system to function healthily. And um, just from that perspective alone, I just think that women deserve better healthcare. And I think that women deserve to understand why they function the way that they do and understand what the goal is and how to get there. So I'm gonna try to address some of the commonly asked questions that I get and that are posted on online forums in Reddit on Facebook, um, and just women trying to understand their cycles and the possibility of being diagnosed or recent diagnosis with PCOS. Okay, the first question is usually what even is PCOS? So, first of all, PCOS is an abbreviation for polycystic ovarian syndrome. And unfortunately, it's kind of a catch-all diagnosis for women. Um, it's a little bit like IBS, irritable bowel syndrome. It doesn't always explain everything that you're experiencing, and there's a lot of symptoms and categories and different things that can go into this diagnosis. But essentially, polycystic ovarian syndrome is when a female's ovaries are producing several small cysts or follicles during her ovulation stage of her cycle, which causes some irregularity or doesn't allow for good, healthy, normal ovulation. And for some women, it could also lead to though one of those or multiple of those follicles growing into full-blown cysts, which can be painful. Um, some women, like myself, always have these follicles in their ovaries. So I've had many ultrasounds throughout different parts of my cycle and they always look the same. They call them a string of pearls, and there's always just these little follicles that live in my ovaries. And because they exist, um, that communicates something with my hormones. And so the my hormones are always trying to regulate because I'm always having these little follicles living inside of my ovaries. Um, so that's really the main thing with polycystic ovarian syndrome is that your hormones are thrown off because of these extra follicles. How that looks for a lot of women can be different. So irregular cycles is a big clue. Um, some women struggle with weight gain or losing weight or maintaining a healthy weight. Um, some women have excessive body hair or facial hair. Um, often a woman's not only her regular female hormones, but her testosterone is elevated. Um, and some women with PCOS have type 2 diabetes. But the primary miscommunication for this woman's hormones with polycystic ovarian syndrome is with the hypothalamic pituitary ovarian axis, the HPO axis. And it's basically how the brain, the pituitary gland in the brain and the hypothalamus in the brain are communicating and then sending signals down to the ovaries, and then the ovaries sending signals back up to the brain. And when there is an PCOS is some sort of dysfunction in that communication system. And because of that, either the ovaries try to compensate or the brain tries to compensate, and some things go awry. So that leads to the next question is why is PCOS so hard to diagnose, or how do I even get diagnosed with PCOS? I forget the number of symptoms that you have to have in order to get the formal diagnosis of PCOS, but some of which are the external symptoms that you see. Again, that's the weight gain or having trouble regulating your body weight, um the excessive facial hair, irregular cycles. So you could have very long, very short, they can vary. And sometimes you have really short ones, sometimes you have very long cycles. Um, but another really important part of getting diagnosed with PCOS is having some ultrasounds done at specific times in your cycle so that you can see what is going on in your ovaries. And you would want to make sure that you're working with a doctor that understands that the timing is really important. Because if you get an ultrasound done close to the time of ovulation, of course, you're going to have a follicle, probably a dominant follicle that will look similar to a cyst. But if you have that occurring after you've ovulated or during your period or before you've ovulated, then that's going to be a different kind of clue for PCOS. The other is blood work. Again, timing is everything when it comes to this blood work, but you would want to get your blood work done, particularly your testosterone, your AMH, which is kind of a measure of how many eggs you have in your ovaries at a time, is like your egg reserve. Um, and then the timing of the cycle of knowing what your estrogen looks like, your progesterone, your LH, your luteinizing hormone, and your FSH, your follicular stimulating hormone. If you're testing that really close to ovulation, then those numbers will look different than if you're doing that just after you've had your period or after you've already ovulated. And so elevated testosterone is another big indicator of PCOS, having your estrogen kind of be wacky if you've tested it throughout your cycle. Um, and and so different levels are appropriate for different parts of your cycle, and then some are too high or too low. Um, and then also progesterone after you've ovulated. A lot of doctors will test um cycle day 21, but the better doctors will test on peak plus seven, being you've ovulated and you um you've been charting your cycle and you know that you or you think that you've ovulated and you test for your progesterone seven days after ovulation. If you have low progesterone at that time, that would be another indicator of PCOS. That's another hormone that is having miscommunication problems because of that HPO access. So the third question I want to answer is why is weight loss and hormonal balance so hard with PCOS? Those are probably the two biggest complaints with PCOS is balancing my hormones and then um maintaining a healthy weight or losing losing weight to be be in a healthy zone. Um, no matter how hard you try, it's still challenging. And primarily, PCOS often comes with