PCOS Types Explained

There seems to be a lot of confusion around PCOS, what constitutes the syndrome and indeed, whether there are types of PCOS and what that actually means in practice for anyone who's suffering. 

It's not helped by the fact that the UK medical establishment are way behind on this, not really recognising types at all, and even those that have heard about types really can't give you a definition. 

I recently heard an eminent professor talking about types - his view was that identifying types was largely pointless because "people move between types anyway". I don't really understand this and it seem a little misleading as all the research I've seen coming out of US universities seems to focus on types defining how you came to have PCOS, rather than what symptoms or characteristics a sufferer might experience. 

So, to define what I'm talking about then: PCOS types explain how you came to have the syndrome and what your likely journey to this point might have been. 

Here's my synopsis: 

There are three  PCOS types defined at the moment:

Type 1:  Women who are overweight, who develop the syndrome as a result of insulin resistance

Type 2: Women who develop PCOS because of a combination of psychological or physiological stress

Type 3: Women who have a condition called Hashimoto's Thyroidosis  (hypothyroidism), who develop a wider hormone imbalance as a result of this underlying condition. 

Simple huh? Well, yes, but on the other hand, it doesn't address the growing number of teenage girls who find themselves developing PCOS straight away, rather than having been "normal" and developing the syndrome later. I therefore think this group falls into its own type. 

I think it's pretty clear which group you fall into, and explained simply, I'm sure most sufferers would immediately be able to identify with one of these areas. 

Why Does it Matter?

I suppose it depends on your perspective. In some ways, it doesn't matter at all - you're still likely to experience some or all of the symptoms of the syndrome, however you acquired it, and I've seen nothing which suggests to me that the likely cause will add any definition to which symptoms you're likely to get, or how acute those symptoms may be. If you're the type of person who prefers to stick with the mainstream, it probably doesn't matter at all. 

On the other hand, defining these types is interesting in helping us to understand the disease and gives very good pointers as to how we might be able to develop treatments against it. If, like me, you're determined to find a "cure" (to clarify, I think it will be a reliable treatment programme, tailored to the needs of a particular sufferer, rather than any magic potion),  knowing why the syndrome develops and being able to identify your own triggers is absolutely key in drawing up a treatment plan. 

It also helped me because I was able to understand why this happened to me. After years of saying "my body hates me, there's no reason for it to behave in this way", I can now understand why things are as they are, and why my body, for all the best of reasons has taken action to try to correct herself. These actions have largely had the effect of making things worse, but nonetheless, they're understandable actions. This mind-shift has been terrific in helping me to gain a more positive perspective on PCOS and for this reason alone having this extra information has been valuable. 

Indentifying PCOS types is also much easier than identifying and categorising the resulting symptoms, which really give us no guidance as to what the cure might be. At the point of looking at the symptoms, they're myriad. Everyone's definition is different, the severity and complexity of issues experienced differs wildly and it's pointless to try to develop any theories from these. 

Looking at the symptoms simply leads us to topical treatments - looking to fix or alleviate individual problems rather than treating the whole disease. As a result, identifying types has, in my opinion been a great step forward. What you do with the information totally depends on you and your individual circumstances, but having the information in the first place can only be beneficial.