Hi. This is my first post and I am starting here b/c Raheemah invited me to this thread from Soul Cysters. I am under the same name there. I often share my success with Atkins with other women with PCOS. I get so tired of the Low Carb diet myths when this diet has been nothing short of a miracle for me.
I was diagnosed with PCOS a week or so after my 15th birthday. I was in the hospital with acute pancreatitis. Little was said to me about it except that it would likely prevent me from having a baby, which even at such a young age was completely devistating. Due to problems with my period it was recommended that I consider a hysterectomy. I refused. My only dream was to someday be a mother. I couldn't let them take that completely away from me.
A lot happened over the next few years. I grew up, fell in love, and in my first year of college, at the age of 19, I got pregnant. It's kind of been the family secret since my now husband and I were not married at the time. The details of what happened are unimportant for this board. I have a condition called incompetent cervix and I miscarried twin boys at approximately 17 weeks. I didn't know it was IC at the time. I had to tell you about that to explain the next part. After I quit bleeding with the birth my period did not come back. I had spent several years with long, painful periods. I had been hospitalized with them on several occassions. The longest went for a straight 6 months before giving me a weeks reprieve. Now there was nothing at all. I didn't know what was happening, but it was somewhat of a relief. However, I knew without a period, there would be no baby.
It was also during this time that I began putting on a lot of weight. I had always struggled and yo-yoed with my weight, but nothing like this. Between the ages of 20 and 22 I jumped from a size 6 to a size 22/24. It happened so fast I didn't even see it happening. My husband and I got married when I was 23. In anticipation of this we started seeing a RE thinking that with help maybe we coul get pregnant on the honeymoon. We both wanted children and since I had been pregnant on my own, I could surely get pregnant with just a little help. I was wrong. Once we got started it became clear that this would not be easy for us. I had my periods induced with progesterone and we tried clomid first, soon moving up to injectables. My follicles were generally too small and were barely potentially viable. We discussed IVF briefly, but our income would not allow it. During this time I became diabetic as well. Bloodwork showed my bad cholesterol was too high and my good cholesterol was too low. To make matters worse, my liver enzymes were elevated and my doctor didn't want me on Avandia or Glucophage anymore. I went to using two types of insulin.
My DH and I were both disgusted with our weight. We decided to try the Atkins diet. We both lost weight so quickly. The big surprise came in the form of bloodwork and ultrasounds, though. My cholesterol was looking good and my liver enzymes were no longer elevated. My diabetes was completely under control with the diet and no meds. But the most wonderful thing for me showed on u/s, more follicles. Plenty of good sized follicles. I knew it was the diet. We managed to get pregnant 6 times. After getting a positive beta I would stop the diet. That's what all doctor's recommend right? Each time I lost the baby. On my 6th loss it hit me. I stop the diet and I lose the baby. I tried again immediately. I got pregnant and this time I didn't stop. I moved off induction and added carbs very gradually. I continued to lose a lot of weight, but I was eating plenty of veggies so my doctors were not concerned. My baby was doing so well. The scariest move was adding the fruit. I never ate much fruit, but at least some everyday. I usually liked grapes & cheese. I probably had more fruit and vegetables than most pregnant women. A lot of people criticised me for doing a "diet" while pregnant. It might have been advisable to just not tell people, but I wanted others to know how great it was. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
At 24 weeks my pregnant life took a sharp turn. I went to the doctor and was dilated to 4cm w/ bulging membranes. I think my heart stopped at that moment. It was happening again. I won't go into details about this, if you want to know the story it's on my website at
www.myPCOSbaby.com. I also have an Incompetent Cervix website at
www.fightIC.com. Long story short, I got a rescue cerclage and they were able to save my baby from extreme prematurity and possibly death. During my stay at the hospital they refused to feed me what I wanted. They insisted on putting me on their diabetic diet, which included things like mashed potatos and rolls. It was eat that or starve. My blood sugars immediately went out of control. They put me back on glucophage. I spent a week and a half in the hospital and when I got back home I got back on my diet and quit the glucophage. My blood sugars were completely normal. I had to log them and take them to my doctor. I told him that these were my sugars without meds. At 31 weeks my water broke and I was back in the hospital on full bedrest and at the mercy of their diet. Quickly I was back on glucophage. Within a couple of days they added 2 types of insulin. Even with all that they were haywire. I missed getting to eat and snack. Laying in the bed all day alone is really hard. I survived and gave birth to my beautiful baby at 36 weeks.
There is nobody on the planet that could ever convince me that I don't have the Atkins diet to thank (at least in a big way) for my miracle baby. It helped regulate my body and my hormones in a way that no medication ever could. Unfortunately, after the birth of my son our finances were haywire. The bills piled up and I stayed at home. Buying healthy foods was just impossible. During my pregnancy I had lost about 50 lbs. Now I put it all back on by eating pot pies and other really cheap foods. We reserved the healthy foods for my son. At least he could be spared our fate. Now things are better and we have just gotten back on the diet. We're still on induction and have already dropped a lot of weight. At first it was really hard, but already I feel so much better. A few months ago I had bloodwork done that showed I had problems with my cholesterol and liver enzymes again. I'm going to make sure and keep my copies of the bloodwork this time so when people start attacking the diet and it's "high fat, heart disease causing" qualities, I can show them the reality.
I don't know if anyone really wanted to read something that long, but that's the very condensed version. I hope it helps someone.
Similar Threads 
June 28th, 2006, 10:08 PM
Re: ADBB PCOS Support Group 
Re: ADBB PCOS Support Group 
Linear Mode
