So it is official; I have NAFLD.

And to put the cherry on top of the cake, I also have gallstones.

I got an ultrasound on my abdomen that revealed this and I’m not going to lie, I had a bit of a cry in the car after I left. Although it was an OK experience, I felt a bit overwhelmed and helpless feeling like it’s one thing on top of another. It’s PCOS, now it’s NAFLD, oh and throw in gallstones too!

I had an awkward time during the ultrasound due to my breathing – he would guide me when to breathe in and out which is always stressful, even in meditations as I tend to be someone who holds my breath a lot due to stress or anxiety and find it hard to find a breathing rhythm. I apologised at the end to the sonographer and he said “you did let me down a little bit”. He was really nice but I know I would’ve made it difficult because I can’t breathe!

The good news is that the sonographer said the gallstones are moving as if they stop moving they kind of get stuck and need to be removed in surgery. Apart from that, I don’t know a whole lot about gallstones although I have heard people that have their gallbladder removed lose weight, but there can be complications. I would be lying if I wasn’t considering having that surgery, but the idea of surgery in general terrifies me.

I only know a few things about NAFLD and honestly I haven’t done a lot of research on it yet as I am still focus on PCOS now that I have a confirmed diagnosis. Here they are:

• It is extremely common – approximately 1 in 3 Australian adults have NAFLD
• It is reversible (YAY!)
• NAFLD means that 5-10% of your liver content is fat which is excessive
• It can be connected to other health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure
• PCOS accounts for a higher risk of NAFLD
• Can be connected to insulin resistance
• NAFLD can make you feel tired or unwell

As I said, I don’t know a whole lot, but what I do know explains a lot. From my googling I found a lot of the symptoms I experience are connected to NAFLD – a lot more than I thought. I always feel tired and drained which leads to moodiness and emotional breakdowns or outbursts. It leads to too many sick days at work and generally feeling guilty for cancelling or ditching plans because I don’t have the energy to do anything.

Like most things related to my health, it can be treated and “cured” with lifestyle changes and natural medicine rather than traditional medicine. I know that I need to see a nutritionist to get their opinion on diet changes and supplements that can be taken in order to manage my PCOS symptoms reverse the NAFLD.

I would love to be able to reverse NAFLD entirely as I think it would affect hormones, fertility, energy levels, and in general make me feel more spritely rather than tired all the time. I’ll be back after seeing a nutritionist – wish me luck!

It wasn’t until last year that I had my first blood test.

Until last year I had spend 20+ years avoiding dealing with my health until it got to the point that I had to finally go to the doctor. He ordered a blood test and a couple of things came up: I was severely deficient in B12 so I had 3 shots over 4 weeks that resulted in no change in energy (everyone told me I would feel super energetic) but I had a reaction resulting in a lot of intense cystic acne on my chest and lower back. He also said my liver levels were higher than normal which resembled non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and we had to keep an eye on it.

Since going to the female doctor and getting an ultrasound on my ovaries, she also requested a blood test to check hormone and glucose levels in particular to confirm the PCOS diagnosis. This particular blood test takes 2.5 hours to complete and required 8 tubes of blood.

I decided to take a Monday off work and get the blood test first thing in the morning as I knew I would most likely feel sick afterwards and need to rest. Unfortunately my veins are quite hidden which makes it hard to get enough blood for blood test sometimes, but on my left arm there is one reliable one that is usually found, so all 8 vials of blood were taken from that vein over the period (I still have a bruise!).

My morning went as follows:

8:45am – 1st blood withdrawal: she takes 5 vials all from the one vein and is amazed she was able to get enough

9:00am – need to drink glucose drink: had to take sips of the drink that tastes like thick, stale lemonade

9:45am – 2nd blood withdrawal: start to feel a bit sick as I haven’t eaten in about 14 hours, she takes another 2 vials, again from the same vein. She asked how I was doing and when I said I felt a bit sick she said I can go and lie down on one of the beds in the room next door.

11:00am – 3rd and final blood withdrawal: still feeling super sick but she takes the final vial and then I’m free to go home!

I got really lucky with the lady taking the blood as she used to work at my doctor and had taken my blood before.

My female doctor called a few days later in bursts – every day or two I would get a new call from her saying “your testosterone levels are high as a result of the PCOS”, “you don’t have hepatitis”, “your B12 is low”, “your liver levels are concerning, I will leave a form for you to pick up to get an ultrasound”. I was so confused – it was one test so why did she make calls over several days?

