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The Cost Of Living With PCOS

Written By: Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin
October 22, 2021

Highlights

  •  PCOS is difficult and expensive, and survivors may need to see an OB/GYN or endocrinologist.
  • From an expensive disorder to live with, PCOS is can overwhelm your finances.
  • Living with PCOS is difficult not only on an emotional level but also financially.
  • Full Read
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Thanks to some recent research on women’s health, it is becoming easier to manage PCOS with pharmaceutical drugs and lifestyle changes. These changes promote hormonal balancing, weight loss, and low-carb diets for more significant results.

PCOS is not only poorly understood and treated but also the treatment and management come with extensive medical costs. Trying to manage PCOS is made complicated and expensive by the myriad of doctor visits, pregnancy checks and alternative therapies that might be needed.

 PCOS is difficult and expensive, and survivors may need to see an OB/GYN or endocrinologist. From an expensive disorder to live with, PCOS is can overwhelm your finances: Living with PCOS is difficult not only on an emotional level but also financially.

Due to many forms of body-shaming, fat-shaming, slut-shaming both inside and outside the doctor’s office, it can deeply affect a woman’s self-image and impact her quality of life.

Where do we place the gendered nature of PCOS research and its effect on women’s relationship with money? PCOS is seen as more of a fertility and cosmetic issue than a metabolic, hormonal disorder that can never leave the body but can only be controlled. But adequate research and a changed narrative around the disease can help reduce the pressure of spending on women and allow them to live a healthy, full life.

Managing PCOS with medical assistance

Those who suffer from PCOS, they require regular medicines to control blood sugar, hair loss, excess androgens, and rising blood pressure. Recreational costs of medical costs quickly increase costs.

Hormonal birth control, the most commonly prescribed medicine for PCOS, usually costs between 150 to 300 in India.

PCOS supplements

The affect of PCOS on skin causes acne breakout for many and this requires women with PCOS to be able to manage their acne, but sometimes the control of this disorder can be difficult let alone expensive. Skin clinics monetize on this and skin treatments for acne vary from Rs. 3000 to upto a lakh depending on the type you choose.

Surgery

If you’re living with cysts, doctors may recommend surgery to take care of them, adding yet another expense. The standard recommended treatment for PCOS is taking birth control pills, but due to the high rate of side effects women experience when taking them, they can’t be considered a “treatment” so much as a way to manage symptoms.

Foods that can be considered ‘diet’ foods

With personalized diet plans and customized treatment plans tailored to PCOS treatments, many patients are pushing their medical expenditures to the limit. I interviewed an Indian woman who was mistakenly diagnosed with PCOS, encouraged her to spend Rs. 20,000 on a 3-month weight-loss treatment.

The estimated cost of living with PCOS is over Rs. 80,000 a year due to unhealthy lifestyle choices, lost wages and other related issues.

How the Gym has Accelerated Success for Women with PCOS

Weight gain is the most common symptom of PCOS and also the worst because it takes a toll on the person’s mental health, affecting their self-confidence. Joining gym for weight loss to spending on various other weight loss treatments, and diet supplements do not come easy. First and foremost, losing weight with PCOS itself is an uphill climb.

Clothes for people with larger bodies is not only difficult to find but also expensive. Brands understand the demand and tap on that.

Living with excess body/facial hair or Hirsutism

Some of the most commonly used treatments, aside from medications is body hair removal and hair growth treatments.  PCOS usually manifests with excessive hair growth due to excess androgen hormone and, when left untreated, can lead to severe acne and larger than average body hair. Treatment comes with a price tag. A PCOS sufferer would need to go for a full-body wax once a week at Rs10k/month

This might not sound vain but it can end up depriving women of their confidence by requiring you to visit salons more often than other women.

Permanent laser hair removal is not only expensive but something only the privileged can access. Costs can start from Rs. 5000 onwards for a body part. Also, we need to talk about the skin darkening and pigmentation or Ascaris Nigricans which is another side effect causing dark skin around folds like the neck, inner thighs and underarms. All these treatments come at a cost which are not easy for all to bear.

The health, wellness, and beauty industries are booming, but they are taking advantage of women with PCOS. As a result, these industries are rolling in moolah because their lives are limited to spending more money on prescriptions, doctors’ appointments, PMS-related items, getting haircuts, laser or IPL treatments for hair growth, etc.

