Pcos

[sapphiregrace]

Hello everyone,

I've been trying for a baby and had no luck, the hospital appointments are very long process and still attending and won't help with fertility tablets until I lose weight.

I'm a very picky eater and trying my best but so hard with pcos we are still trying naturally and currently taking Chinese medicine until my next hospital appointment in June.

Can anyone give me any advice on what helps conceive e.g raising legs after sex and what food help with pcos I've looked at so many different things on internet my heads spinning feel like I need advice from real people

Thank you

Hi, I have PCOS and had success with a lower carb, higher fat diet combined with myoinositol and fish oils. And trying to conceive vitamins (I found the seven seas pills regulated my cycle a bit more). I did this for several months but conceived successfully. Good luck!

Full fat dairy is great!

Thank you for the reply

Isn't dairy really fatty and bad? Maybe I don't know as much as I thought I did..... I can only eat fish fingers and cod other fish makes me feel sick I've tried but can't do it.....I try and eat it once a week as I'm trying to lose weight.... thanks for the advice I appreciate it

I've started taking the pregacare preconception pills I've tried metformin but makes me feel way too poorly still take them but just seems to make me feel ill xx

Full fat dairy has been shown to have positive effect when ttc

I just know I lost weight when I upped good fats and ditched carbs as much as poss. Limited myself to a max of three small servings of carbs (by which I mean bread, rice etc rather than carbs in eg veg) per day. But I think pcos is so individual

Think pregnacare inositol isn't it?

That's true! And I've switched to wholemeal today to see if that helps but I'm going to attempt to cut it down and I cut a lot of dairy out and usually have like slimmed milk and stuff so will up that again! Thank you

I was put on Low GI diet. It's brilliant, gave me far more energy and prevented diabetes during pregnancy. I was under treatment by a dietician and had to keep a food diary - eating 6 times a day low carb foods. It worked.

What's GI stand for? And I'm definitely going to cut down on carbs then hopefully will really help, do any of you get sugar cravings from your pcos and how do you handle it if you do?xx

I bought some green cola from amazon (like Diet Coke but without the nastiest). It's sweet but no sugar. I'd load it into a glass with ice. Drinking that stopped me craving sugar cos I didn't fancy something sweet after I'd had it. It was difficult though, a lot of it is sheer willpower. I really just wouldn't let myself have refined sugar. I remember being desperate and letting myself have a dark chocolate coated rice cake. A couple of squares of dark choc too. But it's hard!

I've heard dark chocolate it meant to help and is one best things to stop craving but in small amounts I've never heard of the cola before I'm going to have a look it's so so hard I'm just trying to stay focus getting pregnant but sometimes get so overwhelming I get depressed I'm not pregnant then I want to comfort eat horrible cycle this is longest I've stuck to losing weight I've lost half a stone in three weeks but now it's getting really hard I'm finding it difficult to shift anymore at the moment xx

I cut out white carbs, reduced brown carbs and focussed more on green carbs, upped protein intake, ate 6 times a day - smaller meals, full fat yoghurt added too. Added Inositol and Glutathione, no need for multi vit as my levels were perfectly normal.

Sorry going to sound stupid but Im really bad with food groups what's green carbs? Vegatables ? Thank you for the advice

Re the skimmed milk - I used to use that too but I switched to full fat when using milk (eg in coffee)!because skim has a bigger impact on your blood sugar whereas the fat in whole milk means less of a spike. So when choosing dairy always opt for full fat. I stuck mainly to ff Greek yoghurt, cheese etc because I'm not sure milk is great for blood sugar. I just focused on doing what I could to keep my blood sugar as stable as possible.

It's really hard, especially as you have to be consistent for several weeks before noticing results. I noticed clear results after about 12 weeks and that kept me going. It's an exciting journey really - maybe try to view it that way and it will be easier. Washing you all the luck in the world.

That's great advice thank you so much

Yes green carbs are vegetables and fruits. There are 3 types of carbs - sugar, starch and fibre. The firsr 2 are the breads, pastas, cakes, fizzy drinks etc. When you eat them they break down into glucose. Green carbs are dietry fibre, broken down slower, keeps you fuller for longer and stabilises blood sugar.
And then there is resistant starch - found in high-fibre foods such as lentils, beans and unprocessed whole grains - is also hard to digest in a good way: it gets right down into your your colon where its main job is not to feed you but rather to feed your gut bacteria.

Both my diabetes nurse and fertility consultant recommended full fat dairy - both for different reasons.
For diabetes there have been many studies recently that found that full fat dairy reduces the risk of diabetes and also the weight in middle, its better at stabilising blood sugars.
Fertility wise, the processes that are involved in removing the fat and then bulking up the milk has been found by many recent studies to increase infertility rates.

GI means glycaemic index. Some PCOSers use a low GI/GL (glycaemic load) eating plan and this seems to be helpful (more so that say following low carb). Collette Harris has written some cookbooks along such lines.

Verity's website www.verity-pcos.org.uk is worth looking at.

Would dispose of the Chinese medicine you have; you do not really know what is in it and natural too does not always mean safe.

The raising of legs in the air post sex is a myth that still gets bandied about unnecessarily.

Thank you that's made things a lot more clearer. I really appreciate you breaking it down and Chinese medicine isn't from a stall it's a global one in a proper box with instructions etc. Many many positive reviews and friend has used in the past..... do you still advice to throw it away?

Thank you so much

You could ask your gp to prescribe metformin, it helps with pcos and will assist you to lose weight. I was ttc for years and was pregnant with my first within 6 months of metformin.

I've been on metformin since October so fingers crossed. But I was on metformin with my ex for two years and no luck! Thanks though

You will need to stop taking them before you start your cycle as they may have contraindications with your prescribed medicine. I was on Ayurvedic medicine but my practitioner told me that I need to stop before doing my cycle.

Ok I'll keep that in mind thanks everyone