Re: Warning! Diane 35 (Dianette) and Saw Palmetto

Groovychick wrote
> i just wanted to ask you about the dianette. basically my doctor put me on the
> pill(Cilest) 6 months ago, when i finally went to him with my embarassing
> problem of facial hair, and because i was having irregular periods (between
> 40 70 days). He offered to put me on dianette but i was very weary as i had
> heard so much mixed stuff about the side effects etc so he put me on this pill
> for the time being. I did some research after i came home and it seems like i
> might have pcos (which the doc didnt mention!)...so am now in the process of
> changing docs so i can get some proper tests done and hopefully get diagnosis
> of yes/no to the pcos. Did the dianette improve the existing hair that you
> have and also stop new hairs growing? And how long before you saw visible
> differences in the hair growth?
>
>can i ask you, do you have pcos? the reason i am asking is because you mentioned
> the acne, and that along with the facial hair are two symptoms of it...


It's not me who was asked the question, but I think what I wrote earlier in this thread is relevant:

................ there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Female facial hair is caused by some combination of hormonal conditions, current and/or historical, which causes our bodies to respond in the same sort of way as a male's body does and produce male-type facial hair.
Yes, of course it's possible to play around with our hormones to bring them more into line with the normal female pattern, but there are invariably other effects, some of which may not become apparent till years afterwards. And some of them may be quite surprising.
One of my sisters has, like me, facial hair growth. Unlike me, since the time she left university she's simply let it grow, which has meant that almost all her adult life she has had a moustache of almost-male proportions. She's also been quite masculine in most ways, except for the fact that she has (unlike me :-( ) a good figure. She's gone on to hrt and her moustache is fast disappearing. But her personality has completely changed -- from being pretty masculine in character, she's gone all girly and none of us know what to make of her. I think we'd all have preferred it if she'd stayed the way she was.
I've no desire at all for that sort of change in personality and I'd rather leave my hormonal balance the way it works out naturally. To me, shaving's no trouble, the fact that I shave just like he does doesn't bother my husband or for that matter my kids -- it's just part of life. And most of the wider community doesn't know anyway.....

I would have thought that your doctor was taking a relatively conservative initial approach to see what effect it had. But remember that one of the dangers is that when your body recognizes the presence of estrogen from outwith the body it may shut down the limited natural estrogen production you have, so that when you stop the pill the body doesn't necessarily restart production of estrogen immediately or at all.

For me, the last thing I'd want to happen would be what's happened with my sister. Though I have to say that she seems happy enough -- and she most certainly looks feminine now, which you certainly couldn't have said about her before.