Dear Riya,

Thank you for writing into the PCOS Support blog.

Metformin is often used to treat PCOS because it can help reduce glucose and insulin levels. PCOS is often caused by insulin resistance and this is a very conventional approach to PCOS and even pre-diabetes. Although, it may help, this is just one aspect of preventing and treating conditions such as PCOS.

If you only take medication, no, this will not completely prevent further progression of the PCOS and/or diabetes. These require a comprehensive approach and more than just a medication.

Other crucial aspects are changes in nutrition and exercise. These have to be included if you want to learn how to manage these conditions.

If you are looking for a non-pharmaceutical option, then I would recommend checking out the Insulite PCOS System. http://pcos.insulitelabs.com/

Riya, I hope that this helps and gives you some options for a direction that can not only prevent progression of PCOS, inhibit developing diabetes and also help you reach more optimal health. Please contact us, if you have any additional questions or concerns.

–
Best Wishes,
Dr. Heather DeLuca, ND
Insulite Laboratories Consulting & Advisory teams

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this email and the Insulite Labs website is for the sole purpose of being informative. This information is not and should not be used or relied upon as medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician, nurse or other qualified health care provider before you undergo any treatment, take any medication, supplements or other nutritional support, or for answers to any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

please suggest is it the right medication for me,if not please suggest me the solution and what other tests should i conduct.
THANKYOU

Dear Saba,

Thank you for contacting the Insulite PCOS Support Blog.

What other signs of PCOS do you have besides irregular menses and difficulty conceiving? I just want to make sure nothing else is going on because your labs were pretty normal. The prolactin was either high end normal or a little elevated, which can occur with PCOS and in other conditions. High prolactin can cause irregular menses. Your FSH to LH ratio is good, which is often abnormal in PCOS. Your weight is good. Most often women with PCOS are overweight, but they can be lean. Did your doctor test testosterone, DHEA or fasting insulin? If not, these would be additional tests to consider.

Our view on the pharmaceutical treatment of PCOS is that there is no one drug on the market that will change your condition. The only way to reverse the disorder is to reduce elevations in insulin, which directly affect testosterone and other hormonal changes that are responsible for causing PCOS.

The Insulite PCOS System was created to address the cause of PCOS. With those on Glucophage, we cannot say that we have noticed dramatic results in weight loss, hair growth, acne or other symptoms related to PCOS. These symptoms can be partially controlled by diet and exercise changes. The addition of nutrients will help you become more sensitive to your insulin and reduce the symptoms of insulin resistance and PCOS. You can read much more about the Insulite PCOS System by visiting the following link and browsing around: HYPERLINK “http://www.pcos.insulitelabs.com/” http://www.pcos.insulitelabs.com/.

I hope this information answers your questions. Please don’t hesitate to contact us again with any further questions or concerns.

Best wishes,

Dr. Nicole Kellum, ND
Insulite Laboratories Consulting & Advisory teams

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this email
and the Insulite Labs website is for the sole purpose
of being informative. This information is not and
should not be used or relied upon as medical advice.
Always seek the advice of your physician, nurse or
other qualified health care provider before you
undergo any treatment, take any medication,
supplements or other nutritional support, or for
answers to any questions you may have regarding a
medical condition.

Dear Amber,

Thank you for contacting the Insulite PCOS Support Blog.

I am sorry to hear about your difficulties with diagnosis and treatment. I hope we can help you find some clarity and relief. PCOS is notoriously difficult to diagnose. It is a diagnosis of exclusion. In other words, it is important to rule out other diseases that can cause symptoms similar to PCOS (such as Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia). To diagnose PCOS, we use a combination of clinical symptoms (what you experience as the patient, such as excess hair growth, irregular menses, acne, skin tags, weight gain, infertility, etc.) and lab tests.

The blood tests to consider are:
- free testosterone- elevated in PCOS

- DHEA-S- often elevated in PCOS

- Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG)- usually low in PCOS

- Fasting insulin- elevated in PCOS. Some doctors may hesitate to order this test because the normal range (0-20) is so wide. However, we find that results greater than 9 indicate insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is usually the underlying cause of PCOS, as you may have read about on our site. Some doctors may also order a 2-hour post-prandial insulin test, along with a 2-hour post-prandial glucose test. For the post-prandial insulin, results over 25 or 30 may indicate insulin resistance.

- Fasting glucose or 2-hour post-prandial glucose test- elevated in PCOS. Using this information in combination with the insulin levels helps to diagnose insulin resistance. Also, women with PCOS have a higher risk of diabetes so it is important to screen for this early and often.

- LH: FSH- Some doctors may also look at the ratio between these two hormones. In PCOS, we would expect LH to be elevated in comparison to FSH.

