Greetings I am new and I live in Knoxville, TN:idea:

Dear Jennifer, Thank you for your support it really does help knowing that others are willing to help and give sound advise. My mother did not start gaining weight until she got hurt and had three surgeries and three more pending. She then had three heart attacks and under went heart surgery and has to go two more times. My father is a man and in his eyes he is not over weight in man' s stadards. Then he under went heart surgery and takes insulin shots and more a day. I got real scare because one of my doctor does not believe me that I am having chest pains when I wake up in the middle of the night and when I get upset. I know the my weight and blood pressure and stress level is hurting my heart. I knew it from the start that this kind of surgery was best for me. I had two doctors backing me. I will still fight but it is real hard.. If it works for me I hope that it will work for my father and mother. too.

Hi Tina, I totally understand what you are going through. I also have PCOS and it wasn't until I was 30 that my mom gave me an article from a women's magazine about PCOS and sure enough I had almost every symptom and then I went to a GYN that was knowledgeable in it and was officially diagnosed. I don't have a twin but my brother has never been overweight in his life so I have always been the "fat sister". In my late 20s I had a GYN tell me that my menstrual/excess hair problems were all due to my weight and put me on a liquid fast like Oprah and sure enough I lost nearly 100 pounds and then had regular periods and even got pregnant (but miscarried). Of course to wean off liquids you start eating a baked potato a day - and I began gaining weight rapidly and went back to old eating habits and gained all the weight back plus alot more. I was counting calories but not eating the protein and eat alot of white carbs. As I'm sure you know, PCOS is an insulin resistance condition and we can not eat the bad carbs as our bodies do not process them correctly and turns to fat. Plus the bad carbs is what triggers our hunger. I got the lap band in September but did lose 20 pounds before surgery since my preop in June. I did not starve - I just made sure I ate a low carb diet focused on eating more protein (keeps you fuller longer), drank lots of water - and gave up diet coke (which I think also triggered my hunger). Like Kathy and others have posted - keep fighting for your surgery but until then try to follow a diet that is good for PCOS, take your metformin and BC pills (I know I hate it too) - because if you don't your symptons will get worse and hopefully you won't struggle with infertility as I have. Best of luck to you. Feel free to send me a private e-mail if you want to chat. If you haven't already, visit the PCOS website, soulcysters.com Take care, steph