Yes, I'm doing better

I finally started medication for PMOS

After years of blood tests, confusing GP appointments, ultrasounds, and missed periods, I finally started being treated for PMOS (formerly PCOS.)

I was hesitant about writing about this, but as the weeks went on it started to feel weird not to write about it. I was reading Writers & Lovers by Lily King recently, and one line hit me hard, “I don’t write because I have something to say. I write because if I don’t, everything feels even worse.”

I’m not writing about my health for pity or ‘hope you’re okay hun’ messages because the reality is I’ve never been better. Last month, I started taking Metformin for Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome and I feel like it has changed my life. I’ll likely be on Metformin for most of my life (until I hopefully have a baby) and I was honestly terrified of starting it. As soon as I left my GP surgery, I quickly Googled Metformin side effects as I strolled up to my local Boots. And of course I was met with hundreds of negative stories.

And I’ll be honest, the first two weeks on Metformin were far from easy. I have never eaten so many Marietta biscuits in my life. I barely left the house, I was constantly sick and nauseous, and wanted to do nothing but sleep. I wanted to step off the world for a while, and that’s what I did. The timing felt quite fitting as I had been signed off work due to work related stress and anxiety, so I had the time to just rest and get used to the plethora of side effects that comes with Metformin. It was an isolating time and honestly incredibly overwhelming. The friends who constantly checked in on me have no idea how much they helped me.

For years, I knew something wasn’t right with me but finally starting medication made it all feel real. The acne, the irregular periods, the 70-day gaps between cycles, the worries about never being able to have kids, the weight gain, the fatigue, the anxiety, the depression, the low self-esteem, the brain fog, and the hopelessness. It wasn’t until I was six weeks into taking Metformin that I truly started feeling like Kat again. And I didn’t realise how much of myself I had lost until these last few weeks. It felt like the biggest cloud was following me around, but I didn’t realise how much it was weighing me down until I started Metformin.

I can’t really sum up how much it has changed how I feel (Jane, if you’re reading this, I won’t mention Stefan) but it has made me feel like me again. It feels like I’m experiencing my life without the blinkers on. My skin is clearing up, I have so much more energy, my emotions don’t feel numb anymore, my cycle is back to normal, which is the biggest relief of all. I’ve written about not wanting to have kids and then changing my mind as I turned 30 before, but knowing this medication will help any hurdles my future self may face is the biggest reassurance.

It’s crazy how much a €10 prescription has already changed my life, but I feel so balanced and I’m not even two months in yet. I was so wary of writing this (I may panic and delete it) but I guess I want to give people hope, especially any woman in her 30s who looks at the baby name list on her phone and worries about it never becoming a reality. And look, a recent weekend trip to Liffey Valley reminded me that I’m definitely nowhere near ready to have a kid yet, the tantrums outside the Art n Hobby shop would put anyone off, but starting Metformin has given me hope again.

I guess that’s all for now. I’m not sure if I’ll continue writing about this, but all I can say is that it feels so lovely to be treating symptoms that turned me into a shell of myself for longer than I even realised. Also, to the friends who checked in on me and let me be dramatic about Marietta biscuits, vomiting, and feeling so unwell, thank you. I love you all so much more (especially now that I feel like a human again.)

Kat