I am fairly certain that I have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), and I was just wondering if anyone else has it? Just to make this clear--I am going to see a doctor. (And, I am not on T)

Basically, from what I've read, people with PCOS have a hormonal inbalance, so women can have too much male hormones in them, so they can start growing beards, get adominal fat, etc. This past August, I noticed that I had a thick, course, dark hair growing on my chin, then over the past few months more and more have been coming in. I have to shave my chin daily or else I get stubble. A month ago I let the hairs grow out for a week, and they ended up being about half an inch long. Now, the peach fuzz over my lip is getting darker, and so it the fuzz on my stomach, and my happy trail hairs have gotten longer. I have man hairs on my chest, and some dark and course hairs on my arms where I've never had that before. None of the women in my family are hairy, and I am not from an ethnic group that's known for having hairy women, so I am sure it's not just natural, genetic hair growth. Also in August, my stomach started getting more fat on it than I think is normal for me (but, that could be because I sat typing and answering phones at a desk all summer).

I have some of the other symptoms, like my period is never on time and it typically lasts between seven and eight days (although it's really light and I don't get cramps or moody-I barely notice it).

If anyone has PCOS, how much hair did you grow? And, did the doctors just try to get you to take birth control pills (from what I've read, that's really the only thing doctors give for this)? I am not going to take birth control, I am fine getting hairy and I can deal with the other symptoms; plus I've read it doesn't work all that great and I really just hate taking any sort of pill/medication.

I don't have it, a cis female friend of mine, did though. She ended up with hair like you are describing, and gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time(and she is a very physically active/super into proper diet and fitness type of person). She saw a doctor who put her on a hormone regimen to decrease them amounts of testosterone in her body and encouraged her to note any issues. She's still treating it, to my knowledge. But the doctor didn't push anything on her. He just went over some options for treatment and asked her what she wanted to do about it. A good doctor won't force treatment on you, but they will go over your options.

i might im going to talk to my endo about it and a cis girl i know i suspect has pcos.

Quote from: LearnedHand on November 21, 2012, 10:25:20 PM
If anyone has PCOS, how much hair did you grow? And, did the doctors just try to get you to take birth control pills (from what I've read, that's really the only thing doctors give for this)? I am not going to take birth control, I am fine getting hairy and I can deal with the other symptoms; plus I've read it doesn't work all that great and I really just hate taking any sort of pill/medication.

I have it. I wasn't terribly hairy, really. Upper range for a normal female, perhaps? I did have long hairs on my stomach, but they weren't all that dark and noticable. No facial hair apart from a few stray strands. I think it made me respond very quickly to T though, as I am now a sasquatch.

I was put on birth control, to get regular periods and stuff like that. I stayed on them until I had to quit for other hormonal issues, so that they could see properly what was going on. This was a few years before I decided to transition, and I never started on them again.

I have had it since puberty and these are the things i have dealt with.1) is a large increase in body hair -this includes face,chest,legs,arms,belly- 2) is changes in monthly and pain-i do not ovulate and when it is time,it seems to be much more..unneeded or at least it makes me feel that way.i found out this way because i had massive pain and amounts so i rushed to the ER and this is how i was told i had it.yes with pcos your ovaries are blocked due to the cyst's so they are like blockers,T then runs massively through your body causing the semi low voice *like i have* the hair growth,pain and amount that may be over normal *or that could just be me* but along with this,it allowed me to semi pass already and i do not seek to have it taken care of,i simply seek to have a hysto once everything is in order and i am on T full time.No i was not put on birth control pills but whats called Metformon *think i spelled that right* it is one drug used to treat it or was on trial at *trying* to treat it but it never did anything for me so i stopped taking it.the hair growth for me was pretty massive,on an average-a normal woman would shave once a week,i on the other hand would need to shave every day or every other day.lets just say due to the large amounts of T inside me from the pcos,even my private area acts like a male organ.This means that i contract like a normal man's sack would.(sorry for the tmi but having issues with spelling atm) i even brought this to my doctor and asked why and all they said was *huh? never heard of such a thing* lol so for me its not really a down side,only how it makes me feel with the pain,monthly and so on do i not like or cant deal with.

I'm pretty sure I don't have PCOS. I've been dragged to several different endos since I was maybe 12 years old, because of my striking underdevelopment when compared with the rest of my family. T levels were checked, they checked for Turner's Syndrome (that one was highly suspected, even though I only presented with short stature and a body that seems to think it's younger than it is in a few departments)...they pretty much ran the gamut and found nothing.

I still haven't grown any taller since then (by that time I had stopped for around 2 years, before then I had yearly growth spurts), and my body has only gone through an increase of hair, mainly around the chest and navel area. My voice has odd days, being childlike one day and then cracking as if my vocal chords have been invaded by donkey-geese the next. The lowest note I've been able to hit was an A2 (probably had a cold; it only happened once or twice), but usually anything past a D3 is too much. Going up, it normally cuts off around C5 unless I warm up a significant amount.

Ironically enough, I was always this fragile little kid in my younger years who was on track to be fairly tall and have a build like some kind of ballerina. Now I'm not even in a percentile range for height and my shoulders are broad enough that my mother jokes about me becoming a linebacker. Recent x-rays showed that my bones are still on the petite side, but apparently muscle built up around them when I was around 10, with no clear answer. I first hit puberty then (no one expected that; I was tiny and completely flat-chested), but that was the only marker that something had actually happened, excluding the sudden muscle mass.

Yet to this day, people at school think I've skipped grades or something. The up side is that I avoid the awkward situation of someone asking for sanitary products, because they all assume I haven't had the need to use them yet 

I'm curious as to how my body would react to T. It may be a long time before I get to find out, but hopefully I'll get there at some point.

My S.O. is just around the corner from getting an official diagnoses for PCOS. She's finished up with the blood work and everything except for T (she's cis) came back as normal. Her T was 99 micrograms per decilitre  (high is supposed to be 55 on the paperwork she brought home).

She's in her early 30's and has hair in a LOT of places women shouldn't have hair.

Neck, chin, chest, back and belly. She's also quite large for her height and hasn't had a normal period since she was 15ish. At first, when she was younger the Doc's put her on birth control but after 10ish years of that her body said enough of that and the Doc's took her off the pill. She ended up only having a period once every three months or so for a few years until the Doc's put her on Metformin (which didn't last long).

Currently we're waiting on the Doc's to finish looking at some ultrasound images to finalize the concept for PCOS, Endometriosis (spelling on that one might be off) or both.

Chances are, with the issues she's been having and with having tried the BC route and Metformin we're expecting the Doc's to either get her on hormones... or she might be looking at getting her ovaries removed.

... And she's always like "and you wished you were born a woman??" every time she's had pains or the various Doc's appointments

It's a tough thing to go through... even as an observer.

Good luck.