September marks PCOS Awareness Month, an event that is near to our hearts as many OvuSense users are currently struggling with PCOS. PCOS Awareness Month is a federally designated event in the US created to increase awareness of, and education about PCOS among women, girls, healthcare professionals, and the general public.

Many women believe (and some are told) that being diagnosed with PCOS means infertility, but that’s not the case! PCOS affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age, and as the condition gets more attention, research and treatment options are expanding. 

Over the past year, we’ve featured some users with PCOS on our blog. We wanted to take the opportunity to highlight their stories as PCOS Warriors. Whether you’ve just been diagnosed or have been managing the condition for years, we hope their stories help offer you strength and determination along your own journey. Read on for more resources as well! 

Personal Journeys 

Stephanie, who is now 37 and lives in North Carolina, was diagnosed with PCOS in her mid-20s. During her annual OB-GYN exams, her doctor would often find cysts on her ovaries. To help control the symptoms of her PCOS and stop cysts from forming, Stephanie was put on a low-hormone birth control pill. Stephanie began using OvuSense in July of 2018 and realized she wasn’t ovulating due to what was ultimately found to be a large cyst on her ovary. Without OvuSense, she may have gone months without knowing about the cyst. After going through treatment for that cyst, Stephanie went on to become pregnant in February of 2019. 

Rachel also struggled to find solutions that would work with her PCOS as she was trying to conceive. After being diagnosed with PCOS at age 15, she was put on birth control right away, which helped regulate her hormones and symptoms throughout her teens and 20s. After years of going through infertility treatments with her ex-husband five years ago, Rachel started using OvuSense with her current partner to better understand her ovulation. By using OvuSense and connecting with other women in the OvuSense support group, Rachel has been able to understand how different supplements affect her fertility and track her ovulation down to the day.

When we think about infertility, we often picture someone in their 30s or 40s who may feel like they’re running out of time. However, once you’ve decided to start a family, these same challenges can impact women at any age. At 26, Katie knew she was ready to start. She had recently been diagnosed with PCOS, and knew she needed a reliable way to track her ovulation. The OvuSense data showed she was ovulating on days 16-17 of her cycle. Armed with this information, Katie was ultimately able to get pregnant and gave birth to her daughter in January of 2019. Katie wrote about her experience with PCOS in Thrive Global.

Additional Resources

Looking for more resources or information on managing your own PCOS? Our fertility nurse consultant, Kate Davies, RN, BSc(Hons), offers 10 great ways to beat the symptoms of PCOS and feel better. 

If you have PCOS, the timing of your ovulation is likely to vary from one cycle to the next. You may also have infrequent periods, making it impossible to know exactly when ovulation occurs. If you do ovulate, it's quite commonly late in your cycle. We created OvuSense just for women like you, who want to know exactly what is going on and take back control of their fertility.

Measuring core temperature enables OvuSense to track daily fluctuations in your progesterone— the hormone released during the process of ovulation, that also needs to be sustained in the second half of your cycle to help you conceive. This progesterone pattern is unique to you, and OvuSense uses it to predict your ovulation up to 24 hours in advance using current cycle data, confirm the exact date of ovulation, and monitor your individual pattern from cycle to cycle— meaning it works even if you have irregular ovulation as a result of PCOS or other issues.

You can also use OvuSense to track if fertility medications, supplements, and lifestyle changes are helping with your ovulation timing and bringing your cycles under greater control.

All of our PCOS blogs can be found on our website here: https://www.ovusense.com/us/blog/category/pcos/

Looking for additional resources and support? Follow #PCOSAwarenessMonth on Instagram or Twitter.