Florence Pugh reveals she froze her eggs after being diagnosed with PCOS and endometriosis

[hewontgo]

Florence Pugh reveals she froze her eggs after being diagnosed with PCOS and endometriosis last year https://t.co/ZTLO3SM8sO pic.twitter.com/fBYeFh5k1q
- Page Six (@PageSix) November 19, 2024

During an episode of the 'She MD' podcast, Pugh, 28, revealed she froze her eggs after learning both conditions could lead to infertility.

“I just had this

Comments

[angriest_girl]

PCOS and endometriosis are so normalised - even the women who have them get to the point where they are just matter of fact about it because they’ve just been expected to live with it. They both have debilitating effects on so many women but the medical community (largely) is like “We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” .

[steffi_333]

Honestly endo should be classed as a disability IMO - it's that bad for some people that it significantly impacts their daily life and ability to function at even basic levels.

[progression]

I wish it was. I have PCOS and literally sometimes bleed for months at a time. It makes me iron so low and I feel like I’m walking through a fog. But, I’m also expected to just work through it and can’t have any accommodations made (such as working from home so I’m not on the road in that state or so that I have easy access to the bathroom).

Add debilitating pain to that? Whew.

[steffi_333]

That’s horrendous. I started having really irregular and heavy periods that were making me anaemic when perimenopause started and that was bad enough. I can’t imagine having something like your experience. I’m so sorry you don’t get more support ☹️

[skyler_white_yo]

ELI5, how does freezing eggs help with PCOS/endo?

The medical community needs to do more for women’s health and research. It should not be acceptable to be told that debilitating cramps are normal. But given the world we’ll be entering, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

[timeywimeystuff]

I'll let someone correct me if I'm wrong but, largely, both can interfere with ovulation and endo can cause damage to your ovaries and prevent fertilization. Having your eggs out and frozen when they're healthier gives you better chances for IVF later on.

I have PCOS and while I actually had an abundance of eggs, my body just did not want to ovulate. I was very fortunate that a couple rounds of medication to force me to ovulate worked, IVF would have been the next step which we absolutely could not have been able to afford.

[steffi_333]

PCOS and endo can affect fertility. They can cause irregular periods which affect ovulation, or scar tissue which can trap eggs and sperm (and potentially increase risk of ectopic pregnancy).

Endo treatment can also damage fertility. In drastic cases it can involve surgery (potentially including hysterectomy), but it can also involve inducing menopause through medicines.

Freezing eggs means that if you ever get endo/pcos under control you can go for IVF, or you could explore surrogacy.

[evilgerbil]

They don't. Freezing eggs is about egg quality, which declines with age. Neither are affected by PCOS or endometriosis.

This is definitely beyond the explanation of a 5-year-old, but most people do not know what declining egg quality means. From what I have read, it is primarily a breakdown of the meiotic spindle apparatus. So when The primary oocyte, which is what is hanging around in the ovaries since before birth, undergoes meiosis to become the secondary oocyte, which is what gets fertilized, the chromosomes may not separate correctly. There may therefore be chromosomal abnormalities in the egg that can lead to an inability to be fertilized, or an embryo that does not develop properly.

[ltmsysf]

So glad endo is gaining a little mainstream traction lately. I'm 10 years in my diagnosis and had to have a surgery, projected to have another soon. I'm getting recommended to freeze my eggs as well but it's so expensive where I live. I think I'm okay with it since I never wanted kids anyway but I'm definitely not okay with living in so much pain and complications all the time without being understood by anyone.

[skankyoulater]

I've been having really bad pain lately and wondering if it's endo. I know I have pcos. I've been trying to read more about it, but it's useless. One site said if you have pain it's not pcos 😂 tell that to 12yr old me who was throwing up and had a stabbing pain pretty much all the time.

I feel like it's misinformation to say people with pcos are infertile. A lot of my cousins were told that and accidentally got pregnant. I don't really know anyone with pcos who hasn't been able to have kids, just one woman I met recently who said she tried for 10yrs.

Agreed with the comments above it's fucked that we're expected to live in constant pain. Lately I've been really sad about how pcos has affected my body, but it was never deemed important to address. Like I have the saddest boobs ever and I feel like if they had bothered to treat me I would've had normal boobs.

[skankyoulater]

Another thing, I hate that it's only treated in terms of fertility. You are only given options if you are trying to conceive. Otherwise oh okay bye 👋🏽

[5368f65]

Same. At one point I wanted to burn all gynaecology textbooks. Feminism and equality in general are in the footnotes and intro texts. In the core texts we're all just baby-making machines. "Wellbeing"? "Health"? What is that? Ah, yes, that's what they talk about in the footnotes.

I so want to have enough time to do a femist review of every single popular textbook and training material related to women's healthcare.

If you pretend you want to have children, they pretend to care.

[evilgerbil]

That wasn't my experience, but my experience is not evidence, I think a lot of people are probably unaware that they have PCOS until they have trouble. Conceiving. I had a great doctor who discovered I had PCOS and wanted to treat me with oral contraceptives but they badly affected my mental health. I was lucky in that I was not overweight or insulin resistant due to PCOS, but those are complications that can happen and they definitely should be considered for treatments.

[thesummersqueen]

I have known for a while that I shouldn’t get pregnant because I have quite the bad scoliosis and other health related stuff like 2 autoimmune diseases. But now all my friends are in that stage of life and while I’m single it just … feels weird? Like I adore their children but sometimes I just feel so behind?

[delfintaka]

You are not behind, just on a different path. You know what is right for you.
Not having kids is very normalized where i live, but even here is takes courage to live a less traditional life.
I hope you always feel safe to make choices that are best for you! Xoxo

[thesummersqueen]

Thank you ❤️
It’s getting more normal here too and I know my friends are always having my back but it’s just kinda weird for me. I love children but I also know how bad pregnancies can get so

[milkradio]

I know how you feel. I see a lot of my friends having kids and getting their own homes (gifted to them by their parents, of course) and I’m over here feeling left behind, esp since I got dumped and lost my job within 2 weeks of each other in August…