BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I have suffered with this disease for 49 years. If you have questions, write me.

By LOREN BERLIN Sometimes drugs that heal your body can cause side effects that dampen your spirit. Loren Berlin, who has ulcerative colitis, writes about gaining weight as a result of a drug treatment. Two years ago, when I was 29 years old, I experienced my first flare from ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disorder of the colon with intermittent cycles of disease activity and remission. I lost five pounds in less than a week, was unable to eat or drink, and was bleeding internally from the ulcers and inflammation decimating my large intestine. My gastroenterologist prescribed prednisone, a corticosteroid that vanquished my symptoms in seventy-two hours. Literally. One day I was on the verge of hospitalization. Three days later I was no longer bleeding. It was amazing. But it wasn’t free. Prednisone is infamous in the medical community for its side effects. It can cause osteoporosis and diabetes. It suppresses the immune system and can lead to insomnia and depression. Sure, that ...

by Viv Groskop Are you naturally disposed to being bigger? Why do some people struggle to maintain their ‘ideal’ weight while others remain effortlessly slim? It could be down to genetics. Why is it that some people never get fat? And others – present company included – can’t seem to stay slim for very long at all? Does the answer lie in our genes? Is there really such a thing as a ‘natural’ weight that’s personal to each of us? Last year American catwalk model Crystal Renn talked about her fight to find her natural weight while maintaining her career as a model. From the age of 14 she dieted obsessively and by the age of 17 she had slimmed down to seven stone, a US size zero. She then started to gain weight again and the following year, in 2004, she was photographed by Steven Meisel for US Vogue. Six years on, she is a British size 14 (US size 10), weighs around 12 stone and is one of the most successful voluptuous models in the world. Nature, she believes, always meant her to be larg...

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO HELP THOUSANDS OF WOMEN LIKE ME: PCOS AWARENESS & TREATMENT - Please Sign!! I was diagnosed in 1966 and didn't receive proper treatment until 1999!!! That's right -- 33 years of hearing that it must be me !! Despite PCOS being a KNOWN DISEASE since the 1930s! Let's include being bullied at school by students AND teachers who were clueless about this illness. PCOS robbed me of some of my womanhood, destroyed relationships I cared about, given me heart disease and added to my clinical depression and PTSD issues. And I am not the only one. More Awareness is needed now!! Please help. Thank you. PCOS and Weight Loss by Louise Parker One of the major obstacles facing women with PCOS is the weight gain that has become synonymous with it. Approximately 50 to 60% of all women with PCOS are classified as obese. One of the major reasons why obesity is common in PCOS sufferers is the body’s inability to process insulin. Insulin is a hormone that regul...

"Simply assuming overweight women are 'out of control' is inhumane and uneducated. Women with PCOS struggle valiantly against weight gain; often an uphill, losing battle. Malicious comments and ignorant physician assumptions that they just need to 'go on a diet' are monstrous and need to be eliminated." - PCOS Advocate Obesity or persistent weight gain is a common feature of polycystic ovarian syndrome. Many women find it almost impossible to lose weight, even when on a strict diet. It seems that every calorie that is eaten is stored as fat. There are many possible reasons why women with PCOS are overweight. A few of them are: A genetic predisposition toward "thrifty genes". A disordered biochemical signaling system affecting fat metabolism/storage, and appetite. Glandular disorders or diseases such as hypothyroidism. Chronic stress. Hidden food allergies. Medications. Sodium retention. Most women have some combination of the above factors that are...

I was alway trim until 11 years ago. Not thin. I had a figure. But when I finally conceived my kids I put on 120lbs over the pregnancy. I have lost some of that. Others tend to look at fat people and assume their eating is out of control. Mine wasn't however, my OB had to put me on a nutritional supplement and called me weekly to remind me to eat more. I had pregnancy cravings - broccoli and cottage cheese. Go figure. I grew up in a home with a Polish grandmother where food was love & comfort. Bread was often spread with schmaltze. But I still never ate that much. However, after I gave birth, all the years of fertility drugs were withdrawn and my body went into a state of shock. I bled out for 4 months after the birth... not a few weeks - months. I practically stopped eating altogether for a while but was yelled at because I was breastfeeding. But the weight was piling on. Something was very very wrong. My OB sent me to one specialist who handed me a Weight Watche...

