Hi BW,
I too have PCOS and I am not a classic case. I may be a little overweight now but up until I was 23 I was as thin as a rake. So I used to get frustrated by doctors who said I needed to lose weight to get pregnant. As far as I was concerned I never ovulated nor had periods when I was thin for 10 years so why should losing weight be my answer. I also tried Metformin and it did nothing for me. So when I finally went to an FS with a clue about PCOS it was wonderful. The first magic words he said were 'well you're thinnish so weight loss is not going to help you.' How long had I waited for someone who saw my PCOS as an individual case! So I fully recommend seeing an FS who knows about PCOS.
The other thing my FS said about clomid was sometimes women with PCOS won't ovulate on clomid and the less likely they are to ovulate on clomid the more likely they will on injections. Although I really think you have alot of clomid attempts to try first. As my FS would put it 'with 50mg it is only really the smell of an oily rag.' There is still a lot of hope for you on higher doses.
You sound very much like me... As a thin teenager I would go for ages without having periods, once well over a year. I thought it was wonderful at the time, but now... not so much! My weight has gone up a little after being on prednisone for arthritis over one winter, and I've managed to get most of it off. I'm now sitting just within the healthy weight range calculated by BMI. Any extra weight I do carry tends to go straight to my belly, never bottom, hips, thighs.
So... I have PCOS... yet I'm not overwieght, have never had acne in my life (not even as a teenager! I used to wish I could get acne as then my skin would be oily and not so dry that it itched constantly!), I'm small-busted and I don't really have a problem with excess body hair (I know of women without PCOS who have more trouble with hair in the wrong places than I do!), my hormone levels all test within normal limits except for free androgens which is only "slightly elevated" in the words of my specialist. I have polycycstic ovaries and I don't have anything even remotely resembling a normal menstrual cycle. For all intents and purposes, it appears that I only have a "very mild" (also in the words of my specialist) case of PCOS... BUT WHY WON'T IT RESPOND???? It should have been easy to fix, but it's not!
Poppy, you've given me a lot of hope that a specialist who knows their PCOS is actually going to know what to do with me.
BW,
It would be best if you went to a FS who is also a Reproductive Endocrinologist. They usually have CREI after their name I think. It is an overseas qualification I believe and they have studied the endocrine issues that can affect fertility and PCOS is one of those. To find my FS, although I was not sure that I was going down the IVF path, I went to the websites of the 2 IVF places in Melbourne and they have the doctors profiles on them and I picked the one that had the qualifications and interests that most matched what I needed.
good luck. sounds like a change of doctor is just what you need.
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