I’m going to give a little background. I’m a 21 year old female, first year college student, and I’ve been having these problems as far back as I can remember. I apologize if this gets lengthy, but I really hope someone reads this and can maybe offer me some insight, because I’m slowly being pushed closer and close to the edge.
Let me preface this by saying that I have always had a problem with my weight, I was never a very active child, and only now that I’m an adult the only exercise I really get is walking around campus (thankfully I go to the fourth largest university in the US) and if I can manage to push myself into going for a 30 minute walk around my neighborhood (which is rare, I’m ashamed to admit, but I’m working on it). My birth mother, who was an alcoholic, fed me a diet of gas station food and boxed mashed potatoes, and I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Needless to say, I was taken into state custody and put up for adoption at age 9. My adoptive parents were the exact opposite, they controlled every morsel that entered my mouth, never allowed seconds, placed locks on the refrigerator door at night. Needless to say, I developed an eating disorder and would go weeks without eating anything, only to binge for a week straight and then revert. However, I was still always of average/slightly above average weight for most of my teen years. Even so, I was very sickly, dangerously depressed, and had anxiety through the roof because my adoptive parents were physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive, so I’ve had low self-esteem pretty much my entire life.
I don’t know if this was caused by the poor eating habits, stress from the abuse, or weight fluctuations, but I’ve always had really terrible menstruation cycles. Sometimes I wouldn’t get my period for months on end, other times, like now, I would bleed every day for weeks at a time. Although this doesn’t happen as frequently, I used to get terrible cramps, to the point where I would be writhing and screaming in pain, but my parents refused to take me to a doctor because they thought I was overreacting and didn’t take me seriously, and wouldn’t put me on birth control. So it was never really investigated, but I still went through 10 days (I had very long periods) of inexplicable pain and heavy bleeding.
I’m writing this mainly because over the past 4 years, especially the last 2, I have been extremely sick. I rarely ever have periods, and when I do they only last 2 or 3 days. Every other day of the month, I spot-bleed, not much, but enough to stain and ruin every pair of underwear I own if I don’t wear a tampon. I think it’s been over a month of spotting now. My weight, while always problematic, has shot up – I’ve gained about 60 pounds over the past year, and my skin has literally exploded with stretch marks, long, angry, red/purple scars on every part of my body except my hands, feet, neck, and face. I’m constantly sluggish, lethargic, and I get very bad migraines and hot flashes, and whenever I exercise I never seem to see results, even if I go for months at a time. I went to the doctor to get some bloodwork done, and the results came back indicating that I’m pre-diabetic, even though there’s no history of diabetes in my family, and my eating habits, I’m proud to say, are normal now, even healthy.
I’m scared, it’s been 3 months since I’ve had the bloodwork done, and I’m uninsured and unemployed, so I don’t have any means of getting to a gyno to run any tests to check for pcos, and i don't know much it's worsened. I’m pretty sure it’s what I have, the weight gain and inability to shed it, the constant bleeding/absence of periods, the lethargy and high blood sugar. Does anyone have any tips that can help me deal with this without having to see a doctor? I simply can’t afford the visits or the monthly medications, and this is stopping me from being able to work, and I want to get my life back on track. So, any diets, or any ways I can stop this from progressing? I’m so afraid of diabetes and infertility – any help (at least until I can start working and afford medication) would be appreciated, I'm at my wit’s end.
Submitted March 04, 2015 at 10:56AM by throwawaythisbody http://ift.tt/1w1owUE PCOS
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