A Pep Talk For All You Wonderful Women Out There.....

I promised some friends of mine a few weeks ago that I would stop the obsessive research on how to cure myself….I even made a bet with them and for the last two weeks I have stuck to it. This morning I woke up and checked my blackberry and saw I had my daily update for Team Inspire (RESOLVE). Usually I glance at the daily topics and move on but I went a little further this morning seeing that one of the topic discussions was one I know very well, POF. The person who started the discussion has been diagnosed for a long time and was searching for information on what her options could be.  Seeing this entry of course relit the spark to my need to do research and since then I have scouring through the pages of discussions on POF on the RESOLVE site. I have to say that after doing this, I feel very discouraged and sad. I wasn’t able to find a single story of someone with POF healing their body or conceiving on their own.  I know it may seem a little unrealistic of me, but I still believe I will eventually find out what is keeping my body from ovulating and have a child.  I believe that most of us women who have been diagnosed as POF represent a group where western medicine has just plain failed us.  Basically, there is something wrong with us and doctors don’t want to take the time to find out what it is so they give us the whole “you have premature menopause, but we don’t know why. Sometimes it just happens.” Sorry, I mean I am not a doctor but that explanation is just not acceptable to me especially when it is concerning a process that my body was built to carry out. If a body process has full on shut down, there is a reason for it and that should be a concern to a doctor. I believe that nutrition and lifestyle have a very large part in the growing epidemic of infertility. I also believe that if the same doctors who typically throw aside their patients after their POF diagnosis would just recommend less stress, some yoga and a healthier diet that many of the “infertile” patients would find their problems might be solved.  I also have to say that even after being diagnosed as having “POF” for almost a year and a half, I am still not exactly sure what that means. For the first year, I was told by several doctors that it means I have no eggs and no chances of conceiving. For the past six months, I have been seeing an OBGYN who specializes in working with women with POF who says that I do have eggs just not the hormones to get my body to go through a complete cycle.  I have also read a few books in the past six months that back up my most recent doctor’s opinion on the matter.  Regardless, maybe doctors should figure out exactly what it means to diagnose patients with POF before sending women into the gloom of an infertility diagnosis. I have seen many positive changes in my body over the past year and a half. I went from having flattened ovaries with no eggs and very low hormones to having round ovaries with standing follicles and good levels of hormones. I was able to keep myself from having to go on HRT and have had a few cycles. All of which I was told would not be possible in the first year and a half. Through research of my own, I have had tests run as I see fit to be able to rule possible causes of this problem out and am positive I will eventually find the problem. I believe that my celiacs disease caused some damage and have been on a strict gluten free diet for almost two months.  I am currently looking into thyroid and gallbladder possibilities as thyroid disease runs in my family and I took Yasmin for almost 6 years…for those of you who haven’t heard…the makers of Yasmin & Yaz are in the middle of  lawsuits from women who took their products and suffered severe side effects one of them being gall bladder disease.  All I am saying is to you wonderful women out there who have been diagnosed with POF or any other fertility problem don’t give up. Do some research, change your diet and find a doctor that is up on the topic. Our bodies were made to reproduce and drive men crazy.  Our body wouldn’t shut this process down unless there was a reason for it!!!