I ended up contacting the pathology lab to get a copy of my test results – I had to pay $20 admin fee but I was able to get copies of my previous results from the last year as well so it was well worth it. When I had a look over it, it seemed like everything that was wrong (except hormone levels) were related to the liver which really concerned me as I wasn’t expecting that. My doctor had mentioned a year ago that the liver function levels were needing to be monitored as they were high, but I didn’t realise just how much it was affecting everything.

My pharmacist friend had a look over the results to provide some insight which was really helpful and she helped recommend me a B12 spray instead of the shots as I had a bad cystic acne reaction to them last year that I’m only just recovering from. I highly recommend having someone else cast their eyes over your results if you have someone in the medical field in your circle of friends or family as they know you, your lifestyle and your concerns and can help answer some questions you may have.

I ended up booking an appointment with the doctor to go over the results as the phone calls were throwing me off and I felt I wasn’t getting any real or useful information from them. I saw her a day or two later and asked a few questions – she recommended some lifestyle changes and gave referrals for the dietician and an exercise physiologist. She said she wouldn’t recommend going on the pill or doing anything else at this stage as the liver disease is completely reversible. I was really relieved to hear that as I didn’t want to go on the pill and suppress hormones for a few years until I decide I want to get pregnant and then come off it only to have them flare up again. I also really struggle to take tablets so I prefer medication that comes in other forms.

Overall though, I feel as though the doctor may not be the right fit for me and I may need to seek out a nutritionist as I feel they have a more holistic perspective that would help me understand what’s going on in my body a bit more and provide more support. Once I do that I will let you know how I go, but for now I need to focus on getting the liver ultrasound to see what’s going on in there, and I can take all the information to the nutritionist!

Who would’ve thought, just 27 days after going to see the nutritionist that I would have a real, normal, regular period!

The first signs of improvements was around 2 weeks after seeing her – I felt like I was ovulating. For most of that day my lower stomach area was experiencing a dull ache – very mild, but that night I experienced a sharper pain (again pretty mild and not unbearably painful) for 5-10 minutes. I had an intuitive feeling that I was ovulating due to the area of the pain, and the changes I had made to try and experience a normal cycle.

It wasn’t confirmed until another 12 days later when I started spotting, and 2 days after that experienced a real, normal period. This may be TMI for some people, but usually whenever I’ve experienced a spotting or some version of a period over the last decade the blood is quite brown and clotty, as if it is always old blood, and it’s not very heavy. But this time it was heavier and a more true red colour. There was still some brown intermixed with it but this is truly the first time I had seen red period blood in years.

Honestly I am in shock that it only took a couple of weeks of taking some supplements, incorporating teas and seed cycling into my diet, it’s incredible and I am over the moon to see results this soon as everyone tells you to wait about 3 months.

Switching lanes, I started listening to some PCOS based podcasts which is helping me learn a lot and also get more comfortable talking about periods and PCOS which has been a struggle in the past. The PCOS Girls Podcast is my favourite that I’ve found as it’s 2 Aussies that don’t shy away from any topic! It’s a pretty new podcast but they have been covering really great content so far and I’m excited to see them grow in the future. Episode 13 – What is your period telling you? was a favourite of mine and I learned a lot. It’s so interesting to hear other people’s experience as PCOS is so common, yet everyone experiences a different combination of symptoms and issues and there is no cure at this time, only lifestyle changes.

Although it’s frustrating that the research on PCOS is in it’s infant stage, I think it’s empowering to take control of your health and get answers and support from doctors and other medical professionals, and even more empowering when you get the results you were after.

I feel very grateful that I don’t experience intensely painful symptoms of PCOS and pray that all the women who do get answers, feel heard, and their pain can be reduced significantly as that must be so hard. I also feel for all the women who are experiencing infertility as a result of their PCOS. I pray that you

As far as goals moving forward, I am hoping that I can get my period to continue to be regular in the coming months, and also work on getting some of my hormone levels to be stabilised – particularly lowering testosterone and reducing excessive hair growth symptoms as that really affects my confidence and comfort in my own body.

I have got a referral for a blood test for a long list of PCOS related items that I found in The PCOS Journal that I bought earlier this month, so I will keep you updated on that! I am really excited to get the results tackle anything that comes back in the red zone.

Let’s play a game of Never Have I Ever.

Never did I ever think it would take me almost 2 years to make an update to this series. *Drink*

It’s so hard to believe I’ve put this off for so long, but I’m proud to say I have finally taken action at the ripe old age of 28 to see if I will get a confirmed diagnosis of PCOS.

