What exactly is POLYCISTIC OVARY DISEASE?

What are the symptoms and what are the treatments? What meds do you take if you have it. Is is life threatening.

What exactly is POLYCISTIC OVARY DISEASE?
Basically, PCOS looks like a strand of pearls [many cysts] that ring the ovaries. It is rarely life threatening. It is often genetic. And men can get it, sometimes diagnosed in them as male menopause, etc. There are great books and info on-line about PCOS. Talk to your doctor about symptoms you have that may possibly indicate PCOS.





I have had it forty years, with no idea why I kept getting pregnant and miscarried 6 times. PCOS has many symptoms, but is rarely diagnosed until the woman gets testing due to infertility. Some symptoms include storing weight in the belly area, depression, "alligator skin" patches [my armpits and my daughter's neck look like small cobblestones sitting on the skin - I scrubbed that poor kid so much, I cringe to think of it]. Skin tags, male hair patterns [girls with mustache and / or beard may have PCOS], baldness or thinning hair in the top-front area. Sleep apnea. Adult acne [my skin can't decide if I'm 50 or 15] or excess oil in the "T" zone. A steady weight increase of 5 to 20 pounds, no matter how hard you diet or exercise. A family history of late life and/or unexpected pregnancy. There are more symptoms...





Good news: my daughter, now officially diagnosed, is simply taking a basic birth control pill. Each person is, of course, an individual and should be evaluated and treatment ordered by their personal medical provider...not everyone is going to respond to BC pills like my daughter did.





How she reacted to treatment: she has energy, she is always optimistic and happy again, she went from a very stretched and strained size 3X to a size 2 in just a matter of weeks. Her skin is clear again. Her sleep apnea has improved [I no longer spend most of my days trying to get enough naptime so I could wake her up several times during the night when she stopped breathing.





Good luck!
Reply:Men can NOT get PCOS. This is a disorder of the ovaries, and its no way similar to andropause, or "male menopause" Report It

Reply:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_...





Don't be too worried - my sister has it and she is fine and has had no problems having kids either
Reply:This is many cysts on the ovary.. It can cause many menstrual problems,,,especially skipped periods. It can be a cause of infertility.


Hormones are frequently prescribed. No one knows what causes it.
Reply:It is when you form many cysts on your ovaries. I have polycystic kidney disease and my ovaries. I have had them now for over 15 years. eventually they will take over and my kidneys will shut down. or they will pop and kill me. but nothing I can do about it. no medical and no treatment available.
Reply:Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS, is a condition of the female reproductive tract.





Basically, tiny cysts emerge inside the ovaries, sometimes outside the ovary (on the surface), causing exorbitant amount of problems. The most common is problems with periods, such as amenorrhea (no periods) or dysmenorrhea (painful periods). Other symptoms include weight gain that is hard to lose, decreased appetite, nausea (especially in the morning), acne, excessive body hair (hirsituism), hypothyroidism, intolerance to cold or heat, headaches/migraines, abdominal cramps, irritable bowel syndrome -%26gt; Just some of the common ones.





These are all due to a decreased amount of estrogen and progesterone related to the cysts causing the ovaries to go into "sleep mode". This can be problematic for fertility, as many women with PCOS often are infertile.





But its often a chicken or the egg situation as infertility is directly linked to one's weight. So the more obese one is, the more infertile they become. And with PCOS, the little estrogen that the ovaries do make become attracted to the fat cells of the body.....causing weight gain and making it impossible (almost impossible) to lose. Its a vicious cycle.





So one of the main nursing interventions for women with PCOS is healthy diet and a regular exercise program. We want to take the ovaries out of "sleep" or hibernate mode and back into full functioning mode.





Some doctors give oral birth control to try and regulate one's period by chemically manipulating the ovarian hormone functioning of estrogen and progesterone. But this is risky, and not every women can tolerate birth control pills.





As I said, a lot of this is healthy lifestyle, diet %26amp; weight control, stress reduction, etc.





PCOS is not life-threatening condition. It can not kill you. But it can make you infertile, causing immense emotional scarring, even for women who never thought of themselves as mothers, to be put into a stage of early menopause is debilitating.





I hope that gives you some insight into PCOS.
Reply:Poly means many, i am sure you know what a cyst is so there are many cyst on the overies.There are many kinds of cyst.