Irregular periods? Unable to get pregnant? More acne than most? More facial hair? Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) may be the culprit.
Women with PCOS have an imbalance and dysregulation of hormones, which can lead to not ovulating, missed periods, long cycles, and infertility. Additionally they may have higher than normal testosterone levels which can cause acne and increased facial hair. Insulin resistance can also be common which puts women with PCOS at increased risk of diabetes, prediabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
PCOS is a very common cause of female infertility. A PCOS diagnosis, however, does not mean you cannot get pregnant. In fact, there are several effective treatment strategies, ranging from relatively simple remedies, such as dietary and lifestyle changes, to medication regimens to undergoing more advanced treatments like in vitro fertilization.
Dr. Lisa Becht of HRC Orange County recently released a video on PCOS. She goes into detail about the first steps and how she diagnoses PCOS in her patients.
“A lot of women may not know they have it so sometimes it is a new diagnosis when they first see a fertility doctor,” she explained.
“You need to have two of three criteria to make the diagnosis of PCOS,” Dr. Becht added.
“The first is having irregular cycles. For some women that may just be having longer cycles over 35 days, for other women it may be not getting a period for months on end.”
The second criteria is having polycystic appearing ovaries on ultrasound.
“Someone with PCOS often has many follicles in the ovary but they are more on the periphery, commonly referred to as a ‘string of pearls’. Additionally they often have large ovaries,” she included.
The third criteria is the process of looking for clinical or laboratory signs of high testosterone. Dr. Becht said tests are performed to check your testosterone levels to see if they’re high.
“Using this criteria, if you fall within two of the three of these, you fall under the PCOS spectrum,” she concluded.
From that we can do further testing. With at least two out of three signs pointing towards PCOS, we also check your fallopian tubes and the sperm to make sure we aren’t overlooking anything else and to figure out the best way to treat your PCOS.
“If IVF seems like the better option for your situation, the good news about PCOS is that we typically get a good egg number,” Dr. Becht assured.
Check out Dr. Becht’s entire, informative video on PCOS and its impact on pregnancy, below.
If you have any questions, please call 866-HRC-4IVF or schedule an appointment online.