Customer Reviews

PCOS: A Woman's Guide to Dealing with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have had PCOS for over 26 years and this is the first book I have read on the subject, that has given me so much information. PCOS is still not well known, and this book is an important step in educating people about the syndrome. I felt frustrated for many years knowing so little about the subject. I agree with Colette Harris when she states that "knowledge is power".She answers a lot of the frequently asked questions about PCOS and her tone throughout the book is very supportive, especially since she has experienced this first hand. No one as yet has any answers about what causes PCOS, but I think the book presents a good discussion of possible theories. The section on nutrition and lifestyle changes is very informative and provides guidelines for those with PCOS, who do not want to be put on medication as a first resort.The chapter on PCOS symptoms is comforting to read because it makes you realise that your (often embarrassing) symptoms, are due to a medical condition and are not your fault. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in PCOS - not only to those who have it, but also to their families and their doctors.After reading the book I finally feel that I am not alone, and if you have PCOS I think you will understand what I mean by that.

I have been amazed and excited by the amount of reviews of the book and wanted to share my thoughts on it with readers. I was diagnosed with PCOS aged 23 four years ago now after suffering from months of failing health and hideous symptoms familiar to many women with this condition: hair loss, acne, body hair, mood swings, no periods and exhausting fatigue. I found no information anywhere after my doctor told me there was no cure. So I started to dig around and find some and begin to take steps to live a healthier life in the hopes of feeling better regardless of what medicine (natural or drug-based) I eventually decided to take. This book comes from the heart and from that personal research and experimentation with what made me feel better, along with the medical and nutritional expertise of Dr Adam Carey and the shared stories of many women who belong to the UK's support group Verity which started around the same time as the US group PCOSA, I think around the time I was diagnosed.

This book is a starting point for women who have PCOS and want to feel better both physically and emotionally. It explains what PCOS is, the theories behind why it occurs, and the self help steps which make sense for women with PCOS to take regardless of what medical path they then choose to take - let's face it, all of us could benefit from eating better, sleeping better,doing more exercise, reducing stress and being kinder to ourselves - it's just that for women with PCOS these things can make an even bigger difference - and the book explains the biochemical reasons why. This book has never claimed to be the be all and end all of PCOS knowledge - rather, it's a supportive, informative launch pad based on self help and emotional support which has a huge further information section at the back to point people towards where they can get more help for specific symptoms they want to focus on, or issues such as fertility which they are dealing with. I truly hope that it helps a lot fo women find the right path for treating their own PCOS - and for anyone who didn't find it suited them, a plea to pass on your copy to someone you think might benefit from it. With thanks for all your comments and energy to get PCOS on the map. Colette

This book is a fantastic resource not just for sufferers of PCOS but, importantly, for those who have to share the load - the friends, families and partners of PCOS sufferers. My partner has been a sufferer for many years, but only realised when she came of the contraceptive pill. The range of symptoms, as illustrated through this book, are so disparate that there must be many thousands of women who have the condition but don't realise. By taking on the emotional side of the condition, alongside an extremely thorough and informative look at the purely medical cause and effect, Harris has provided women and their loved ones with a resource to help them understand the condition, it's symptoms, and the practical ways of making life with PCOS far more bearable. And by balancing the mainstream medicine with a range of complimentary options, she allows sufferers to become empowered in taking back control of their lives.

PCOS is an under-diagnosed metabolic disorder that affects 6-10 percent of women. Many doctors know little about it, because it spans the fields of endocrinology and gynecology, so it often goes undiagnosed, with dire results! Living with untreated PCOS puts women at an increased risk for developing type II diabetes, heart disease, and even endometrial cancer. Colette Harris has written a compassionate book, helping to explain to women what is going on in their bodies and what they can do to help themselves. She addresses dietary and nutritional approaches, as well as medical treatments for both the believed underlying causes of PCOS (insulin metabolism) and the myriad of symptoms that women with PCOS suffer with every day. Harris is an understanding soul - she has PCOS herself and this book is her answer to the void of information she found herself faced with as she searched for a way to get well, and to preserve her fertility for a future family. She includes a large section on emotional help and resources that can help women to cope with this little-understood syndrome. This book is a good place to start your journey with PCOS both because of its gentleness, and because of the information provided. Harris herself has changed her lifestyle to treat her PCOS and is an editor for a natural health magazine in the UK, so she is at home with discussing the various alternative approaches to PCOS. While this approach may not be the right fit for all women with PCOS, the book is an enjoyable and informative read and lets the reader know that she is not alone struggling with a difficult syndrome. Colette Harris' wish for this book was to help the woman who starts out as she did, feeling isolated and not finding the help and information she needs. We at PCOSA highly recommend this book! The Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Association (PCOSA) in the US and Canada and Australia, as well as sister-organization Verity in the UK are offering hope and information to women worldwide! Find us on the web at: www.pcosupport.org

Most of this PCOS "management plan" has no legitimate scientific basis, thank heaven. If it did, sufferers would be doomed to a lifetime of meditating on orange peels, dragging an ioniser on holiday and ransacking Tesco for cold-pressed flaxseed oil.

