Diagnosed with PCOS at 11 years old.

by Nicole Pinckard
(Columbus, GA)

My name is Nicole. I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 11 years old. Now I am 17 and still struggle with it every day of my life.

When I was first diagnosed, my OBGYN didn't really want to do a whole lot about it because I was so young.

He tried to just change my diet and told me to exercise more.

You can't really make an 11 year old diet too much but they tried.

I've never really been 'over weight' but I've always been hunky-er than everyone else my age. We just thought I was big-boned. I guess we were wrong.

After a few years of losing a few pounds and gaining it back we finally went to a different doctor.

She put me on a couple different drugs like an anti-testosterone, a hormone, and glucose. They helped... when I was taking them.

No one 13 years old wants to have to worry about taking medicine everyday when you can't see a difference if you don't take it.

I now wish I would've taken them everyday.

Like I said I'm 17 now and still struggle with this disease everyday.

I have more facial hair than some of the guys in my class. I have a bad happy trail and hair on my chest too, still probably more hair than guys my age. I shave EVERY SINGLE DAY.

But I still get asked the question "are you a boy or a girl" and I bet some of you have been asked the same question.

I hate that question. There's no shot to heart that hurts worse than that.

My point in telling you all of this is to tell you don't make my mistake.

And most of you are old enough that you don't have the 'younger kid ignorance' like I did. I wish I would've gotten serious about this disease when I first got it so I might have been able to get rid of it by the time I wanted to have kids.

As I get older I think more and more about how much I would love to be a mother one day.

But then every day I get more and more a reality check telling me that I probably won't be able to have kids.

Please don't make my mistake. Work hard to get your disease to go away so you won't have to regret not trying.

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Editor's comments: Hi Nicole, you did not make a mistake. You did what you or your parents thought was the best thing to do. You're way too young to have any regrets.

However, you should be aware that pharmaceuticals do not cure PCOS. They do reduce symptoms but when you stop them, the problems often return.

Your first obgyn was on the right track. There is no question that the typical diet teenagers consume today makes PCOS worse.

Most health researchers now think that polycystic ovary syndrome begins before birth. So you've have the genetic predisposition for this disorder for a long time. This predisposition is not going to magically disappear.

So you have to take steps to minimize its effects.

The best long-term way to minimized the effects of PCOS is to improve your diet and get much more exercise. Of course it's not easy. If it were easy, PCOS would not be the problem it is today.

What you need to do is learn which foods you can eat and which foods you cannot eat. You also need to exercise every day. This is how you start to naturally normalize your hormones.

It's heartbreaking for people to think you might be a boy. It's an emotionally painful experience to have to shave every day like as if you were a growing boy. And worst of all, there is the possibility you will never be able to start a family.

But there is good news! You can avoid or minimize all of these heartbreaks. You do not need to suffer anymore.

Simply eat better, exercise more, reduce chronic stress and get enough sleep. These four steps are enough to get your body to start to correct itself.

You will not be eating the same foods as your friends. But so what? You will be exercising more than your friends. So what? It's better to be ridiculed for the food you eat rather than ridiculed for the hair on your body.

So what foods should you eat? That's a big topic…too big to be covered here. Buy and read this ebook. It will tell you what you can eat. You won't be happy with the diet. It's pretty strict. You will not be eating most of the foods you are eating right now. You will want to stay on a diet like this for many years, possibly the rest of your life. This would be a drastic change in your diet, so you may need to make changes gradually.

I'm pretty sure the pain of being on a strict diet will be less than the pain of hirsutism and future infertility.

E-Books to Help You Manage PCOS