The Pap Smear

I suppose it was going to the doctor about a month ago and being asked if I’ve booked in for my pap smear yet that started this whole journey. I’d been getting letters from the Australian Government letting me know I’m of age to get a pap smear for the last year but have ignored it. As I’ve never had any form of sex before, I have been told in the past I don’t need to get one, but other people say you should anyway to make sure everything is ok. The other week I finally booked in with the female doctor at the practice I went to for a pap smear. I expected it to go like this:

Instead it went like this:

“Are you having sex?”

“No.”

“But you have before?”

“No.”

“Then we don’t need to do pap smear.”

“OK.”  

After that awkwardness I managed to muster up enough courage to mention I think I have PCOS but it’s never been confirmed. After a few more questions, she said I need to get an ultrasound and a blood test, printed out some documents including a double-sided leaflet giving the bare bones basics of PCOS and sent me on my merry way. She did mention that I don’t need to worry about being able to get pregnant as most women with PCOS can have children with no issues at all.

The feelings after that appointment were so bizarre. I felt slightly judged and embarrassed because I didn’t need the pap smear, but empowered that I would finally know for sure if I have PCOS or not. I couldn’t help but question what she said about being able to have kids as so much research suggests PCOS is one of the leading causes of infertility and so many women struggle to get pregnant as a result of it (although it is not impossible). The only reason why I decided to finally deal with this is because I’m approaching 30, I’m single, and I know I want to have biological children one day and wanted to make sure my fertility was ok.

The Ultrasound

I’ve never had an ultrasound, X-Ray, or any sort of body scan before. The closest I’ve got is an aura photo – which is a long way off. If you’ve never had one before either I’m going to do my best to describe it.

The room is darker than I expected and I had an awkward moment getting on the bed as the brakes weren’t on so it kept moving a bit, but she fixed it. They ask you to pull your pants down a bit, put a piece of paper into your underwear to cover up as much as possible without blocking access for the machine. They then add the cold ultrasound gel and put a lot of pressure on my bladder and various areas of my lower stomach in order to get the photos they needed.

The ultrasound itself was abdominal, although you can do a vaginal one. The technician recommended just doing the abdominal as I haven’t had a pap smear before and it would be uncomfortable to do the vaginal ultrasound.

The technician was professional and got slightly more friendly and warm as time went on. All in all it took about 15 minutes to do and she took a lot of photos. I asked her at one point what she thought of what she was seeing and she said the doctor will need to look at it.

I left there not really know what to expect as she gave me no indication at all of what she was seeing. I did have a bit of an inkling there would be some bad news as she was taking so many photos – I assumed they wouldn’t need so many photos if they didn’t see anything.

The Results

A few days after my ultrasound, my doctor called me and told me there were some cysts on my ovaries, but that I would have to go back in 6 weeks for another one to see if they go away on their own. She also said she needs my blood tests results before she can confirm if I have PCOS or not.

Honestly after the phone call I was a bit confused. I had no idea that cysts can come and go. I don’t foresee them going, and if they do they will be replaced with new ones. That’s kind of the nature of PCOS, right?

After the call I went to the toilet and cried for a bit. Although I knew that’s what the results would be, it still hurt to hear as I was hoping by some miracle there would be a different outcome. The whole week has been pretty rough since that call and I’ve been deep diving into egg freezing, PCOS facebook groups, how to manage symptoms, foods to avoid and exercises to do, vitamins and pills to take, books to read. It’s overwhelming and isolating. I would love to find a community locally to meet with and have some support. I really think no matter what you are going through, community is important.

One of the hardest parts is how no one really understands what I’m going through with this. So many of my friends are either mothers already or soon-to-be. People try to comfort me by trying to make me feel better, whilst inadvertently dismissing my feelings. My family don’t know what to say and my friends share their own struggles with fertility which make me feel bad for being upset about this when they have it worse and may never be able to have children at all.

As I started writing this post I was able to view the ultrasound photos and doctor’s report which laid it all out pretty simply.

The uterus is anteverted and is not enlarged. There are no fibroids identified. The endometrium measures 6mm in thickness.

The ovarian volumes are at the upper limits of normal. The right ovarian volume is estimated at 13.55cc and the left at 13cc. The right ovary contains multiple small follicles with the larges measuring 5mm in diameter. There is a left ovarian cyst measuring 3.2 x 1.5 x 1.5cm.

Left ovarian cyst measuring 3.2cm in diameter. Progress ultrasound in six weeks is recommended to assess whether this cysts resolves.

