After 8 Years of Trying to Conceive!!
I wanted to post my story because I feel it may help someone who is trying
to conceive. All my life I’ve been over weight. I was never lazy, or had an
eating disorder. I was quite active, ROTC in High school, track team, and
softball. My weight had no control over my ability to be active. My mother
couldn’t understand why I kept weight on and continued to gain weight as
the years passed by. As a young adult I had problems with having a normal
menstrual cycle. My hair was thinning badly at the age of 18 I was wearing
weaves and wigs because my beautiful thick hair was just falling out. But
no Doctor could seem to pin point why my body was going through so many
changes, they just said I had alopecia and it was due to being overweight.
I don’t even want to mention my battles with acne!
But despite the odds I got married at the age of 25 to a loving man who
looked beyond my flaws and into my heart and soul. By this time I was
weighing almost 300 pounds. I went to the gym every other day, watched what
I ate, trying really hard to lose weight. After about 5 years of marriage
I thought the best step to take to lose weight was to have the Lap Band
Surgery (big Mistake) Well I lost 80 pounds it wasn’t a total mistake
because I finally GOT PREGNANT! Unfortunately two months into my pregnancy
I lost the baby and fell into a deep depression! After a year of still
trying to conceive I had to have the band removed because of complications,
and the weight started to pour back on. I eventually gained back half of
the weight I lost.
My family doctor decided to take some blood test regarding my general
health and discovered I had High Prolactin. At first it wasn’t really
explained to me how it can affect my body in so many ways so time passed
with no real regard.
After my doctor pushed so hard for me to find out why it was so high, I started to do my own research. *High levels
of prolactin may mean that the pituitary gland is making excess prolactin for unknown reasons (idiopathic hyperprolactinemia). Other
conditions that can cause high prolactin levels include pregnancy, liver
disease (cirrhosis), kidney disease, and hypothyroidism.*
I noticed my nipples where producing milk which was odd because I wasn’t pregnant. My
doctor explained the Prolactin tells the body you’re pregnant so you gain
weight, produce milk, and causes hair loss! So after some time I finally
got an MRI… which took some time because I’m very claustrophobic, they had
to give me pills to calm me down to endure one hour of testing.
Come to find out I had a small tumor in my pituitary gland around 5mm which was
benign. Very small but it was releasing so much prolactin in my body it was
causing me to be infertile. The normal levels of prolactin should be under
26, my levels were 95! I was getting pregnant (chemical pregnancies) and
losing them because of the high levels of the hormone. My endocrinologist
prescribed me a pill I had to take twice a week to see if it would reduce
the hormone. After a month of taking the Pill I got pregnant, After 8
years of trying to conceive I am now 18 weeks pregnant!
I found out the high levels of prolactin was causing my hair to fall out,
and making me gain excessive weight despite my actions to stay healthy and
lose the weight. With the Treatments my hair started to grow back nicely,
my acne cleared up, and I lost weight. I can’t take the treatment while I
am pregnant but as soon as I have the baby I will resume with the
medication to control the tumor and hormone levels.
We as women go through so much, and we never know what’s really behind it.
I am really thankful for a great doctor, and even though it took 8 years I
am really thankful and blessed to be pregnant. I hope this may help someone
else who maybe going through the same situation. My advice is to test for
everything and never give up even when it feels hopeless!!!
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