Journey on PCOS #1 : Discovering Infertility & First Treatment

If you have read the "About the Author" post which essentially the first post in this blog, you will know that I sort of have the idea that someday I will have difficulties when it comes to having a baby due to my irregular menstrual. 

Once I got married, my husband and I have decided to plan on getting a baby. As usual, we just tried and let it be since we are not in a hurry. As we approached 6 months since our marriage and I realized that my menstrual did not happened for a long time, I was worried. At first, I went to the ParkCity Medical Centre to check on my menstrual condition as I am afraid that I have early menopause. The doctor "suspected" that I have PCOS but he dare not conclude for sure since he said that he can only assume based on what he can see from the scan. Also, he mentioned that I do not looks like a person that has PCOS - there were no symptoms such as diabetes, weight gain, acne, and etc. He prescribed me with Metformin at that time and said that I should continue taking it till I have a baby since usually this drugs/supplement can help to regulate menstrual and control PCOS. I took it religiously for 1 months but nothing much happened. 

So, we decided to reach out to a fertility specialist just to get a second opinion and to confirm on whether I do really have PCOS. By referring to various friend's recommendations, we were convinced to go with Alpha Fertility Centre located in Kota Damansara. It was not the usual hospital or big building to be, but they are highly acclaimed as it is always overwhelmed with humans. Hence, we made the appointment and settled with the appointed doctor - Dr. Tan. We were told Dr. Collin is the prime doctor that people go for but his schedule is usually full. P/S: Probably, you will need 3 months in advance to book for his consultation. When you make the appointment, the administrator will ask some questions in regards to your last menstrual or last intercourse, etc. This is important for them to provide you the timeline to clear the sperms to ensure that when they run the test on that day, the results are accurate. 

On 13 April 2018, we had our first consultation with Dr. Tan. Although we had our appointment set in advanced, the typical waiting time was 1-2 hours. The misery of waiting was real. I suggest that you choose weekdays rather than weekends if you are impatient. However, I find that weekdays can sometimes make no different. The best thing is, get yourself equipped with some entertainments and snacks while waiting for your turn.

During the consultation, we provided every details of information to the doctor and really make use of the time to ask anything that we needed. Then, he performed pap smear on me to analyze my ovary to confirm on whether I have PCOS. As a result, the doctor explained to me on how to interpret the screen and why he concluded that I have PCOS. The next step was to decide what to do with it and typically, below are the options available similar to what you may find in Google:

1) Medication to trigger ovulation
2) Ovarian Drilling
3) In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
4) Intrauterine Insemination (IUI)

Dr.Tan explained each and every treatment to help us better understand what are the side effects (if any), the cost of the procedure and his opinion based on our situation. Indubitably, we decided to start with medication. He prescribed us a medicine called Clomid and a medicine to induce my menstrual. There will be a timeline on when to take the medication, estimated date that the period will come, and when is the next appointment for follicle checks to see the respond. The next appointment should technically be around 5-7 days after your last day of period to ensure conducive consultation. P/S: In case the admin mentioned that any day will be fine for a consultation while you are on this medication, please ask her politely to check with the doctor and to confirm. This happened to us once and we ended up getting there too early to even see anything. It was complete waste of time and money!

I would prefer to try medication first if you have not and if you have the patient to wait for the possibility of getting pregnant. This is because it is more economical, is a 50/50 chance and if it works, you will just need to focus on timing. However, it is completely up to you based on your condition, not just PCOS but your financial, health condition, age and etc. I do know someone who has PCOS and taken only Metformin and Clomid, and within few months, they got a son. I have heard that some women ended up giving up on medication because it is too time consuming and they change their mind to go right into IVF. So, you have to decide what treatment you are deemed to be more comfortable with. In my case, I would prefer a "natural" pregnancy in the sense that I do not need to extract or combining anything to create a life. Also, IVF and other options leaning to more expensive procedure.