- You could get an ultrasound to check for the presence of ovarian cysts. Even if the ovaries do appear normal, the absence of ovarian cysts does not mean that you don’t have PCOS. Not everyone with PCOS has ovarian cysts.

- I would also check your cholesterol levels and liver function tests, as these can also be abnormal in PCOS (as well as in many other conditions).

Lab testing is not mandatory for diagnosing PCOS, especially if you are experiencing so many of the symptoms. However, the above tests do give us numbers which, along with the improvement of your clinical symptoms, help us monitor your progress.
We do hear from women that have PCOS and have had children. PCOS can affect fertility, but not in all women.

Women with PCOS are often prescribed oral contraceptives, anti-hyperglycemic (Metformin) and sometimes cholesterol lowering and blood pressure lowering drugs. Do you have high blood pressure? If you don’t, I would consider speaking to your doctor about your concerns with this medication. Diet and exercise can help lower blood pressure or prevent high blood pressure. Also treating the insulin resistance that is associated with PCOS is very important in preventing the possible complications (cardiovascular disease and diabetes). The Insulite PCOS System helps to balance hormones (reducing hair loss) and reverse insulin resistance. High levels of androgens in PCOS can lead to hair loss in PCOS. The hair can re-grow, but it does take some patience.

The ingredients in the Insulite PCOS System are safe and non-toxic, but of course we would not want somebody to be taking these or any supplements needlessly. It is not mandatory to check with your doctor before beginning the Insulite PCOS System but it is always a good idea to have some baseline labs. These lab values, along with your clinical symptoms, can help monitor your progress on the System.

I hope this information answers your questions. Please don’t hesitate to contact us again with any further questions or concerns.

Best wishes,

Dr. Nicole Kellum, ND
Insulite Laboratories Consulting & Advisory teams

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this email
and the Insulite Labs website is for the sole purpose
of being informative. This information is not and
should not be used or relied upon as medical advice.
Always seek the advice of your physician, nurse or
other qualified health care provider before you
undergo any treatment, take any medication,
supplements or other nutritional support, or for
answers to any questions you may have regarding a
medical condition.

I am glad I found your blog as I need to ask a few questions about PCOS please.

I was on birth control pill for 6 years as a contraception. This year was diagnosed with PCOS during an ultrasound for my yearly pap test. The doctor did not seem too concerned or told me it’s difficult to conceive but put me on 1000mg metformin since I was trying to conceive & since I had diabetes in my family, he said that the metformin will help me avoid miscarriages. I only know it’s difficult to conceive as I read it. I have been trying for 6 months & still no pregnancy. My question is that I have no symptoms what so ever, no acne, no hair loss or hair gain, no male hormones, not over weight, no dark patches on my skin, the only thing I have is mild pain on my right side and I’ve always had a period every month (29 – 33 days), can a doctor determine I have PCOS form an internal ultrasound or do you need a blood test or some other test. Can it be my doctor did not seem to concerned cause I have a mild case of PCOS & can still get pregnant naturally. I seem to ovulate every month as I do get that egg white jelly. What are my possibilities of getting pregnant if I don’t have any of the symptoms above?

Looking forward to your reply.

Many thanks
Felicity

Dear Felicity,

I am so glad you found our blog and decided to write in!

I do want to apologize for the delayed response but I hope you will find this information helpful.

PCOS can affect different women in different ways and as you noted the severity of symptoms can be very mild in some women while being very severe in others. We hear from women all over the world who have been diagnosed with PCOS and are trying to conceive, we understand what a frustrating and heart-wrenching time this can be, but there is hope and things can get better!

Yes, it is possible to have PCOS even if you menstruate regularly. It is unclear how exactly this happens. Clearly, PCOS can present in a wide variety of ways! Here is a link to a study about this:
http://staging.inciid.org/fertinews/pcosnormal.html

Also, yes the egg white cervical mucous is a good sign that you may be ovulating regularly you can have a period without ovulating. This is called an anovulatory cycle. The article above touches on that as well.

Also, you can read more about anovulatory cycles, and how to monitor your own menstrual cycles in the book “Taking Charge of Your Fertility, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health” by Toni Weschler. I highly recommend this book!

It does seem that your PCOS symptoms may be on the mild side, the topics of lean women with PCOS, and PCOS without insulin resistance are still not entirely understood in the medical community. Many thin women with PCOS do have insulin resistance, but some do not. It is not a clear-cut distinction that thin women are not Insulin resistant. Some lean women with PCOS hyper-secrete insulin but do not yet manifest insulin resistance. And in many women with PCOS, their ovaries are highly sensitive to insulin, so that even if their serum insulin levels are normal, the ovaries are highly reactive to that insulin.

