Words by jumana
While September marks the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome month with the theme, “Never choose indifference – choose to fight”, those struggling with it daily pray for the day that more people are mindful and aware of the illness.
Today, makeup artist and lifestyle blogger Reesh Naseem has taken over the social media center stage as a safe haven for many who aren’t just looking for solutions to PCOS. From her healthy booster drinks filled with warming wholesome spices to the coconut milk miracle hair cure as well as so many wonderful reminders to be accepting and loving of all our flaws, she can inspire self love at its epitome. It was in her late teens however that she found herself at the doctor’s office feeling lost and confused at the term “PCOS” ringing in her ears.
Back then I had never even heard of the term PCOS, especially within the Maldivian community. It was so new to me, some doctors made it sound very scary while one helped me understand that it’s a lifestyle change. The better I understood it, the less scary it got, so it soon became easier for me to accept it.
A brilliant advocate for intermittent fasting, Reesh regularly shares tips on what has personally helped her maintain a healthy lifestyle despite PCOS and endometriosis. She believes that early screening and detection is vital in combating the symptoms, “From diet to factors that can trigger the symptoms, the sooner we know, the quicker we can plan accordingly”
“It is also very important to remember, there is no one single method that fits all. We are all different, and therefore the levels of our symptoms are different as well”
~ Reesh Naseem ~
Truly, one of the many, many things that needs to be made aware is that PCOS symptoms lie on a varying and very wide spectrum. While some symptoms like to show up on the face and body of sufferers regularly in the form of insulin resistance, cystic acne or excess hair growth or hirsutism, PCOS sufferers carry an extremely heavy burden almost every day of their lives – the chronic and very painfully invisible burden of mental health struggles. For journalist and news anchor Zunana Zalif, this is one of the most important things she wishes people were more aware of.
So many people think PCOS patients are just ‘too much’. It’s bad enough that PCOS patients are in a daily battle with their minds and mood swings, they don’t need to be shamed by people around them. I don’t think people understand how hard it is to deal with an avalanche of multiple symptoms, all at once
Zunana explains a common phenomenon faced by the PCOS community whereby she has faced doctors invalidating or pushing aside symptoms and their treatments by citing weight loss alone – that too, without further instruction. A study conducted with South Australian women titled, The information needs of women diagnosed with PCOS: implications for treatment and health outcomes noted, “Established health and medical information sources may be inadequate for the information that women want about PCOS. The average length of a medical consultation in Australia is 14.8 minutes, which may be inadequate for a condition such as PCOS”
Image by katemangostar on Freepik
Zunana cites her biggest regret as not starting with self-research on lifestyle changes earlier on. “I had to turn to research and the internet and I’ve learnt a lot more about it since then. It has helped me understand everything that is going on with my body and mental health because of PCOS”. Zunana’s advice to anyone just receiving a diagnosis is to get ahead of the remedies.
“Someone who recieves help early on in managing their symptoms, is far more likely to be able to maintain the lifestyle than someone who has to pick themselves up after years of spiraling and letting themselves go”.
~ Zunana Zalif ~
Medically speaking, it isn’t just plain old emotions that PCOS preys on. Some research has shown that PCOS sufferers deal with lower levels of certain neurotransmitters (chemical messengers) in the brain like serotonin (the happy chemical). Compounding that with insulin resistance puts the person at risk for high cortisol levels (stress hormones) and the mix is a recipe for disaster.
Gynecologist Dr. Nina Shareef believes that battling PCOS is the challenge of building a different lifestyle that needs to be consistent and permanent. She also believes that one of the biggest challenges in sticking to lifestyle changes lies in it being harder for the majority of our population to have the time and accessibility to be consistent about healthy consumption of food. Another challenge that she hopes gets across to those attempting to implement this lifestyle change is that an instruction to regiment with exercise is not an indication of “get slim”. She hopes people understand that the benefits of regular exercise and eating healthy don’t encompass only what you look like on the outside.
My advice is to bring about positive lifestyle changes that you can stick to. It has to be a permanent lifestyle change. Not short term weight loss goals like ‘loose a certain amount in 6 or 3 months’. Even with diet, choose something that you will be happy eating for the rest of your life
While the cause of PCOS itself is frustratingly unknown, all women cited the dire need to generate more awareness on understanding your own symptoms and maintaining a healthy lifestyle as the most important aspect of overcoming the disease. According to Google statistics of the Maldivian cyber space, the term “PCOS” has been searched at an upwards of 1400 times within the past 12 months. That averages at around 120 searches per month. On that note, the frequency of terms most searched in relation to the topic include “ovary”, “weight” “Metformin”, “cause” and “symptom”. Here is hoping that we move forward with even more awareness as a community.
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