PCOS is a syndrome — meaning there’s no one single way it presents, it’s a constellation of symptoms. And everyone’s constellation of PCOS symptoms looks slightly different.

Because of this, it can be so hard to understand what symptoms are ‘normal’, what symptoms are not and whether something you’re experiencing is due to your PCOS or something else entirely.

As you’ll know too well (and as I know all too well), sometimes symptoms can get so freakin’ bad that you don’t even want to entertain leaving the house because PCOS can completely consume you sometimes and absolutely destroy your self confidence.

If you’re feeling really lost with understanding your symptoms, I hear you — I’ve been exactly where you are and it is so awful. You feel like your body is so out of control and there’s so many different symptoms you’re trying (and struggling) to stay on top of, it’s exhausting.

If you’re feeling like this, I really think this episode of the podcast will speak to you. Today we're talking to the lovely Lauren, who I met through The PCOS Protocol. Now, as Lauren will tell you in her story, she had been suffering from a range of PCOS symptoms (which she didn’t realise were PCOS symptoms at the time) for many years and had just been put on the hormonal contraceptive pill, like many of us do, to deal with these symptoms. After deciding to come off, her symptoms kicked off and that's when she flagged multiple times to her doctor that this wasn’t working for her — hello PCOS diagnosis!

That's when all of the other symptoms started to make sense to her. But until we worked together, there were so many question marks with all of her symptoms — were these just something she had to deal with? Were they a symptom of PCOS? Are these symptoms that she could improve? Is it common in PCOS for lots of other people to have some of these symptoms?

We'll go into today a bit about Lauren's story, how she's connected the dots with symptoms she didn’t even realise were PCOS symptoms, how she’s resolved many of these symptoms and what she's still working on as well. 

If you’re really feeling like you have a complex case of PCOS and you have unanswered questions about whether some symptoms are actually due to PCOS or not, you’ll find this episode really insightful.

This episode is for you if:

• You’re struggling with hair loss
• All your doctor has told you to do is go on the pull and come back when you want to conceive
• You find that your weight is hard to manage no matter how strict you are with nutrition and exercise
• Some symptoms are confusing you and you don’t know whether they’re PCOS related or not
• Your periods are really irregular and unpredictable
• All your doctor has told you is that calories-in-calories-out is king for managing weight gain — but it’s not working for you
• You’ve found you have what looks like ingrown hairs that can really inflamed and you don’t know what they are — or what to do about them
• Habit change is something you find quite hard or want more guidance on

Some things we cover in this episode:

• ​​Extreme gut issues with PCOS (terrible IBS, couldn’t even eat out with friends)
• Understanding and dealing with hirsutism
• How hormonal birth control affects your PCOS
• Amenorrhea (missing periods) after coming off contraception
• Understanding and dealing with hair loss and hair thinning
• Why your weight keeps going up no matter how much you diet and exercise

Resources and References:

• 1: Treating the root cause
• 14: The big 3 of hair loss
• 15: Does hair ever grow back after hair loss?