To be continued ...

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- k a t e - 

About the Author

The Present :

My name is Kate and I am from Malaysia. At the point of this post, I am in my 30s this year and married to a loving husband a year ago. When I was younger, the thought of having a family or a child has never been part of importance. However, life can be such an introspective thing and one day, I find myself drawn to the laughter of every kids that I see. It was then, I knew I wanted a child and I discussed with my husband on whether we are ready to have a family of our own. It was a guileless answer and we start our planning.

The Past :

Most people might think that I have plenty of time to conceive as I am only at my 30's and still in a honeymoon stage. First of all, I'm not desperate but rather I knew my irregular menstrual* will have an impact to my fertility. *I am talking about having menstrual once in 4 months since I was 14 years old and aggravated when I was 28 years old where I have only twice in a year. I'm not too bothered to understand the significance of this when I was younger as I do not have period cramp, I have difficult time understanding all these menstrual cycle theory in the science class, and I save on money to have had to buy sanitary pads. I bet this make it sound envious for the normal ladies but I think this is an issue that I hope more women out there understand and take precaution of such cycles. To begin with, I am always a heavier and short person. I work really hard and often stress is my adrenaline to get things done. I do not believe that stress is bad as I think there is good stress; but, more often than not, doctors, friends or families associate irregular menstrual with stress. Perhaps, that is true but again I ignored as I could not find a reason to get any treatment or understand about what is wrong with having irregular menstrual. To me, it's just normal, until now...

Diagnosis:

After about 6 months of trying to conceive and nothing happened, we received a recommendation from our relative to refer to a fertility specialist. Before that, I did went to another general hospital to have pap smear test as I have not had menstrual for the past 5 months. That was the second time in my life where I was told that I might be having Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). The first time was when I visited a gynecologist whom I thought were so exorbitantly priced - I ignored.  So, we made that appointment and to summarize it all, for the third time I was told that I have PCOS. This time, this doctor was firmed on this. PCOS is typically a common caused of infertility. If I can use the definition found from google, PCOS is when the hormonal imbalance interferes with the growth and release of eggs from the ovaries (ovulation). To put it simply, if you don't ovulate, you can't get pregnant , or , if you do not have regular menstrual, it means you do not ovulate and so, the chances of you getting pregnant is lower. As far as I know, PCOS is treatable and I do think that if I would have known or aware of this when I was way younger, I could have avoided the treatment that I have gone through now.

Purpose:

I am not an expert per se and not a doctor, whatsoever. I am merely sharing my experience and to allow people who also has similar situation as I am, have better understanding of what I chose to do to battle PCOS. Now, there are no absolute reason on why one can have PCOS. It can be caused by genetic, unbalance diet, and etc, but I was told by my doctor that globally, there is no one caused for PCOS but there are many ways to get it treated now due to the improved technology, better healthcare research and discovery. However, it can't be cured. I decided to start a blog as I realized there is so few people in Asia who talks about PCOS. I had spend an immense amount of time trying to read about PCOS from people in the Western countries where the healthcare system can be quite different from mine. I have no idea of what to do but I just keep researching and had regular consultation with the fertility specialist. One day, I stumbled upon a local public figure through Instagram and I saw her post about PCOS. She even had a youtube video about her having PCOS. I was really happy that finally someone talks about it. Perhaps, many people talks about it but it just wasn't enough. There is one sentence that she said which really resonates to me, it goes something like this :

"Maybe I have not thought about having a kid, but when one day you want to have one, and you realize that your body is going to be a place for a LIFE, it is scary when you have PCOS". - Linora Low -

I read those comment and that is when I realized there are women out there who wish to find some answers to PCOS but not many of them obtain a respond. That is when, I decided to create this blog. It may not help much but I hope someone might find it useful. This is really just a beginning for me and I hope to share my journey with those of you who had PCOS. Be patient and stay strong! We can get through this together.

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- k a t e -