Alternative Supplements?

[Hello]

Hey, I'm new to this website and I wanted to see if anyone could give me any advice about alternative supplements other than that which would be prescribed by an endochronologist or gynocologist to take such as metformin or b/c pills. Just maybe herbal supplements that are suppose to lower blood sugar or help with my hormone imbalance. I am only on birth control pills, because my endchronologist didn't want to start me on any real pill regimine, because I was only 19 at the time I was finally diagnosed, after several abdominal ultrasounds and only the vaginal one finally revealed that I had PCOS, and he wanted to wait until at least I lost weight, to see if i could get everything under control with diet and exercise alone.

Well that was the case over a year ago when I did lose weight and my glucose levels and testosterone levels did go down. (Also during this time I was able to do lazer hair removal which worked very well with my lowering hormone levels). I only did this with the help of Xenical, which is a diet pill perscribed by my general doctor. However when I ended this pill, my body did not know how to cope with the extra fat that was in my diet and as a consequence I gained all my weight back! ( 25lbs :( ) Along with reversing all that the expensive lazer hair removal and now my facial hair is exactly the same as it was before!

Now after I've said all that, I'm trying to lose weight again and hopefully maintain a healthy lifestyle with exercising and eating, but I would also like to take supplements that may help my overall nutrition with PCOS. So If anyone has any suggestions that might be helpful, please let me know.

(Also as a side question, I, after losing weight, was prescribed meformin, but I was nervous about and felt a little weird taking it. So I told my doctor that I wasn't going to take it and he said it was fine either way. But now reading that so many people with PCOS take metformin, I was wondering how important it is in helping me with my symptoms and if I should take another look at refilling this prescription?)

Thank you!

[skusisto]

You may want to check out the post on cinnamon. Cinnamon is supposed to be a natural supplement to help with insulin resistance. Metformin is what the doc's give us to treat insulin resistance. If you're not familiar with this, most more recent research points to a relationship between PCOS and how our bodie process (or don't process) insulin. Essentially, because our bodies don't process insulin correctly, excess insulin builds up in our systems. Since insulin is a hormone, this causes a cascade effect that leads to the poly cystic ovaries and the other hormonal imbalances that most of us experience. This is why metformin is now often prescribed for PCOS, because it sensitizes our bodies to insulin and allows our bodies to start correctly all the imbalance. I'm not real clear on why or how the cinnamon works, I only know that some people take it as an herbal alternative to met. (sweetsunshine is much more knowledgable than I am about the cinnamon and I know she responded to the cinnamon post.)