PCOS not only poses challenges to affected women but is brutal in all aspects, not just in terms of physical health. We ignore the social narrative of PCOS, which hurts by putting more pressure on women who are hesitant to continue trusting themselves with their bodies.

“How to pay for infertility treatments?”

It has been found that PCOS is also difficult to live with, as it can lead to expensive medical treatments. Researchers are encouraged to look into the reproductive side of PCOS by giving more grants.

In 1970 the fertility rates in India were higher than that of America, but nowadays infertility is becoming an expensive disorder. Though some doctors say there aren’t nearly enough fertility clinics in India to withstand increasing demand for both pharmaceutical and surgical treatments, there are more and more fertility clinics springing up by the day in the country. Fertility treatments are expensive and cost-prohibitive for many people around the world.

Some agencies do provide health insurance, but there are many conditions and claims that need to be satisfied for eligibility.

Foe more articles from Infano on PCOS, click here.

managing pcodPCODPCOSpcos treatment cost

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin has done her masters in Journalism & Communication and has worked as a senior journalist, editor and columnist for leading publications like The Logical Indian, Deccan Chronicle, Worldwide Media Corporation, The Bridge and Provoke.
With Infano, she hopes to create more awareness about women’s health issues. Suffering with Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, she has also been advocating for its awareness through media.

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Things Not To Say To An Abuse Survivor

Written By: Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin
July 10, 2021 | 03:13 PM |
390

Highlights

  • Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit.
  • Abuse can come in many forms, such as physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other types of aggression.
  • Some sources describe abuse as “socially constructed”, which means there may be more or less recognition of the suffering of a victim at different times and societies.
  • Here are 12 things you must not say to any abuse survivor.

  • Full Read
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Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other types of aggression. To these descriptions, one can also add the Kantian notion of the wrongness of using another human being as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves. Some sources describe abuse as “socially constructed”, which means there may be more or less recognition of the suffering of a victim at different times and societies.

Types of abuse

Abuse can be of different types- physical,  emotional (mental, verbal, psychological), sexual (rape, assault, harassment, molestation, pornography production, and possession) neglect (physical neglect, educational neglect, financial or material neglect). 

Here are 12 things you must not say to any abuse survivor

You could have avoided it.

Believe me, if they could have prevented it they would have. No one will abuse themselves.

Here is why it would never happen to me.

No one wishes to become a statistic. You cannot put the blame of on the victim making what happened their fault.

God is punishing you for some misdeed by allowing this to happen or It was God’s will

God doesn’t wish to hurt His people.

I don’t believe you.

Respondents being disbelieved is a survivor’s greatest fear and the biggest reason why many cases of abuse go unreported. The least one can do to support abuse survivors is to believe the victim.

Maybe you just need attention.

No matter how strange it sounds, the abuse is not fabricated, unless the victim is proved to have self-harmed.

Don’t talk about it.

It’s upsetting to talk about it but that is the only way to sort through it. Not talking about it won’t make it go away.

Other people have it worse off than you.

This does not cancel or make the abuse any less. Abuse levels cannot be compared from victim to victim and the reactions are not dependent on the number of abuse sufferers. Everyone has a different reaction or tolerance threshold.

Get over it or Learn to move on.

Every survivor wishes to forget it and move on but we need to support them as they struggle

to find their way again.

Put what happened out of your minds.

Easier said than done. Some may suffer from it for days while others may remember it for a lifetime. Both are valid.

It’s no big deal 

Abuse is a challenge to heal from. It haunts much after it happens in the form of PTSD, flashbacks, and dreams and can make everyday living a difficult task.

Well, it’s been months, aren’t you over it yet.

Survivors of abuse may not be ready to go back to life as it was. In fact, they may never be ready and may have to create a new life for themselves as they learn to be safe and trust again.

Oh yeah, I know a bunch of people it has happened to.

Of course, it happens to many others but that fact cannot invalidate another’s experience or trauma. Don’t belittle them by making them another number.

Also Read Dear Women, Do You Know the Sexual Harassment Laws?

abuse survivormental abusemental healthsexual abuse

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin has done her masters in Journalism & Communication and has worked as a senior journalist, editor and columnist for leading publications like The Logical Indian, Deccan Chronicle, Worldwide Media Corporation, The Bridge and Provoke.
With Infano, she hopes to create more awareness about women’s health issues. Suffering with Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, she has also been advocating for its awareness through media.

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