As difficult as it may be for many of us to talk about PCOS, I ask you to join other women with PCOS and their friends & families and become involved to make a difference. You could potentially help someone who is unaware that they have the syndrome. Just think how wide PCOS awareness could spread if we all took action. We ask you to share your knowledge of PCOS with others. The goal is to foster knowledge and sensitivity to those with the condition. Have you ever told someone about PCOS who has never heard of the syndrome before? Was their reaction shock, disbelief or confusion as to why they had never heard of this before, since it is so common? More information: www.pcosupport.org www.projectpcos.org/ projectpcos.org/getting_word_out/pcospetition.php pcos.insulitelabs.com/blog/index.php/living-with-pcos/september-i... SEND YOUR POSTS FOR INCLUSION TO: http://www.bloggersunite.org/event/pcos-awareness-month

From this great blog! Bookmark this one! by Paul Campos Even by the remarkably mendacious standards of the "obesity" racket some of the claims in this story are beyond belief. The most laughable is the idea that by 2048 everybody in the US will be "overweight" or "obese." This result was derived via statistical extrapolation, the crack cocaine of social science analysis (by similar methods one could prove that within a few generations Olympic sprinters will be running at speeds that will hurl them into low Earth orbit and everyone in America will have a plasma TV seventeen miles wide). In fact there has been no weight gain at all over the past 30 years in the thinnest quartile of the population -- whatever (poorly understood) factors have caused Americans to weigh more on average now than they did in the 1970s have had very different impacts across the weight spectrum: thin people have gained no weight, people in the middle weigh 10-15 pounds than they d...

by Lisa Earle McLeod Should job interviews include a weigh-in? There's been some debate in the media about whether or not Surgeon General nominee Regina Benjamin is too overweight for the position. On behalf of chubby, middle-aged, smart women, I feel obligated to take up this cause. I'd like to know, exactly which jobs do you need to be skinny for? And when is it okay to bring a little extra girth into the office? Personally, I think Dr. Benjamin looks fine. Sure, she's no Kate Moss, but C. Everett Koop was no Slim Jim either. In fact, I kind of prefer a Surgeon General who's a little lumpy. Who better to relate to the challenge of trying to stay healthy in our fast food, couch potato, cubicle culture? Yet some have suggested that as the face of medicine, Dr. Benjamin's Rubenesque figure doesn't project the right image. Uh, have you looked around the mall lately? TV anchor desks may be staffed by skinny minnies who live on Dentyne and Starbucks, but the rest of...

I hate, really really HATE reality shows. They show a complete and utter lack of imagination and encourage total Destructive Narcissism. The only one I enjoy is BIGGEST LOSER. I recently lost some weight and I have more to go, but it's being done with medical supervision because MY EATING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY WEIGHT. Let's just say 41 years of PCOS , numerous surgeries, disability and medication helped that. I am still taking care of myself, well dressed, my doctors have commented on how clean I keep myself and being a good role model for my kids. The only other 'reality-type' shows I enjoy are CLEAN HOUSE and my friend, RUBY . That's it. Most of the time it's CSI, Law & Order or Medium. Shows that ENGAGE YOUR BRAIN! Then reality TV has to screw it all up again! From Intellectual Babe It's weird - for whatever reason this particular week I became acutely aware of just how much out-and-out hatred is leveled at fat people. Or, at the very lea...

I am back. Slowly. Gently. My surgery went very well. Things removed that didn't belong. Things removed that were damaged beyond repair. My doctors are all very impressed with my excellent pathology results and how well I am doing. My (female) surgeon was shocked that I was not in a lot more pain. Prior to surgery I was told many of the findings of my tests showed my health had improved quite a bit... but not my disability. PCOS has once again felled me for a while. I am slowly getting better, walking and functioning but the large incision is painful. The doctors and especially the nurses at NYU/Tisch ICU, Post-Op and Women's Division were fantastic. I was complemented on how personally clean, well put together and intelligent I was during my recovery time. I got to educate a few people on PCOS and this time, I actually did sleep some! (and if this is what you have to do to get a room with view in Manhattan, no thanks!) Your prayers, I am positive, helped a lot as we...

First let me say I don't like being fat. Yes, I diet and yes, to the degree my disability (unrelated to my weight) allows me - I do exercise. A while back someone posted really malicious things about my weight, my character and even my disability online. Even throwing in a very twisted, backward and upside-down version of what really occurred between us. To wit (edited for foul language): You used the internet to track him down after 30 years, which wasn’t too hard because he’s a published writer. You got him to agree to meet up with you. When he did meet up with you, to his horror, he saw that his ex-girlfriend from college had ballooned into a 275 lb fat pig with poor hygiene and he didn’t want to bang you. He politely excused himself by saying he couldn’t do this to his wife. You then began stalking him and his family, driving by his house, sending letters to anyone with whom you thought you could slander his good name. His poor wife was left with no choice but to report you...

First - I believe Global Warming is real. WHY? Because I love to garden. And that puts me in direct contact with plants, growth cycles, the soil - and I can see FOR MYSELF what is happening because of changes in the weather. Second, I have talked a lot on this blog that I am obese. I recently learned that I have to have major surgery at the end of May for the removal of PCOS related growths that I have had for a number of years which have caused my belly to distend and make me appear fatter than I am. So there ARE reasons other than being a food addict for being fat. Third, all this fat-hatred , the 'better dead than fat' attitude of society and the centerfold syndrome that most males suffer from disgusts me. What ever happened to seeing a person as a PERSON? Not a body, or parts, or pictures, or words on a screen - a HUMAN BEING. To me, seeing someone as an object makes the beholder THE PROBLEM - not the person being judged and criticized. OBESITY, CAUSE OF GLOBAL W...