How I deal with Insulin Resistance (part I)

Hello, my friends. It s time for some life updates. Today I will try to make some other kind of post. I have never made a post about my health conditions and troubles I had, but now I decided to do so. Maybe there is someone who has a similar problem and this will be useful for him/her. I guess, if we share our opinions and experiences, we can help each other, especially with health troubles.

So, three months ago I found out I have Insulin Resistance. Now I know almost everything about it, but at that moment this was a completely new thing in my life. I didn't even know what does that mean! I went to see my doctor because of another thing. I had PCOS -- Polycystic ovary syndrome last one and a half years. One doctor tried to treat this syndrome with contraceptive pills because she thought it was caused by some reproductive hormonal disbalance. It turned out, she was wrong!

PCOS is a disorder which only women can have because it has an influence on their reproductive health. You have thousands of small micro cysts on your ovaries, your menstrual period can be painful or irregular, even you can have problems with the skin (acne or oily skin) and hair loss from the head. A lot of women have trouble staying pregnant as well. Some of them have problems with weight and they can have hairs everywhere on the body. Lucky for me, I had only two symptoms: I had irregular periods and my hair become so thin. I found out I have PCOS when I went to see the doctor and I started with treatment, but it turned out it was wrong.

My first doctor thought that reproductive hormones will help me, but they didn't. I was taking contraceptives almost the whole year and nothing happened. My migraine became worst and worst because of them, at least once a month I had a terrible headache and it lasted for three days. Also, I started to notice that my veins became visible on my legs and I was so afraid. I knew I had side effects because of the contraceptives I was taking.

I decided to see another doctor and this was a really good decision. The new doctor used ultrasound to see what is happening in my ovaries and in one moment she asked me do I have someone in the family who has diabetes. I was shocked! The first thing that came to me was thought that everything is over for me. I thought, if she asked me this, I have diabetes for sure, but I didn't know how the fuck she can see that when she is just checking my ovaries. I realized that my aunt has diabetes and my mother also had problems with the level of glucose in the blood when she was pregnant. I was in her belly, so it is possible this left some consequences on me. I said that to my doctor and asked her do I have diabetes. She was smiling. She said I don't have it. I just checked my blood before a couple of months and the level of glucose was O.K.

Then she explained to me that I may have something that can be a sign I could get diabetes in the future but for now I am safe. She said I have a lot of cysts on my ovaries and it looks to her that the cause of that is something that doctors call Insulin Resistance. My ovaries looked like ovaries of the women who had this condition. Science says 50% of the women who have PCOS also have IR and PCOS is actually caused by this disorder. The mystery of my life was solved! She said I have to do more analyzes and check the level of insulin in my blood and then we will know for sure. The next thing for me to do was to go and give the blood for analysis. But since that moment I felt this has to be the cause of my problem. I knew what results I will get. I was afraid of course. I started to feel guilty because I knew that my life habits are bad and I ate a lot of sweet things. I also knew that the doctor said this condition can have a genetic cause, but that didn't help me. I was thinking about all the chocolate I ate in my life and how many times I didn't eat some normal food because I wanted to eat chocolate or some other sweet things. I started to be afraid of the food. I was looking at some food and I was just thinking is this healthy or not and should I eat it, is it safe for me.

Well, I think this is enough for one post. I will continue with this life story soon. In the next part, I will talk about Insulin Resistance, what does that mean, how it affects the body and what I did to check the level of insulin in my blood. See you soon and I hope this is an interesting subject for you.