PCOS & Adulthood

For most of us, PCOS is a lifelong chronic condition and symptoms can persist even after menopause. But even if we have PCOS for the duration of our lives, it’s important to understand that this condition does not necessarily impact us in the same ways throughout the years.

Just as life is not static, PCOS symptoms and triggers can morph over time. More importantly, our goals transform every time, and this has a large impact on how you may go about managing your symptoms.

You are reading this because you have indicated that you have indicated that your phase of life is general adulthood. Your focus centers on career, building relationships with friends and family members, and finding hobbies. While you may want children in the future, it is not a top-of-mind concern for you. Perhaps you are someone that does not want kids at all!

In this article we’ll be focusing on questions like:

• How can I be most productive at work while having PCOS?
• How can I balance the lifestyle modification that comes along with managing a chronic condition with maintaining a social life?
• What are tips for opening up to friends and family about having PCOS?

PCOS and productivity

If your career is important to you, chances are you’re no stranger to seeking ways to optimize your productivity.

But what if our PCOS is having an impact on this? There are several common symptoms of PCOS that may take a toll on your productivity levels, for example:

• Brain fog
• Fatigue
• Anxiety and depression
• Insomnia

If you can’t think clearly or are too anxious or tired to find the motivation to actively participate in and excel at your job, it’s natural to feel frustrated.

Have you ever felt like any of the above symptoms were impeding your performance at work? If so, know you’re not alone: it can be helpful to even just recognize that your PCOS may be catalyzing these psychological issues. This awareness can be a helpful tool in and of itself.  

While reducing PCOS symptoms requires patience, in time you can manage the psychological symptoms that may be taking a hit on how you’re showing up to your job. If productivity is an issue for you, make sure to discuss this with your Pollie care team. There are a variety of lifestyle modifications your coach can help you with to tackle symptoms that are impeding your productivity. While Pollie does not currently prescribe pharmaceuticals, your care team can also help point you in the right direction if you are experiencing severe psychological symptoms that you think would benefit from medication.

It also may be worthwhile looking into career coaches or free online material to help manage difficulty concentrating or lack of motivation at work. This is also something your Pollie care team can help you find.

Managing your PCOS with social life and dating

Social life and dating are both key components of adulthood. Unfortunately, having PCOS can complicate both of these types of interpersonal relationships.

If building relationships is a core goal of yours, you may start to feel conflicted between giving your all to managing your PCOS and wanting to fully participate in your social life. For example:

• You know getting 8 hours of sleep per night is important for everyone, but especially people with PCOS. Regulating our circadian rhythm can help with re-balancing hormones, and wonky sleep schedules lend themselves to more hormonal disruption. But your group of friends likes staying up until 1am on the weekends, and you feel like you miss out on half the fun when you stick to your 10pm bedtime.
• Dairy aggravates your PCOS acne, and you recently learned that you are insulin-resistant and should stay away from starchy carbohydrates. This makes you a high maintenance participant at group dinners and on dates, and you find yourself saying “no” to group dining activities that involve pizza, pasta, and the like.
• Excessive alcohol consumption can aggravate PCOS symptoms, but your broader friend group enjoys catching up and spending quality time together at house parties, bars, and other alcohol-centric activities. You feel like you really miss out by not drinking, and while you still have fun sober, there is a part of you that wants to be on the same “level” as your friends.  
• You’ve started dating someone new you like a lot. The only issue is that you are spending a lot of time together in the honeymoon phase of dating, and you’ve found you are not prioritizing exercise, eating healthy, stress management, and other symptom management tactics in the same way as you do when you’re single.

Symptom management is of course important, but so is quality of life. Taking control of your PCOS in a sustainable way means finding treatment strategies that truly work for you now. While in a perfect world, our friends and partners would magically change their behaviors and interests to suit our lifestyle needs, this is not realistic.

In this sense, reflecting on your specific goals and relationships can prove to be valuable. Consider the following tips:

Goals

• What are my goals in managing my PCOS right now?
• Am I open to using medication to achieve these goals? If not, to what extent am I open to adjusting my lifestyle?
• What does sustainable “balance” between pursuing health and fulfilling relationships look like to me?

Friendships & social life

• Are my friends properly supporting me in my symptom management journey? Or, if I am creating boundaries relating to lifestyle, are they making me feel ostracized and isolated?
• If activities that my friends gravitate toward do not align with my current goals, why don’t I suggest we all do something that does align with my lifestyle? If I have already suggested this, how have my friends responded?
• If I’m finding repeated tension in maintaining my current social life while managing my PCOS symptoms, have I considered reaching out to people who I have fallen out of touch with or don’t know that well who I know have more similar lifestyles to me?
• Am I obsessing over reducing my PCOS symptoms at the expense of my friendships? How can I achieve better balance if so? Do I have an “all or nothing” mentality?

Romantic partners & dating*

• Is dating someone whose lifestyle aligns with mine a “must” or “nice to have”? Are my dating choices properly aligning with this value?
• How can I share more about my PCOS with my partner so that they have the opportunity to properly support me, even if our lifestyles are somewhat different?
• What are date ideas that align with my symptom management style? For example, if I am managing my PCOS with lifestyle methods only, what would it be like to replace an alcohol-centric date with a hike or coffee walk?

There is no denying it: it is difficult to manage PCOS with lifestyle modifications and simultaneously balance platonic and romantic relationships. But, it is possible with patience and experimentation.

*An important reminder: Just because you have PCOS does not mean you are protected from pregnancy. Even if you ovulate irregularly or infrequently, pregnancy is still possible and when it comes to sex it is best to use protection if you are not trying to conceive.

Opening up to friends and family about PCOS

It is likely that you have heard of friends, family members, and colleagues who also have PCOS. With a condition that impacts 10% of the female population, this is an inevitability! Opening up to people who you may know already have a diagnosis can be a great place to start if you are not yet ready to share with others.

But, there is a chance you are the only person you know that has this condition. That can feel incredibly isolating and uncomfortable.

While it is up to everyone to share what they are comfortable with, many do find comfort and relief in talking about their diagnosis and bothersome symptoms with their friends and family. Try opening up to just a single person and see how you feel; our guess is it will be as though a massive weight was lifted from your shoulders.

If you are not yet ready to open up to “real life” people about your PCOS, we recommend you share your experience with your Pollie support group. Opening up to people that you already know are struggling with the same condition can be a great first step to finding community support.

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