Back Story : 2003 - 2009

When we last spoke, I had said that I faithfully took The Pill with few problems from 1999 until 2003, and that I saw Dr. R faithfully until 2002. Let's pick the story up once more...

In May of 2003, Mr.  Lost and I were engaged and planning a fall wedding. AF had been coming along more or less normally, but by May she had gone missing again. Being more than a little bit paranoid, I peed on a stick or two (home pregnancy tests, or HPTs) but got a BFN (big fat negative). Puzzled, and still paranoid, I found myself a new gyno in the town I had been living in for less than a year. The initial exam was fine, and I don't really remember much about it. She did bloodwork which showed that I wasn't pregnant, and she switched me to a different brand of The Pill. For a few months, AF came quite regularly... and then she disappeared again.

Once again paranoid about being pregnant, I scheduled an appointment. The gyno I saw in May was ironically out on maternity leave, so I saw a nice older doctor named Dr. B. Once I got over the fact that Dr. B very strongly resembled Santa Claus, we got along swimmingly. Great personality, truly caring and none of Dr. R's infamous anal probes. He switched my pill again..... and a few months later, he switched it again..... and a few months later, he switched it again..... You get the idea. AF would visit regularly and then disappear mysteriously. I think I was on 4 or 5 different versions of The Pill after my initial prescription for it. Dr. B changed the dosing so that I would only get a period 4 times a year instead of 12, even though I saw AF's monthly visit as reassurance that I wasn't pregnant. He was part of the camp that said that women don't need to menstruate every month, whereas I was of the camp that saw getting a period as being "normal" and as an indication that I wasn't pregnant. Starting a family was just about the furthest thing from our minds at that point.

Finally, Dr. B reached a point where he (very nicely) said, "I can't do anything more for you. I think you should see a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) who can give you more assistance and find out what is going on with your PCOS." Up until this point, no one had ever really done anything for my PCOS - we weren't interested in having kids, so there was no need to really do anything.... or so they had thought.

I believe it was in 2005 or 2006 that I had my first RE visit with Dr. H. She was a very nice woman who was the first to enlighten me about the connection between PCOS and the insulin/glucose cycle. She also ordered up my first transvaginal ultrasound. Oh the joys of being probed with a wand. I learned that my left ovary apparently likes to hide - that was an uncomfortable lesson to learn. More bloodwork ensued. She was a big fan of the glucose tolerance test (GTT). That test, in one word = YUCK. She wanted me to lose weight - at least 10% of my current weight - and she suggested the South Beach Diet (more on my diet history in another post). She put me on yet another version of The Pill. She also gave me a prescription for a diabetes drug known as Metformin (the generic form of Glucophage). It's been shown that if you regulate insulin, you will in turn regulate testosterone and ovulation. Met came with some unfortunate side effects (stomach-related, namely diarrhea). I had done some research on my own and found that if I was on the extended-release version of Met, the side effects may be diminished. Unfortunately Dr. H didn't acknowledge or accept that there were two different versions of Metformin. Instead, she switched me to Avandia.. I had been on Avandia for a month or two when I was scheduled for a re-check with Dr. H. At that visit, one year after our first, she told me that she was leaving the practice for personal reasons. At my next check-up, I began seeing Dr. H's replacement - Dr. L.

My first visit with Dr. L. was in 2007 right as the news about the risks of taking Avandia was hitting the airwaves. In a "better safe than sorry" move, Dr. L took me off of Avandia and put me back on the Metformin - the extended release this time, thank God. She may or may not have changed my prescription for The Pill - I really don't recall. I do know that she was not a fan of the GTT, and instead looked at fasting insulin and glucose, as well as A1c levels, to determine how well I was responding to the drugs. At that point, I wasn't consistently following South Beach, and she wasn't a huge fan of it, so she referred me to a dietitian (more on that in the diet history to come). I saw Dr. L until 2009. I was not incredibly faithful to the dietician, the Met or The Pill. In fact, at my last visit, I think I had been off The Pill and The Met for several months. I didn't really disclose this to her. I think I had just reached a point of giving up. AF was more miss than hit. I was pretty sure I wasn't ovulating - if I was, I would have gotten a visit from AF. The Met side effects weren't fun - she had me on 1500mg and encouraged me to try 2000mg. We still weren't ready for kids, so I kind of had an attitude of "why bother with any treatment". My main reason for that last visit with Dr. L in 2009 was because I had lost my job, which meant a loss of insurance. "Squeeze one more visit in before the benefits are gone," was my logic.

I left that appointment and continued drug-free until 2010, which is where we'll pick up again next time.