insulin resistance. Again, I am not an expert. I'm not going to explain this perfectly. You can Google insulin resistance, but basically, again, the communication within your body, something's going on, and the pancreas is not um, it's not producing and your body's not using the insulin the way that it's supposed to. So the insulin is being um released too slowly. So then the res the insulin that is in your body is overacting, overreacting. And so uh because of that, weight gain is a part of PCOS or not being able to lose weight is a is a big part of PCOS. So even though it's called insulin resistance, you're actually functioning with high insulin. Again, this is where the type 2 diabetes can come into play for some women. Um, but the main reason why insulin resistance, why high insulin affects your fertility hormones is because insulin also communicates with your ovaries and it prompts the ovaries to make androgen hormones, including testosterone. So elevated testosterone leads to lower, like subduing your estrogen, which is what prompts ovulation. So the higher testosterone, the lower your estrogen, the less likely your um your ovaries will ovulate on a regulated time frame. And so with the extra insulin, it's also going to further mess up your fertility hormones. One thing that I use to help with my insulin resistance is I actually take metformin all the time, which is a which is a diabetic drug. Um, and I also am conscientious of having a high protein diet. So again, not an expert. I'm not a dietitian, I'm not a nutritionist, I am an expert in my own experience. Um, and I follow the directions of my doctor who is amazing, and I trust her. And for the most part, it works. Um, so I try to make sure that I have protein with every meal and that my protein outweighs my carb intake. Um I also try to eat less carbs later in the day because of the way that your body tries to metabolize and digest food later in the day. Um, I do try to make sure that I'm active. Um and I actually just had an appointment. This one of the reasons why we're recording this episode today is I had my annual appointment with my Napro doctor, Dr. Nolti, and she nudged me to increase my um my cardio because I'm not doing enough of that. Um, cardio and elevated heart rate will help with your insulin resistance. It'll communicate with your pancreas, it'll help it learn to do what it's supposed to do, and it'll help make it stronger. So I have to increase my cardio and watching what I eat. I try really hard not to be neurotic about it as somebody who is uh who has experienced disordered eating earlier in life as a teenager and a young adult. Part of, and this is just like full disclosure, part of it is I sometimes just accept that my cycle is not quite as regular as maybe it could be, because I try not to be scrupulous too much about my eating, but I do try to have in mind go heavier on the protein, lighter on the carbs, and move my body. Okay, so I've shared a lot of like health stuff, a lot of science without being too exact. But um, this is our marriage podcast. And so I also want to share how PCOS has affected our marriage and how it may affect yours without you knowing it, or maybe how it will in the future. Um, and it doesn't have to be negative, but PCOS affected our marriage. Um, one, because Renzo had to learn even before we were married how my body works. I was going through a lot of testing, I was doing a lot of um changes in my health plan, in my exercise plan, in my eating. I was taking medications. And so um I wanted him to really understand this because it wasn't a temporary diagnosis. PCOS is going to be a thing that we live with. And so I wanted him to understand that. And um, that did take a lot of work because it's like understanding a foreign body. My body, a female body, is not what he lives in. And so um trying to help him to understand that was often complicated, but um it improved our relationship because he was invested in it. So it was really important to him to understand it. Um, he came to doctor's appointments with me, he learned how to chart a cycle just like I did. So he knew the, he learned the Creighton method, he learned the symptothermal method, he learned um the Marquette method so that he could really understand what was going on with my body. And that has helped us in particular in our fertility journey, because we have experienced infertility, we have experienced a surprise pregnancy, we have experienced now trying to avoid pregnancy for an indefinite amount of time. And my irregular cycles absolutely come into play like all the time. It is, it is something that we are very aware of pretty much every day that my cycle is um is complicated. It's not necessarily unpredictable, it's not not understandable, but it's more complicated than the regular, um, the regular female cycle. And so going into marriage knowing that infertility would be a part of it was a cross and a burden um from the get-go because we had to look at each other. I knew this even before getting married, like we might not be able to have children. My progesterone was dangerously low without supplementation. Progesterone is the hormone that helps um, that helps a baby stay implanted in the uterus. Low progesterone is one of the leading causes of miscarriage. And so um, that had to be a discussion that we had ahead of time. Um, and maybe if this is a diagnosis that you're having in your marriage, like to just really be frank and honest, that can be really sucky. And it can really be, it affects both of us, even though it's affecting my body. Another thing that was really important for us was to learn that like this is not my fault. And for Renzo to really be honest, like saying, This is not your fault. And I don't blame you. This is this is the marriage that we are in. But if you've been listening to our