Here is a link to study that was done with lean women who have a history of PCOS:
http://www.insidepcos.com:80/articles/612/1/Lean-Women-with-Polycystic-Ovary-Syndrome-Respond-to-Insulin-Reduction.html.

As far as blood tests, there are a few you may want to consider…

- testosterone- elevated in PCOS

- DHEA-S- elevated in PCOS

- Fasting insulin- elevated in PCOS. Some doctors may hesitate to order this test because the normal range (0-20) is so wide. However, we find that results greater than 9 indicate insulin resistance. insulin resistance is usually the underlying cause of PCOS, as you may have read about on our site.

- Fasting glucose or glucose tolerance test- elevated in PCOS. Using this information in combination with the fasting insulin helps to diagnose insulin resistance. Also, women with PCOS have a higher risk of diabetes so it is important to screen for this early and often.

- LH: FSH- Some doctors may also look at the ratio between these two hormones. In PCOS, we would expect LH to be elevated in comparison to FSH.

- You could get an ultrasound to check for the presence of ovarian cysts.
Even if the ovaries do appear normal, the absence of ovarian cysts does not mean that you don’t have PCOS. Not everyone with PCOS has ovarian cysts.

- I would also check your cholesterol levels and liver function tests, as these can also be abnormal in PCOS (as well as in many other conditions).

I hope this information is helpful for you! There is amazing customer support at Insulite Labs for our customers; we are here to help you through this healing journey. Please don’t hesitate to contact us again if you have any other questions or concerns.

Please visit our PCOS community where you can share ideas, concerns and issues and find additional information and support to reverse PCOS symptoms.

http://pcos.insulitelabs.com/forums/index.php PCOS Forums

Best Wishes,

Dr. Andrea Lee, ND
Insulite Laboratories Consulting and Advisory Team

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this email and the Insulite Labs website is for the sole purpose of being informative. This information is not and should not be used or relied upon as medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician, nurse or other qualified health care provider before you undergo any treatment, take any medication, supplements or other nutritional support, or for answers to any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Dear Amber,

I am so glad you found our blog and decided to write in!

We understand how frightening it can be to be diagnosed with PCOS. But there is hope and things can get better! Thanks for writing in.

We do not recommend oral contraceptives as a treatment for PCOS because they are synthetic hormones that mask some of the symptoms of PCOS rather than fixing the problems. Treating absent menses or other symptoms with oral contraceptives does not treat the underlying disorder of PCOS and when the contraceptives are discontinued, the PCOS symptoms will persist.

Our philosophy is to treat the cause of the disorder so that there is no longer a need for using contraceptives. Of course if you are using birth control to prevent pregnancy, you will need to find an alternate form of contraception (condoms, diaphragm, etc.) if you decide to discontinue the birth control pill! The supplements of The PCOS System do not do the same thing as the birth control pills, they do something even better! They work to correct the underlying cause of PCOS.

As far as infertility, the underlying cause of PCOS is believed to be insulin resistance, with insulin resistance, the body becomes insensitive to the insulin it produces, which leads to elevated circulating levels of insulin. This in turn leads to hormonal imbalances such as increased testosterone and other androgens (masculinizing hormones). Elevated insulin also contributes to the formation of cysts in the ovaries in part due to the hormonal imbalances and also because the ovaries are highly sensitive to the influence of insulin.

All of these factors combine to complicate a woman’s chances of conceiving if she has PCOS.

PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) is a major cause of infertility. A symptom of the condition, also known as polycystic ovaries, can be nine or fewer menstrual cycles per year. The disorder may also cause heavier than normal bleeding during periods. These conditions are the result of the ovaries failing to produce hormones that keep the menstrual cycle regular.

Because women with PCOS don’t have regular periods, many are unable to become pregnant. To read more about PCOS and infertility please visit the following link: http://www.pcos.insulitelabs.com/PCOS-and-Infertility.php.

With that said, each person is an individual so unfortunately there really isn’t a percent of women with PCOS who get pregnant but it can and does happen! We have many testimonials on our website about just this very topic!

I hope this information is helpful for you! There is amazing customer support at Insulite Labs for our customers; we are here to help you through this healing journey. Please don’t hesitate to contact us again if you have any other questions or concerns. We are here to help out.

Best Wishes,

Dr. Andrea Lee, ND
Insulite Laboratories Consulting and Advisory Team

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this email and the Insulite Labs website is for the sole purpose of being informative. This information is not and should not be used or relied upon as medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician, nurse or other qualified health care provider before you undergo any treatment, take any medication, supplements or other nutritional support, or for answers to any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
then go off of them. Whats the percentage of women with pcos having a child?