Cysts & A Tumour

In 2016 my body decided to grow cysts and a tumour.

I had just recently moved back to Dunedin from living in Auckland and was struggling with my weight, my skin and my periods. Something I had never had ANY trouble with.

I’d been on the pill since I was at high school. Always on the same pill, with no issues. I could skip a period whenever I wanted and would have full control on the duration and timing of my periods. Over time the control started to disappear and I’d get break through bleeding, a full period halfway through my cycle, no period even though I’d taken the sugar pills. It was absolute havoc. I decided after putting up with this for a year to stop the pill altogether. 1 month passed and no period.. 3 months past and still no period.. 6 months and still no sign of the red river! It got to 12 months with no period and I knew something was seriously wrong.

Over these 12 months, I experienced acne for the first time and had gain probably close to 15kg. My diet definitely had room for improvement but I loved the gym, loved running and was very active. It didn’t make sense to gain *that* much.

I went to a new doctor and he immediately said I think you might have PCOS – polycystic ovarian syndrome. After a few blood tests and an ultra sound, it was confirmed that my poor little ovaries were covered in cysts. Not only did the ultra sound confirm PCOS but also uncovered that I had a tumour on my liver. Back to the hospital but this time for a MRI scan. The scan reviled that the tumour is benign and most likely won’t cause me any grief but is related to the PCOS and that the hormone imbalance caused my liver to stress.

As a consequence of the tumour, I’m no longer able to take any medication that can put the liver under any extra stress including any contraception. This was devastating as this affected what medication I can take for my skin – which is basically nothing (topical creams and antibiotics didn’t work).

I’ve done some research and while there is some conflicting information, one piece is consistently the same and that is managing the symptoms via diet and weight loss. These 2 are even more important now I have a liver that gets upset. So here I am not only wanting to change my eating habits to lose some weight before the wedding, but I have to if I want to have any chance of conceiving naturally and to relieve the stress off my liver.