PCOS and Liver Disease

Hello! Bonjour! Aloha!


Welcome to my blog! This is my very first post and I am a bit nervous/anxious/undecided. I'm a bit undecided because I have no idea where to begin. I'm a bit lazy so I don't want to have to start from the beginning, but I think I have to do so to paint the entire picture for you. 


Sidebar: This is all very embarrassing for me! I am cringing while writing this. Have to remember that this isn't about JUST me.  


Summer 2002 I was doing an internship at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I noticed there that I started getting stretch marks on my stomach. At first I thought they were just indents from my pants, but I deep down knew that wasn't the case. I decided to start a low carb diet and going to the gym to offset the weight that I *MUST* be gaining. But nothing could stop the stretch marks from coming or the weight gain. Over the next 6 months the stretch marks just kept on coming. I didn't notice the weight gain so much because that was a slower process. It ended up being around 35 lbs over a 3 year time frame.


Back in the summer of 2003, I started noticing hair growth. Mainly on my chin. It was only a few hairs here and there but nothing I couldn't shave off in the shower every few days. They really didn't bother me too much since they were so few and far between. 


My sexual life was thriving at the time. I was young (21), in pretty good shape (I think I had dropped some weight at this point), and had an attitude that could not be beaten. I had just gotten out of a relationship and was seeing a new guy for the summer. I noticed after a night of drinking, which we did a LOT of, I would be left with painful ovaries the next morning. It didn't happen all the time so I figured it was just a "thing" I was going through. 


Fast forward to the fall. It had gotten worse. I ended up going to the doctor about the pain and it was dismissed completely. I was thinking they would say I had Endometriosis.  But they didn't, and I don't remember exactly what was said (I'm pretty forgetful), but I know it was probably something on the lines of, "You're crazy - don't waste my time". So I took the doctor's advice and fucked off. 


Over the next couple of years, the pain got worse. And I also noticed my body's reaction to carbs started to shift. I started to notice that when I went on a low carb diet, my body would then kick into fat burning mode. If I were to quit the diet and go on a regular diet, not only did I not lose weight, I was actually gaining it. My body was resisting carbs! It was completely frustrating. 


From 2006-2009, I went through multiple Gynecologists to figure out what was going on with my pain. A new symptom had appeared, though. My periods were few and far between. I think in 2007, I had gotten my period maybe 3 times. Maybe. But they all dismissed it and said that the pain was coming from IBS.  Meanwhile, the hair was growing thicker and was appearing every.place.else. it shouldn't. As a woman, this is devastating and embarrassing. I didn't even tell my husband about the hair growth (how could he not have known?) until a year after we were married. . . .which was in 2009.  


Sidebar: Telling your husband you can grow a beard better than he can has got to be one of the worst things ever. We can laugh about it now, thankfully. 


In 2010 I had an abnormal pap that came back with severe dysplasia. I thought FOR SURE that was the reason for all this pain. What else could it have been from!?


Nope. Still had pain.


Lets fast forward to more present day. I decided I wasn't satisfied with the diagnoses of IBS so I went on a hunt to find a new gynecologist. I found my current gynecologist (I'll call her Doctor P) by picture and thought she had a nice face. (Is that lame?). Anyway, I had bought a GroupOn for laser hair removal and had an appointment for that prior to my first visit with Doctor P. Well, while I was describing all my symptoms with Doctor P, she noticed the redness from the laser removal. She asked me about it right away and, without a beat, said, "You have PCOS."


Relief! SWEET, SWEET RELIEF!!! 


Thank GOODNESS somebody listened! FINALLY! Answers! *choir starts singing*


She ran all the blood tests for PCOS and her diagnosis was right on the money. What came back I wasn't prepared for. I guess when you FINALLY get answers, you have to be prepared for what they actually mean. 


I am insulin resistant - My body hangs on to carbs (sugars) and stores them as fat. Such a hoarder!
I am vitamin D deficient - Most people in Wisconsin are, though. But a weird fact: 93% of women that are Vitamin D deficient are infertile. Check out this blog for more information. 
I am not ovulating - Having a baby right now is out of the question. I have to drop the weight! 
High Liver Enzymes - Wha?
I have an underachieving thyroid - Lazy, lazy, lazy. No wonder I can't lose weight!
I am pre-diabetic - Sugar is the devil!
I have a lot of male hormones - *in low voice* Sup, dude. 


All this new information! I didn't know how to process it all. I'm STILL processing it. I had a follow-up appointment with her to go over all my test results.


....But about a week before the follow-up appointment happened, I got a new symptom. I noticed after eating FroYo one night, I had this pain on my right side right under my rib. I thought it was just me digesting the FroYo, so I didn't pay much attention to it. But then it happened again and the pain lasted a little bit longer. Suddenly, I could feel "something" there and I was starting to get nauseous during the day. I knew it wasn't my gallbladder because I had that removed in 2010. So the only thing left was......my liver. 


Short back story: When I was 19, I was donating plasma for money. (I *REALLY* wanted a Mac!) I had gone 2-3 times and all of a sudden on one of my visits, they said that I could no longer donate because my liver enzymes were too high. So I was banned from donating. I chalked it up to me being young. I WAS at a party that I drank at 4 days prior. So it HAD to have been that. But anyway, I didn't think much else about this. 


During the follow-up, she explained everything and why it was all happening. She didn't really say anything about the liver enzymes until I told her that I had this pain on my right side. I told her about me being banned from donating plasma, so she ordered me to get my blood tests done right away again. Sure enough, they were even more elevated from before. From there, I got an ultrasound done. 


Liver disease. 


The only things I could think of:


Goodbye Sunday Fundays
Goodbye accidental drunk on a Saturday afternoon
Goodbye getting faced with friends on your deck
Goodbye to beer gardens everywhere
Goodbye to celebrating (anything) a with a glass bottle of wine




I don't know too much about my liver disease. I go in to see a liver specialist on July 10th, 2012.


But that is what made me come up with this blog. I don't know much about everything I am going through. I have tried finding information online about linking the two together and everything I find is from 3-4+ years ago. And no blogs. So I thought that maybe, just maybe, somebody else out there is going through what I am. I am going to write about my life with these diseases. The good, the bad. Painstakingly truthful. 


So thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope that you find as much comfort in reading this as I do writing it.