This is the most important health issue to be aware and educated about by every girl or woman. These days a lot of women are struggling with PCOD/PCOD

1 in every 10 women is suffering from PCOD nowadays, it’s the new Gynaecological epidemic. In previous generations, we hardly saw 1 or 2 cases of PCOS out of 100. But….

Why?

1 in every 10 women suffer from PCOD nowadays, it’s a new Gynaecologist epidemic.

In previous generations, we hardly saw 1 or 2 cases of PCOS out of 100. But now in this generation we are seeing 8 out of 10.

50% of patients that have PCOD are undiagnosed. Some people like less percentage may develop endometrial carcinoma with existing PCOD.

What is PCOD?

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a generic description for a broad spectrum of clinical and morphological findings in women with endocrine dysfunction and metabolism.

PCOD Hormonal aspect:

One of the most common hormonal problems in young women.

In PCOD – Brain doesn’t produce GnRH in normal cycles. It causes LH levels to rise, FSH levels drop. LH causes the ovary to produce more testosterone. Ovary is unable to produce an egg.

What is the difference between PCOD and PCOS?

PCOD/PCOS are similar in nature, except syndrome means where other organs involvement is seen like diabetes, hypertension, obesity.

If disease is just limited to the ovary it is PCOD.

CAUSES of PCOS:

Sedentary lifestyle is adopted by many women right from an early age with exam competitions, long hours due to homework, technology based education, etc.

An unhealthy, imbalanced or erratic diet which has more junk food, processed or refined ingredients, irregular timings of food habits, fads of diets and supplements from unregulated sources.

Stress can play a major part in advancing PCOD/PCOS taking into consideration the current times consisting of globalization, the internet, and dropping employment rates worldwide. Women are dealing with  jobs with high demand on performance,  facing work pressure, family pressure. All these can also play a role.

Most important one is abnormal sleep patterns, most of the time women do not get adequate sleep these days. Most people are active on phones, laptops, video games, work from home and work from bed even and are deprived of sleep.

Presence of chemical pollutants in the body, through environmental pollution via air, water, food and skin absorption.

Genetic cause has not been proven yet. You can see that this was hardly a problem in previous generations of women. What was different then was the hands on, active, wholesome lifestyle and nutrition.

Symptoms:

These are common complaints most people walk into the clinic with:

Problems with their period: they can have irregular cycles, Scanty bleeding, early cycles or they can be delayed. They will have prolonged bleeding.

Weight Gain: Sometimes they will do a lot of workout and still there will be no loss of weight.

Hair loss: They will have scalp hair loss mostly over the front.

Male pattern of excess hormones: In body due to that they start growing thick facial hair, increased body hair.

Difficulty to conceive: infertility nowadays is becoming very common and one major reason is PCOD/PCOS.

How to diagnose this disease?

There is the criteria to diagnose PCOS that is universally known as the Rotterdam criteria.

It includes

1. Irregular periods- Patients can encounter a menstrual cycle only once in 2-3 months. When they bleed it will be scanty flow
2. Thick facial hair over the upper lip, chin, lower face, acne. Thick hair below the umbilicus and midline over the sternum. In PCOD, there is insulin resistance which leads to a more bulky ovary and hence production of male pattern hormones in excess in the body leading to the excess hair.

Ultrasound shows evidence of PCOS. It is diagnosed by a Radiologist or Gynaecologist by seeing if the ovarian volume is more than 10cc and if multiple follicles are present in the ovary (more than 12 to 20 in each ovary)

Complications of PCOS/PCOD:

• Most common complication of PCOS is infertility.
• Infertility in PCOS is mainly because of underlying ovulation problems.
• Women fail to ovulate regularly.
• Risk of diabetes and glucose intolerance are higher in PCOS. It is an issue of underlying insulin resistance. The  hormonal disturbance in PCOS will result in imbalance between the ratios of good and bad cholesterol resulting in increased levels of bad cholesterol which inturn will increase the risk of hypertension & heart diseases.
• Associated symptoms like increased sugar levels, increased BP, increased cholesterol lead to development of strokes.
• There are chances of endometrial carcinoma due to hyperestrogen state due to PCOS.

Medical treatments:

• Diet modification
• It is very important to correct PCOD. We should maintain a healthy diet which contains more leafy vegetables and dry fruits.
• Avoid Junk Food .
• Try to consume more fruits and vegetables than juices.
• Avoid packaged, processed foods.
• Avoid sugars, chocolates.
• I always have brown rice, oats barley to avoid more direct carbohydrates.
• Drink plenty of water around 4 liters per day
• Lifestyle modification
• We need physical activity for 1 hour per day to help the hormones play out correctly in the body and also to reduce stress in our body.
• Daily 10,000 steps/day walking is important
• Cardiac workout 5 days/ week (or) yoga for 1 hour which contains surya namaskar.
• These all help to control PCOS and reduce weight.
• To regularize cycles it is important for some people to run a 6 months course of  O C pills which is given to regularize cycles.
• To correct hormone imbalance in PCOS we need to Add Tablets Which contain D.chiro inositol and myo inositol vit D.
• In cases of infertility for ovulation to occur, ovulation induction drugs should be added. Follicular monitoring to be done for pregnancy.

Surgical treatments:

PCOD can be controlled by laparoscopic ovarian drilling; this is the last intervention.