Florence Pugh’s openness about her PCOS is inspiring as someone who also suffers from it

Struggling with something like PCOS isn’t easy. You bring it up and people have their ideas of what it means or what you’re going through. So when a celebrity like Florence Pugh shares her struggles with it, it means a lot.

Pugh opened up about having to freeze her eggs at 27 after finding out she has PCOS and Endometriosis. “I had this sudden feeling that I should go and get everything checked. I’d had a few weird dreams, I think my body was telling me,” Pugh said on Dear Media’s SHE MD podcast with Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi and Mary Alice Haney.

She opened up about how shocking the news was to her, saying that she family has always had a lot of kids and she didn’t even think about it. “It was just so bizarre because my family are baby-making machines. My mom had babies into her forties. My gran had babies throughout … And then of course, I learned completely different information, at age 27, that I need to get my eggs out, and do it quickly, which was just a bit of a mind-boggling realization, and one that I’m really lucky and glad that I found out when I did because I’ve been wanting kids since I was a child.”

She went on to talk about how important it is to talk about these issues and clear up ideas that women have about them. “It wouldn’t be that hard to educate everybody on this when you’re at school,” Pugh said. “It’s something that will be the defining factor of whether you can have children or not.”

Pugh’s reveal is helping people like me speak up

I was diagnosed with PCOS at the age of 31. The only reason I got a diagnosis was because I kept gaining weight and could not figure out what was going on as I wasn’t eating more and I’d been working out. My doctors who helped me were also women. My Endocrinologist was the one who explained the reality of PCOS to me. She said that you had to directly deal with your own symptoms because every woman is different.

When I got an ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis, the doctor said that I wouldn’t have trouble having kids and that my case is mild. To be fair, she said that I had a “textbook uterus” and it made me feel like that moment in Parks and Recreation when Will Arnett talks about Leslie Knope’s uterus but that’s not the point. I am lucky in that my PCOS just means that I have to keep my weight fluctuation under control and I now know how to do that.

Pugh brought up weight gain when she talked about her symptoms, saying she didn’t know it was part of PCOS. Neither did I. I dismissed my own symptoms for years because it wasn’t what I was told was typical PCOS symptoms. So to hear that Pugh went through a similar situation makes one thing clear: We should be talking about this more.

Everyone woman is different and we should remember that

I think often with diagnosing people, we want a blanket answer. A simple “oh that is this thing” that can apply to every person. But that isn’t the reality we live in. We all are different and every body reacts differently to things. Something like PCOS varies from person to person. And Pugh is right, there isn’t enough information out there about it for women to not misunderstand the situation.

We see the list of symptoms and think “well, I don’t have those” and no one tells us any differently. But having celebrities like Pugh talk about this helps others speak out. When I started losing weight and working out again and sharing my journey, many asked me what I was diagnosed with. But I often felt too ashamed to say what it was. Because saying you have PCOS comes with people thinking you won’t have kids and it makes me feel less than as a woman.

The reality is that I will be fine. That I figured it out, got my body situated, and continue to live my life knowing exactly what causes certain things. Hopefully others will see Pugh’s story and open up or go to their doctors to be diagnosed because knowing is the first step to making sure you’re healthy and happy.

So thank you, Florence Pugh!