I just wanted to say that I'm so happy for you!!! The night before last I was at my friends birth with my husband,  her husband, and family, and I got to watch the miracle of her baby girl Maiylee being born. Babies are God's biggest miracle! I've never seen a birth from that side of the table!

I'm totally excited for you!!

PCOS can not be cured only treated. It affects both normal and obese women, just more obese women get diagnosed. Just last week I had a long conversation with my OBGYN on this.

The major reason the heavier women with PCOS have such a hard time losing weight is because of the insulin resistance it causes and metabolic changes.

Now don't anyone get offended about this or their panties in a bunch but it is true.

VSG/ Lap-bands- while a tool to help you lose weight are usually not strong enough as a stand alone for someone with PCOS. They do nothing to change your metabolism. All they do is restrict food intake.

RNY- Does supply some change to the metabolism, but only for a few years. After that your "diet" and eating habits are to keep the weight off. And your metabolism can/not always revert back to its "piss poor" status once the malabsorption aspect of your surgery wears off roughly 2 years out (not always true, if distal you do usually have malabsorption for life just not DS strong).

DS- Supplies permanent changes to your metabolism and with a 98% cure rate of diabetes, usually PCOS induced insulin resistance is eliminated completely. Thus not having to worry to much about regain. Obviously we all need to follow the rules of our surgeries as they are all different!

My OBGYN is very WLS friendly. The other symptoms will minimize during the honeymoon stages of WL because fat stores estrogen, so as fat is lost estrogen is released and it stabilizes your hormones. Which is why women are more fertile during those first 2 years after WLS.

BUT at 5 years post-op all my PCOS symptoms are far from gone. Gradually the 5 o'clock shadow has come back, definite hormone imbalance, WLS affects your food intake...not hormonal imbalances which is what causes PCOS. So once your weight is stable your body will eventually feel the effects of the once again higher than normal testosterone levels, nothing was done to your body to affect that. So my insulin and metabolism issues are taken care of but I had to be put on a new BC just to up my female hormones and on a wonderful dose of another med to inhibit testosterone production.

Luckily I don't want children because well, my chances are not good at all. Even with fertility treatments and the such.

So it comes down to PCOS never goes away, and WLS does what is supposed to...help you lose weight not much more. As we know it doesn't fix your brain so why would it fix a hormone imbalance.

I have read some debate over this.  PCOS is associated with obesity, so if you are obese your likelyhood of having PCOS is higher.  Now, with that said, there is disaggreement over which came first the chicken or the egg.  I have heard some say obesity causes PCOS, I have heard some say PCOS causes obesity, and I have heard that it is neither caused by or a cause of but rather a symptom of metabolic syndrome that is part of the vicious cycle of obesity.  Once you start gaining so much weight metabolic changes can start taking place that make your body function differently and change the interactions of hormones like estrogen and insulin and make weight loss more difficult.

Many doctors believe that if you break the cycle through weight loss (which is normally more difficult if you have PCOS) then once you get rid of the metabolic syndrome you will no longer have symptoms of PCOS.  I have not seen where PCOS is shown to slow weight loss after WLS.  Now, these are some of the things I have heard.  My problem with some of that though is that not everyone who has PCOS is obese, so I wouldn't think would help for someone who had PCOS before they became obese (jsut my opinion). 

I have heard a lot of successful WLS patients, say that there cycle became regular after they started losing weight.  I didn't develop PCOS until I was obese.  After I had my daughter I was obese, and had had gestational diabetes and as the years krept by I developed hypothyroid and type 2 diabetes.  So, personally for me, I am hopefull that the WLS will help rid me of PCOS and metabolic syndrome.  I will say though that my experience so far has been a little rough.  After RNY I had a period that lasted 3 months.  We tried meds, BCP, and after a biopsy showed uterine polyps I had a D&C that got rid of the polyps and stopped the period.  My polyps were benign and my GYN does not think they will come back since I am losing so much weight.  Uterine polyps are associated with PCOS and high levels of circulating estrogen (which obese women often have).  I never had any symptoms of these polyps until I started losing weight, but I am glad I did so I could get rid of them.  My GYN seems to think things are going to normalize in the hormone department as I lose this weight and i really do too.

I'm having the VSG on Sept 14 but saw a post on that board from someone saying we will have a lot tougher time losing and keeping it off so I feel like why am I even doing this then? My doctor never said a word about it and my GYN knows my history and is all excited and the surgery and never said anything like that either. So can we be just as successful??

I had my full face done 4 times a couple of years ago and my sideburns are effectively gone (!) as is any trace of upper lip - I just have some hairs on my chin left and currently I shave daily.  I'm hoping after the VSG (next month - woo!!!) and the weight loss, I'll have less (or even none) of that.  As the weight increases androgen production, I am really hoping that the whole PCOS thing will be a thing of the past....Here's to cautious optimism!