Custom Search
Questions & Answers
If you have any questions about PCOS, it’s effects or it’s treatment that you would like an answer to, please leave them in a comment on this page and I will do my very best to provide you with an answer in as short a time as possible.
In the meantime, I hope you will learn something new and useful in one of the questions already answered:
- Hair Loss
- Can Fat Turn Into Muscle?
- Brown fat and white fat: What is the difference?
- Is DCI safe to take during pregnancy?
- Does stevia affect fertility?
- What Causes PMS?
- How Can I Deal with Food Cravings?
- How Can I Stop a Period That Has Gone On Too Long or Is Too Heavy?
- Why are Wholegrains and ‘Brown’ Bread/Rice/Pasta etc Better?
- What is that Purple Flower on the Website and Cards?
- Top 10 Tips for a Healthy 2010
- Why Does DCI Work for Some Women & Not Others?
- How Do You Know if You Are Deficient in DCI-IPG?
- Why Are Sodas So Bad?
- What is Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP)?
- Does PCOS cause Endometrial Cancer?
- Why Should People Avoid Plastic Food Containers?
- What is Saturated Fat?
- Is it OK to take Vitex and Clomid together?
- How much carbohydrate should I have?
- Low Sex-Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG) in PCOS and how to increase it naturally
- PCOS & acne
- Soy and thyroid function
- What causes breast tenderness?
- What can I do about facial hair?
- What is the HbA1c blood test?
- Wholegrains
Can you send copies of all the studies that have been done on DCI in the medical and scientific journals or clinical trials so that I can educate my RE at my next appt.
Nevermind. I found the requested information under Natural Treatments and not under News and Research.
Dear Anne,
I checked for pregnancy and as usual it was negative. I spoke to my doctor and she asked me to buy Chrominac A by TTK. I told her that my acne is getting worse with Myo inositol so she asked me to quit it for a few days and then come meet her again. Please tell me what chrominac A is? I really feel like a guinea pig being experimented upon with no solution at hand. In the end it’s just making me frustrated. As of now my doctor is only prescribing me natural supplements instead of hormonal medicines which is a good thing but I am no longer sure if anything is really helping…
Dear N,
I’m sorry you had to check for pregnancy again to determine what is causing your symptoms. I know it’s an emotional roller-coaster ride, even if you expect the result to be negative.
It seems exceptionally peculiar to me that your doctor is recommending various brand names for each type of supplement.
You would need to be off the myo-inositol for at least a month to determine whether it was having any effect on your acne. A few days will not provide a definitive answer one way or the other, unfortunately.
ChromiNAC-A is an Indian brand of vitamin supplement with chromium, N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC), a type of vitamin D analogue and biotin in it. These ingredients may help treat some of the symptoms of PCOS, but they are not addressing the cause – functional DCI deficiency, and the dosage is not being appropriately titrated to your specific requirements.
Chromium is an essential trace mineral that is significantly involved in carbohydrate metabolism – at 1000 mcg per day can help improve insulin sensitivity and glucose disposal. These tablets only have 500 mcg, which is not sufficient.
N-Acetyl Cysteine is formed from an amino acid (the building blocks of proteins) and is an antioxidant which also has insulin sensitising properties. It can help reduce biochemical markers of PCOS, but only in women who are insulin resistance and hyperinsulinaemic. When taken in combination with clomiphene citrate (Clomid) it improves the rate of pregnancy in clomiphene resistant women with PCOS.
Biotin is a B vitamin which is necessary for metabolism and growth in humans. It stimulates liver glucokinase activity, increases insulin production and enhances glucose uptake in muscle cells. It is often taken by women with PCOS to help hair growth, but it’s a double-edged sword – it increases hair growth everywhere, not just on your head, and in women with PCOS it is frequently reported that it increases unwanted hair growth as well. Generally, the amount in a multivitamin or B-complex vitamin supplement is sufficient to address any deficiency without risking the unwanted side effects.
Alfacalcidol is rarely used (mostly as a supplement in chicken feed) and I am unable to determine an equivalency between it and hydroxyvitamin-D3, so I don’t know whether the amount is sufficient or not. Vitamin D supplementation is highly individualised, however, and reputable practitioners always supplement Vitamin D3 by itself in a dose which has been titrated to the particular patient’s needs. An appropriate amount of Vitamin D3 supplementation might be anywhere from 1000 I.U. to 20,000 I.U. per day. It is important to correlate with blood test results at baseline and monthly ongoing until the appropriate dose has been determined.
I sympathise with you feeling like a guinea pig. My recommendation is to educate yourself about PCOS, it’s etiology, pathology and treatment so you are in a better position to make your own decisions and evaluate whether the advice you are receiving is good, bad or mediocre.
Ultimately, if the advice your doctor is giving you is not helping, you may need to seek another doctor.
I sent you the peer-reviewed published scientific studies describing how women with PCOS are deficient in DCI and the findings that supplementing with 1200 mg of DCI per day resolved the symptoms in 86% of those women, didn’t I?
I also recommend that you read: http://mypcos.info/1/treatments/natural/vitamin-D/
Best wishes,
Anne