podcast long enough, you know that we also have five children. So permanent infertility was not a part of our story. To conceive our first two children, we used hormone medication to help prompt ovulation. So because I wasn't ovulating regularly, and when I say we I was irregular, um, the first 18 months of me tracking and charting my cycle, I ovulated on my own twice. So um very, very irregularly without intervention. But because Naprotechnology wants to respect and honor the way that the female body was created instead of like just overriding a cycle, we pinpointed the areas that need addressing. So I tried clomid and I tried letrozole to help prompt ovulation. Those are hormones that will help the LH and the FSH communicate from the pituitary gland down to the ovaries that the follicle should grow and be released from the ovary so that you can ovulate. And then post-ovulation, we went heavy on the progesterone to try to avoid miscarriage. Um, I also use some other some other over-the-counter medications to help my mucus pattern grow and you know, all these all these lovely gross things that you learn when you learn NFP. Um, and so we were able to conceive our first two boys. Um, we were able to maintain all five of our pregnancies because of progesterone. Um, progesterone is still a part of my regular life, my regular cycling. And um, and we also had a surprise pregnancy because of the irregular irregularity of my cycles and like learning how to confirm ovulation to know that it actually has happened. Um, so that has led to us getting the inito monitor, which is one of my favorite parts of understanding my PCOS body. Um, it's a femtech tool that um allows me to test my hormones every morning with my urine, and um I'm able to know estrogen, LH, FSH, and progesterone levels every day. That has showed me a lot about my cycle in the last five years. I've been using, I've been using the Anito for about four or five years now, and I have learned that my body tries to ovulate more than once before it successfully ovulates. So um NFP methods like Kraton and um symptothermal will show that I'm ovulating, um, but it might not with certainty confirm that I did. And so um we misused our we've misused the mucus and temperature signs. And um, here's one of our one of our kiddos. Um, but now understanding that the rise of progesterone after ovulation confirms ovulation, we're able to, with more confidence, um, try to avoid successfully. So if you might suspect that you have PCOS, if you have been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome and just feel like, what do I do now? Our personal recommendation would be that you find a Naprotechnology trained gynecologist. Why? Because they look at the female body differently than most secular gynecologists. A lot of gynecologists will give the PCOS diagnosis, and then most often their solution for regulating cycles and treating PCOS is to put you on the pill. And if you're trying to conceive pregnancy, most likely they will direct you to IBF instead of trying to help your body learn how to regulate itself, to give you the specific targeted hormones that will help your body function like a normal body, um, to help you really understand what's going on, what is your flavor of PCOS and what is your insulin resistance, what is your testosterone level, what are your progesterone levels, and to really like target and address the care that you need to help you live a healthy, healthy fertility, healthy life. Um, and then the next would be to just move your body a bit more, to really go um be conscientious about your diet, to not hate protein and to invite it into every meal. Um and to chart your cycles. I probably should have said that actually first, to help you understand your body, chart your cycles, not just count the days, but learn a natural family planning method, like the Creighton method, the Marquette method, um, which will help you day to day learn what your body is trying to communicate with you, because you you can get insight into what's going on with your body. So you have biomarkers that tell you what's going on. And using that information, you can bring that to a naprotechnology trained physician, and they will be able to target better where in your cycle, what to test, what those levels now are looking like. And so that you don't have to feel like out of control of this, that this is just happening to my body, but you can participate in how it's working and you can work with it and you can you can help it be more healthy than it is. Um, so this is not a gloom and doom diagnosis, but it definitely means that you have some work to do and that you have some understanding of your body, and it is possible with natural family planning, fertility awareness, and naphro doctors. Okay, so I hopefully you stuck around for all of that. Um, I know that that was a bit of a different episode, but this is just something that um I've had this conversation a lot of times, and it's something I'm really passionate about. I think that women deserve to understand how their body works. And so thank you for sticking around if you made it to the end of this episode. Um, if you have any questions, I would love to chat. Um, so you can leave questions, you can email us, you can check us out on Instagram, send us a message. Um, if you're watching on YouTube, please like, comment, and subscribe. If you are listening on podcasts, give us a five-star rating. And if you're on Apple, leave us a review. Um, again, not experts in a lot of this stuff, but experts in our own experience. And we just love to start good conversations either with you and your spouse, with you and your physicians, with you, and just yourself. Just start thinking about things a little bit differently. So hopefully this has prompted good thought. And we will see you next episode.