In the coming days I am going to have the blood test to test my hormone levels and a bunch of other things. A few days after that I will need to book in with the doctor again to get the results and I’m sure, to come up with a “lifestyle plan” to implement. I am a bit nervous about what will be recommended – I would really like to treat this naturally with lifestyle changes and not have to go on medication such as The Pill as I know the side effects to that can be detrimental for some people.

I promise my next update for this series won’t take another 2 years. Wish me luck!

For a while now I’ve been watching YouTube channels and reading blogs that are either very daring with the topics they discuss, or are becoming more open about talking about female health. My experience has been quite sheltered as my friends and I rarely discuss these things, which is definitely a cultural issue. I was mostly inspired by Hannah Witton’s new series The Hormone Diaries to share my own story.

Honestly I’m a bit nervous about writing this for some reason. It would be so easy for people to criticise me for letting things go this long without doing anything, and honestly I just don’t have many people in my life who openly talk about things like periods or sex so it is relatively new to me.

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a doctor, nor have I seen one in regards to anything I’m going to talk about in this post so everything is just based on my personal experience over the last 15 or so years.

I’m hoping that writing about this and hopefully having more open discussions with people both online in real life will help me overcome some fears and blocks I have about these issues. If talking about female health isn’t your thing, feel free to skip this post and enjoy the rest of your day.

My First Period

Like every girl, I remember the day I first got my period. Luckily for me, it was a Sunday and I was at home. I had been playing in the morning with my brother while my mum was with her friends outside having lunch, I went to the toilet and noticed blood on my underwear. I was immediately scared and horrified, took them off and called my mum into my room. I shut the door and basically shoved them at her and I froze – I didn’t say a word. My mum was pretty good about it and showed me what to do with a pad and we basically continued the day as normal. There was something different about mum though – I was angry that I could tell she had told her friends that were over as to me it was a really embarrassing and personal thing that I felt should remain private. Later that afternoon we had to pick my brother up from rehearsals for a school production and I remember talking with my group of friends while we waited and just thinking to myself, “Do they have their periods? Am I a woman now? I want to tell them. Can I tell them?” I didn’t end up saying anything and never heard about periods again until over a year later while sitting on a basketball court with a large group of girls and the subject was brought up. I just listened to what everyone else was saying and didn’t contribute at all.

My most embarrassing period story was in grade 6 – it must have been two months or so after I got my first period, and I got up to go to little lunch with the rest of the class when I noticed blood on the seat. I tried wiping it off with a tissue but it just smeared around a bit. I waited behind until the teacher left and then swapped my chair with Laura Scott’s. She was the popular, pretty girl and her chair just happened to be one of the closest to mine. After I successfully swapped the chairs around, I went to lunch with the rest of the kids, went to the toilet to put some toilet paper in my underwear, and then carried on the day.

In high school my friends and I rarely spoke about periods. It just wasn’t a place that we went to in our conversations the vast majority of the time. Periods are something that we often deal with alone and try to sweep under the rug because society tells us that it’s not okay to talk about it, despite the vast majority of women going through it every month for half their life. I’ve been fortunate that the years of my life when I have experienced a normal cycle, I never had any pain or cramps – the only pain was the fact that I had a period at all and had to deal with it. I remember barely getting my period during high school and when I did I was really self-conscious about it, although I was self-conscious about everything at the time.

When Everything Changed

My first year of university was when I noticed my body start to change. My cycles were extremely irregular and had been for a few years, then one day on the bus I noticed the hairs on my arm were really long and dark. I was so embarrassed and just wanted to get rid of it so I started shaving it, which I still do now (I’m planning on getting laser hair removal at some point). Not long after that I noticed that I had started growing dark hairs both on and underneath my chin. I got really self conscious about it and again, started shaving every day to get rid of it. It grows so fast that by the time I get home from work I need to shave it again.

It’s really weird and personal to be writing about these things when I’m still going through them. I don’t have the answers and I don’t have the cure. I haven’t even been officially diagnosed. I’m hoping that by sharing my story I will gain enough courage and support to go and see a doctor so I can finally get this issue out of control and pay attention to it. It’s like my body has been shouting at me for 5 years and I am only now starting to listen. On a smaller level, I experience many mood swings despite not experiencing a period, and I definitely experience a cycle due to other signs that I’ve noticed (moods, smells, etc), but I just don’t menstruate.

I’m not sure when my next update will be but I want to keep you in the loop along this journey towards health and fertility. It’s scary because I don’t know what the future holds. Will I be on medication? Will the hair removal work? I’m not sure, but I know that I am determined to get these things under control and that I really want to make sure that I am in the best health possible so that I can definitely have babies and hopefully reverse my PCOS symptoms.