PCOS & Metformin

[lja]

I'm in my early 20's, I have PCOS and I've been trying to concieve for 2 years now. My doctor FINALLY put me on Metformin, I started on Wednesday (today is Monday) and yesterday I started my period so it only took 5 days.

I'm thinking this is a very good thing that my body is responding straight away?
I just started on 1000mg today so technically I started my period on 500mg.
This is my first natural period in over 2 years (I had one period that was brought on with pills for a procedure about 6 months ago).

I'm also taking:
Vit D
Pregnacare before conception
Omega 3
Inositol
and having spearmint tea everyday.

I'm under the instruction of going straight to 1500mg of metformin next week and I'm on it for 6 months.
I'm seriously hopeful with this metformin than I was before I was prescribed it, I just hope it works because this is the closest we've ever been!

Anyone else have a similar experience to starting it or have any advice ect?
Many thanks

 

[Belfa]

Hi really your GP should be referring you to a consultant at your local hospital. Theoretically, if you're not ovulating because your blood sugars are all over the place and metformin regulates it than fine but IME, metformin is given to help another drug like letrozole or clomid.

There probably has been people it's worked for but I don't really thinks it's a GP's call to make and they should be letting a consultant decide x

 

[Sugarpop]

I am meant to be on metformin but don't take it because of an odd side effect. GPs can prescribe metformin for PCOS because in most NHS trusts it's standard practice. They try metformin before anything else so it's the first port of call. I wouldn't be banking on it making you have your period. It can take up to 3 months to get in your system but now you've had a period it should have a good side effect.

I was prescribed it for diabetes. I don't know if it's coincidence or not but within 6 months of being in metformin I had a chemical.

Good luck. It has worked wonders for many ladies.

 

[lja]

I am with the hospital, when I said doctor that's who I meant haha (my bad), I'm on day 3 of this period now and I'm wondering whether I should take Soy Isoflavones or just let the metformin do it's job?

I just want a baby so bad 😫🤞🏼 I'm the most impatient person ever!
Thanks for you comments!

 

[snowbee]

I would stop taking the inositol if they have given you metformin as they do the same job.

I also have pcos. None of my blood tests have ever shown a problem with blood sugars, and so my consultant refused to even discuss metformin with me and started me on clomid. I had seen a huge amount of success stories from other pcos ladies who were on both, so after I had done a few rounds of clomid I begged my gp to let me try metformin alongside clomid and she agreed it wouldn't do any harm to try. I only take 500 metformin, I did get a bfp on my 7th clomid cycle, whether or not the metformin helped I really don't know as the clomid was certainly making me ovulate on its own.

The vitamin d id good, lots of pcos ladies are deficient in d.

Are you having anything alongside the metformin (eg clomid?) or are you starting with that any seeing how it goes? Are you having any monitoring to see if you are ovulating?

 

[lja]

Honestly now you mention it I know nothing about my bloody sugars, no-ones mentioned them so I assume they're fine.

No I'm not being monitored or anything, my consultant/ob is just starting me on metformin for 6 months then clomid for 6 months. So I'm guessing the metformin isn't going to do the job I thought?

 

[snowbee]

It is perfectly possible that the metformin on its own will be enough for you to conceive, especially if it starts to give you a regular cycle whereas you didn't have one before. I would guess they are trying that for you first as you are quite young and it could be a quick and easy fix for you before moving on to other drugs/procedures that can have more side effects.

A low gi diet usually helps with pcos too.

Defo stay hopeful! Are you going to be monitoring your own ovulation? I used to temp, which isn't always easy with pcos as your temps tend to be more erratic than 'other' people but mine did show a distinct pattern around ovulation, so I knew if there was an egg and a chance!

 

[lja]

Thanks for your reply!!

Yeah that's what I thought as I didn't think they'd prescribe me it if I didn't need it, everyone says they take metformin and clomid at the same time so that worried me a bit!

And I thought about monitoring ovulation but some women have said that it is really stressful which obviously isn't good.
On one side I want too because I'll get an idea when I'll ovulate because I have no idea when that will be, when I do have a period they are all over the place.
But on the other hand I don't want to get super stressed about it, I have opks ready incase I want too but I'm not sure.

Would just having sex every other day work? I also have an app tracking ovulation but obviously that's never certain as I'm not sure how long my cycle is going to be.

I'm sorry if I sound like a complete idiot, I've done my research but obviously because I didn't have periods, I've not needed to use anything or properly think about this!

I'm tempted to just see how it goes this cycle and if I get another (fingers crossed) then temp and use opk's then.

 

[snowbee]

Sex every other day would be great and you should cover your fertile window by doing that. It is really difficult to know what to do when your cycles are erratic isn't it. I do have cycles with my pcos but they are really random and go from 23 days to well over 100, so apps are generally useless as they want to know your average cycle length to work out fertile window, which just doesn't work for me. I did use ovia as I found it useful to log my temperature with. I did use opks too and I had no trouble with them working for me, some pcos ladies do get positive results all the time though, so if you are one of those they may not work at all for you (and even if you get a positive result it doesn't guarantee an egg is released, which is one of the problems pcos ladies can have). I'm pretty lucky as I can actually feel ovulation and when the egg pops, so as long as it doesn't happen overnight and I sleep though it I have a pretty good idea of when we needed to have sex!

Going with the relaxed route for this cycle sounds like a good idea, see how it goes, good luck!