I received a message from a fan today, with a story it is important to share. She had a lot of symptoms of PCOS, and for a long time was treated as if she had this diagnosis. Only after pursuing it with her physicians did she find out she had Cushing's disease caused by a tumor that needed to be removed.
PCOS is a rule-out diagnosis, meaning if you have a certain cluster of symptoms, and testing does not reveal a tumor or other hormone disorder like hyperprolactinemia or Cushing's disease, then and only then do you officially have PCOS. I cannot reinforce this enough! Many of you have had experiences at the doctor's office that were not pleasant. Others of you are living without health insurance and are trying to minimize your expenses. Others avoid going because you don't want to hear that you need to lose weight. Still others are simply feeling too overwhelmed and depressed to think about an afternoon in a medical clinic.
Do it anyway!
The advice we provide here is not appropriate for a tumor, malignant or benign. There may be a medication for other issues you might have that works to fix the problem. And it may not be the complete answer even if you DO have PCOS. Please take the time to get a thorough assessment so you are absolutely sure that the problem you are working to resolve, is really the one you have.