Skinny PCOS with substantial hair loss (amongst others) - help!

Hi All,

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I've just signed up to this forum, on behalf of my girlfriend with PCOS. Don't worry, she knows I'm doing this - we're looking to get as much information as possible on the condition and what can be done about it.

Unlike (from what I have read) a good number of women with PCOS, my girlfriend has skinny PCOS. She is 27 years old but was diagnosed at about 21 years old.

She has a number of symptoms, but those that are causing serious problems are raised testosterone levels, leading to male pattern hair loss. It's getting quite bad and  we are really struggling to control this. The doctors are no help at all with responses such as "there's nothing you can do about this". I don't accept that - there's always something that can be done about everything.

What's making this difficult is that she is very underweight. While I know the BMI isn't the final word in healthy weight I do know it's a good starting guide. On this scale her BMI is 16 which is very underweight for someone who is 27 years old and 5'10"/178cm.

I am almost certain that her poor weight is a factor in her hair loss. Only recently through research did we find out that insulin issues lead to testosterone production. I felt the best thing to do was a low carb diet (wholegrain for the fibre, no processed carbs and no simple carbs) and gym exercise (little cardio, mostly weights to encourage muscle growth - the intention was to increase appetite and body mass). I think the low carb diet backfired - she lost another kilo and a half.

As a note, her diet in her late teens right up until a few months ago was terrible - high amount of simple carbs, starchy foods - which would likely have been a cause/factor in her PCOS in years gone by, but we only found out in the last two months just how bad this diet can be.

I would want her to pig out on food of all sorts but this is the issue - we expect that if she did it would be detrimental to her testosterone levels, but that won't help as her blood sugar would regularly be too high. I'm suggesting a medium carb diet now (mostly low carb with some simpler carbs thrown in during certain parts of the day. Now in reality, everyone like a treat - so one day a week she gets to eat (almost) anything she wants including a dessert - how much damage does this one day do? How long would you expect to recover from this once a week poor diet?

Please.. does anyone have input on this? I'm getting pretty desperate.. I just don't know what to do and my poor girlfriend, she's so fed up and out of options.

For further info, please see below on what I have her doing

. Diet (started about two months ago) consists of brown rice/wholewheat pasta with meats pre-dinner, and meats and veg at dinner

. Fresh vegetable (started one week ago) juice in the morning (kale, broccoli, celery, spinach, half apple, carrot, ginger) listed in order of largest percentage to smallest

. Daily Saw Palmetto capsule (started one month ago)

. Bi-Daily (started two weeks ago) Wellwoman Sport Vitamin tablet (nutritional support and has some DHT blocking ingredients)

. Daily (started just now) Green Tea Extract tablets (supposed to aid hair growth)

. Have suggested increasing complex carbs in the evening, including eating small meals/snacks as late as 10pm to encourage body to store this excess nutrients and add body mass

.  Emu oil (started one week ago) with essence oils of rosemary, ylang ylang, grapefruit, cedarwood, peppermint - I have now started massaging this as often can I can now, which would be every other day in the evening. The process takes about half an hour - oil and massage sections of her scalp until it is coated in oil, and then overall head massage once complete. The second massage is with her head over the side of the bed to increase blood to pool, and I start at the base of the skull and run my hands upwards towards her scalp. I am suggesting she wash out the oil the next morning:

. Nizoral Shampoo 1% Ketoconazole - I have suggest for deep washes to leave for 5 mins as the instructions suggest. For washes every other day to clear out the older oils I have suggested quick simple washes, no repeats, no 5 mins to work.

She was previously taking medication as suggested by her doctors - Yasmeen birth control and Spironolactone. This did bring testosterone down but her shedding hair did not stop. She's decided to come off of this medication (about 3 months back and decided to go herbal)

Of course, the above all makes sense to me, but I'm going into this new. In theory with the limited knowledge I have this all makes sense but. I dunno what I want to say next, I guess I am looking for suggestions

Does anyone have any suggestions on what we can do? I know I shouldn't expect instant results but I can't see her unhappy from losing her hair.

Thank you again for reading this, and look forward to hearing from you. If you need any further information please just ask..

Robert 

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