Poly and Me: A Personal Account of Living with PCOS

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A woman shares the story of her battle with polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition shared by six to 10 percent of women that is often misdiagnosed.

Shall I start with a confession? Hidden in my dresser is a faceless "doll" named Poly C. Every so often, I take Poly C from the drawer and I beat her up. Seriously. I've thrown her out the window. I have encouraged my dog to play tug-of-war with her cloth body. I have ripped her limbs off and sewn them back on just so I can rip them off again.

Before you suggest a good therapist, you should know something about Poly C. She got her name from a medical condition, polycystic ovarian syndrome—a.k.a. PCOS.

I was diagnosed with PCOS three years ago, but have had it since I was a teenager. When I was diagnosed, I was relieved to finally put a name to the many things my body does regularly to betray me. Since then, I've learned that I need to vent my frustration with PCOS or I'll explode. Poly C seemed the best route if I wanted to stay sane, married, and still have friends and neighbors who didn't cross the street to avoid talking to me.

The Illness

Statistics suggest that between six and 10 percent of women suffer from PCOS. If 500,000 average women read this, as many as 5,000 of them might be reading about a condition they have. Chances are good that most of these women don't even know they have PCOS; according to a Woman's Day article, PCOS ranks twelfth among the most missed and misdiagnosed illnesses. Make my readers a group of women trying to conceive, and the number of sufferers is likely to be much higher: PCOS is a leading cause of infertility.