Monday, July 1, 2013

PCOS and insulin resistance

I don’t talk about it that much anymore, but I have PCOS with insulin resistance. In college, I started rapidly gaining a lot of weight. I gained over 45 lbs over 4 years. I felt terrible all the time, was upper fat, tired, acanthosis nigricans, very moody, severe acne. Ugh. I don’t even want to relive that time via memories.
SO I finally figured out what was wrong with me. By myself. I graduated and got insurance (yay!) and then found a sympathetic doctor that sent me to an Endocrinologist. My testosterone was high. My insulin was three times the upper limit of normal. He gave me the golden ticket – Metformin. Everything improved and I lost 84 lbs. I’ve felt good ever since.

But, I have never ever been able to tolerate a lot of sugar or carbs without protein. I can drink a glass of wine, with a meal. I can have a little dessert, immediately after a meal. I cannot tolerate sugar drinks of any kind, including juice, regular soda, punch, especially warm sugary drinks like coffees and cocoa. If people go to have ice cream in the middle of the day or birthday cake, I can’t do it. I makes me ill.

For breakfast before I understood this problem, I would eat a bagel. Yikes! I’d be feeling clammy, and sleepy and falling asleep (I was in my internship at this time) and it was a bad thing. After I was diagnosed, I started eating protein. I’m a bit more lax now. Typically I have one of two things – cottage cheese with berries and walnuts or a boiled egg, a cheese, a banana with peanut butter and some nuts with a little dried cherries. The last week or so I have been becoming quite ill after breakfast. Falling asleep, clammy, tired, foggy-headed. It’s awful! I had been drinking a little bit of work coffee with breakfast, and I thought that was doing it, maybe it had some hidden sugar or something. Nope. I didn’t have it today, and it happened again.

What is going on? I feel strongly it is some sort of hypoglycemic episode. It did happen with both types of breakfast, so I am at a loss there. Has Metformin stopped working for me? Should I do a drastic carb cut?  Any thoughts? I *guess* I should go see the Doctor. Ugh.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

see the doc!!! i wonder if you need more metformin, like if you have increased insulin resistance or something?

what if you changed it up and had a high protein breakfast of something else, then a few hours later had another high protein snack?

Barb said...

Yeah. See your doc. I have this problem off and on with what I eat as well. I can't do dairy in the morning without feeling like that. I read somewhere that dairy affects those with diabetes adversely. I dunno. I also have to eat very carefully and lightly through breakfast. I find what helps me most is to have something small spaced a little bit apart... like first a kashi bar and then an apple 15 mins later. Then I do some sort of exercise. Doesn't matter what as long as it gets me moving. Then I have something protein related... nuts and fruit, milk with protein powder and then have an early lunch. That's my best bet. I'm sorry I totally understand. It's horribly difficult to manage.