Colette Harris is a health journalist, and her book is a case study in the flaws of popular health writing. She oversimplifies, overgeneralises, fails to cite her sources, and acts as if all "scientific studies" -- however small or poorly controlled -- were fonts of infallible wisdom. She spends pages on untested New Age quackery while ignoring the findings of mainstream medicine. Astonishingly, her book says nothing about one of the most promising new treatments: the use of Metformin for insulin resistance. She is also virtually silent on the one topic that should be discussed in all British health books: how to wrangle the treatment you need from the NHS. The author seems to assume that her readers will either go private or head straight for the witch doctor.

The book's section on infertility -- surely the most worrying aspect of the syndrome for most women -- is shockingly inadequate, and although Miss Harris touts her "holistic" approach, her treatment of the syndrome's emotional effects is superficial and trite. (Dark night of the soul? Try giving yourself some homemade light therapy!) She also links PCOS with just about every complaint her readers could suffer, dragging in things like food cravings and premenstrual breast pain that are not normally recognised as symptoms of anything except being a woman.

Far from helping women deal with the syndrome, this book encourages them to live first and foremost as PCOS sufferers. A woman who followed Miss Harris's advice to the full would end up viewing almost all aspects of her physical and mental constitution as manifestations of the disease, and restructuring virtually every waking moment in order to treat it. The book is an excellent example of the modern cult of illness, in which people are encouraged to base their identities upon real or imagined medical conditions. We are not so far away from the days of the neurasthenic Victorian invalid.

What women with PCOS really need is advice on how to differentiate solid medical evidence from the findings of spurious, unduplicated studies. They need to be given practical information on what is likely to work and what isn't -- using hard evidence and statistics, not vaguenesses like "many women find that X helps." They need to be treated like intelligent, independent people, not creatures whose world is defined by the weaknesses of their "female parts." They should be helped to deal with the really serious aspects of PCOS - having a baby, getting rid of body hair, preventing diabetes - and then allowed to get on with their lives. Unfortunately, common sense doesn't sell nearly as well as "miracle cures," and well-informed, confident women are not as likely to buy as nervous hypochondriacs.

If you have recently been diagnosed with PCOS and/or are "new" to it, try "Androgen Disorders in Women" (Cheung) or "The Good News About Women's Hormones" (Redmond) first. They are easier to read and you get answers for your questions quicker. "A Woman's Guide" seems overcomplicated in some areas. I had to wade through a lot of irrelevant information to get to the "good stuff". Not a total bust, but definately not at the top of my list. After you've read everything else, and there still isn't a whole lot, read this for "additional" info.. The important stuff is covered better in the other two books sited above.

Reviewer: dotkom (see more about me) from London, England I stumbled across a PCOS article by Colette Harris in a British alternative health magazine, Here's Health, and was very excited to learn she'd written a book on the subject. The article was very informative, but the book provided the depth of information on the subject that someone who knew relatively little about the problem needed. I found the writing style, while informative, not at all patronising, which is hard to find in a health book. Also, the personal stories in the book made me realise real people do get PCOS. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is worried about their inability to lose weight and problems with their periods. - Dorothy K

I found this book to be very informative, giving very specific details about the causes and symptoms of PCOS, while still being easy to read and understand. The authors offer many holistic (and common sense) approaches to getting the symptoms under control so as not to have to rely on medications, most of which have negative side-effects.

Finally, after years with PCOS, a book that for me captured all the different points I have been trying to understand and gave me a good clear idea about many ideas and trends and options I have. Terrific! Really freeing.

If you have PCOS and have done any research on it at all, you probably will not find this book helpful. It mostly consists of "adjust your diet, get some exercise, and reduce your stress, and you won't need drugs." Well...what if you've done all that, and still have out-of-whack hormone levels and troublesome symptoms? Many women do need drugs to counter their PCOS, and this book does not cover the "what next?" It is particularly lacking in information on infertility, which is the biggest reason PCOS is a problem for many women, and the way they find out they have it. That said, it does cover some useful stuff about PCOS that could be informative for those just beginning their searches for information. But better to start with What to Do When the Doctor Says It's PCOS.