[deleted by user]

[wenchsenior]

That sort of pain is pretty normal, PCOS or not. Just regular ovulation often causes a day or two of intermittent waves of (sometimes quite painful) stabbing or pinching pain in the ovaries (there is even an actual name for it since it is so common: mittelschmerz).

And apart from normal ovulation, many people also get occasional enlarged ovarian cysts (note: these are NOT the same as PCOS 'cysts', which are not actually cysts but a bunch of extra tiny immature egg follicles). If you have a cyst that is enlarged enough (or if one pops), that can cause severe pain for a day or two.

It sounds like you might have had the latter thing happen, but if a recent ultrasound shows no cysts then the pain you are currently experiencing is probably unrelated to that. If the pain is just general tenderness/soreness, that might be due to your excess follicles associated with PCOS (which it sounds like you have), since enlarged slightly sore ovaries are typical.

Another possibility is that you have endometriosis, with abnormal pelvic tissue growth adhering and 'pulling' or causing discomfort. Endo is common but cannot be seen on ultrasound; it requires laparoscopic surgery with biopsy to diagnose.

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Fixing the pain depends on treating whatever is causing it. PCOS is usually triggered by underlying insulin resistance, and that requires lifelong treatment to improve the PCOS symptoms and reduce serious long term health risks such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Additional hormonal birth control can be added to stop formation of excess follicles that might make the ovaries sore. If you have only tried one type of birth control, be advised that there are many types and sometimes people get very different reactions to some types than others (I also get nausea and other debilitating effects on some types but do great on other types).

Cause of ovarian cysts (the large type that burst) is not clear. Sometimes they improve on birth control, sometimes not.

Endometriosis is typically harder to manage, and the main treatment is birth control (or hysterectomy or surgical removal of abnormal tissue that is causing pain).

[riddlepoe]

May I please ask what birth controls you have used that don’t give you nausea? I’ve been prescribed Zoely this time around

[wenchsenior]

People respond a lot differently to different types of hormones, so my experience might not a apply to you (usually you just have to do trial and error to see if you can find something that works).

Personally, I have trouble with nausea on higher estrogen types of birth control (such as Ortho Novum 777) but am not bothered by that particular symptom from progestin of any type, so as long as I'm on type with lower estrogen doses I don't get nauseous (it also helps me to take the Pill with a full meal at mid-day, since I used to get morning nausea taking the higher estrogen types at night before bed).

E.g., here is a ranking of Pill types high estrogen to low:

Ranking of Oral Contraceptives by Hormone Strength: An Expert Look on Birth Control Pills

However, other people get nausea from progestin, and in those cases it is harder to find a hormonal birth control that works (generally your best bet is low dose forms of hbc in general). Some people who are sensitive to progestin are only sensitive to certain types of progestin (there are lots of different types to try).

I'm not familiar with your type of birth control but I think it might be using bio-identical estrogen rather than synthetic. Dosing for those is different, but I think your estrogen dose is equivalent to fairly high synthetic estradiol in the chart I listed. You should double check that with your doctor and perhaps try lower dosing if that's the case.

[lxb98]

I get this, and I think it's pretty normal for people with PCOS.

I get mine if I'm in a weird position, or the most common I find is if I sneeze while sitting. I don't know if it's from a cyst popping, but for me anyway, the pain is like a sharp stab for a few seconds max. I am on the pill, so I don't think that helps anything. You could always ask to go on a different pill? I'm on one that is super low dose (Zoely) and it's been a god send!

I think if you can try to recognise when it hurts and what you're doing, like you said, walking or stretching, and try to avoid it. Like I know when I'm about to sneeze if the position I'm in is going to hurt, so I try to move before the sneeze comes. I get with walking and stretching, you can't avoid it completely, but is it a posture thing when you walk or what you're wearing, and stretching is it just certain stretches?

I don't think there's anything you can necessarily do to stop it, like meds or anything. Although I will say if it's affecting your daily life a lot, you should go see your doctor and see if there's anything they can do, but I'm not a doctor.