Living with PCOS

Brut America

"I have facial hair, weight gain, I'm exhausted all the time."  PCOS is often misdiagnosed and misunderstood. Torri Sunshine describes her experience living with polycystic ovary syndrome …

Transcript

00:00This is two days of not shaving.

00:02You can see it's pretty noticeable.

00:06PCOS is on a spectrum.

00:07For me, how it shows up is I have facial hair,

00:11weight gain, I'm exhausted all the time.

00:13All the symptoms are surrounded by shame.

00:23I gotta hop in the shower

00:24and then I'm gonna zap my face.

00:25This is like three days.

00:27Look at that big space though.

00:29That's very promising.

00:32This isn't really hurting.

00:43So I was in seventh grade

00:44when I first started experiencing symptoms.

00:47I had like two long black hairs on my chin

00:50that I didn't even notice,

00:51but my mom had pointed them out.

00:52And then when I started my period around that time

00:55in seventh grade, I had like really, really horrific

00:59periods.

01:09Recently talking to my endocrinologist,

01:11she was like, I wish that they would change the name

01:13because you don't have to have cysts on your ovaries

01:16to have PCOS.

01:17For me, what it looks like and how it shows up

01:20is I have facial hair, weight gain,

01:23I'm exhausted all the time,

01:25and irregular heavy periods.

01:27Probably the biggest misconception with PCOS

01:29is that it's all about your weight.

01:31I've been 103 pounds, size zero,

01:35with a full facial hair

01:37in every single symptom that I currently have.

01:39With PCOS, especially the kind

01:41that I have, insulin resistant PCOS,

01:43you gain weight so fast.

01:45Like, look at food, I swear, and you're gaining weight.

01:49But growing up, I shaved

01:52and I still shave every single day.

01:54Welcome back to my series

01:56called Getting Rid of My Facial Hair as a Female.

01:59Let's zap my face.

02:00This is like three days with no shaving.

02:03I've spent over $10,000 in years of my life

02:06on getting laser hair removal

02:08and it never fully went away.

02:10So with something like this that I can do at home,

02:13it's made life so much easier

02:15and I have seen like a significant reduction

02:18in hair growth.

02:19It's an IPL at home device.

02:26I've seen probably three different endocrinologists.

02:29Two of them have been kind of like,

02:31I don't know, here's some birth control,

02:33come back when you want to get pregnant

02:35and just had no answers.

02:37And I cannot tell you how defeating that is

02:40to go with all of these issues and be basically dismissed.

02:44You have to advocate for yourself

02:45and run these more detailed tests.

02:48I realized that I need to talk about this.

02:51Like, this is healing.

02:53These women who are commenting are feeling so seen

02:56and like, this is healing to them

02:58and it's healing to me too.

02:59I wish that people knew how common it is

03:03and how many people struggle actually

03:06with getting rid of their facial hair.

03:08I wish that people knew how common it is

03:11and how many people struggle actually

03:14with getting rid of their facial hair.

03:16I wish that people knew how common it is

03:18and how many people struggle and some capacity with this.

03:22I hope that when people see my content,

03:24that yes, they see a woman who has facial hair

03:28and deals with weight gain and all of that kind of stuff.

03:31But I hope that more than that,

03:33that they see someone who is thriving

03:35and living their best life

03:37and that they can do that too,

03:39despite any of the things that they might be going through.

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