Hello.  My name is Susan.  I have been blessed and honored to be asked to blog for Chiral Balance.  I contacted Chiral Balance after I purchased my first bottle for one reason – I have never thought that I could be NORMAL.   And normal feels pretty darned good.   Please indulge me while I tell you my story.

I was diagnosed with PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) back in the late 1980’s.  I was very young – about 19 years old.  I remember the doctor being so nonchalant about my diagnosis.  You have cysts on your ovaries.  Here, take birth control pills.  Call us if you have any problems.  Oh, and by the way, you may never have children of your own.

I was devastated by the words that came out of his mouth.  I still have a vivid memory of walking the three blocks home from their offices, thinking that I would never be a Mom.  What was wrong with me?  What had I done to have such a sentence in life?  I wanted to be a mother some day.  I wanted to have a family, the dog, and the picket fence.  All my dreams seemed dashed at that point.

To top it off, I absolutely hated how birth control pills made me feel.  I was a crying mess, or I was a raving snot.  There was little in between.  I was hormonal and scared.  Eventually I stopped taking them, because I couldn’t handle how they made me feel.  And I thought why am I taking something to stop me from getting pregnant, when the doctor said I wouldn’t get pregnant anyway?  It seemed so silly to me.

Almost ten years went by.  I went to college; I started life thinking I would just live for me.  I would go on wild spending sprees and indulge my every whim.  Why not? I just had me to think of.  Men were my enemy.  Why get close to someone when I’ll never be a complete woman? I can’t have children – why would he want to be with me?

And my weight.  Oy vey.  I was always a big girl.  As a teenager I was one of the biggest girls in my class.  My prom dress was a size 18.  What I wouldn’t give to be that size again!  I started diets and I failed at diets.  I just couldn’t lose more than a few pounds, and every time I did, I would gain it back plus five more.  It was a horrible, vicious cycle.  My best friend was a size zero, and she could eat literally anything she wanted, and did.  There I would sit, feeling so sick and stupid with such a skinny beautiful friend.  Why couldn’t I be like her???   By the time I reached age 27 I was pushing 260lbs and I was in a size 24 jeans.  I was devastated.  And how I compensated was seeking attention from anyone who would give it to me. 

Unfortunately what I found was a man who was a real user and manipulator.  However, somehow we ended up with the best gift in the world.  Just after my 29^th birthday I became ill.  For three months I went to the doctor over and over, trying to figure out what was wrong with me.  You haven’t had a period in 3 months? Oh wait.  You have PCOS.  You can’t be pregnant.  It took six doctors to finally find one who ran a pregnancy test, which came back positive.  I was in disbelief for weeks, until I finally heard my peanuts heartbeat and knew that it was finally real for me.

My son was a blessing in another way.  During my pregnancy I only gained 6 pounds.  Yes, SIX.  He weighed in at seven pounds four ounces.  When I went to my six week check up I weighed only 244 pounds.  I felt like I was in heaven, just having had a baby and being smaller than when I started! 

My weight then became an issue with my son’s father, and post partum depression set in due to my son not being a healthy baby.  I tried diet pills, I would starve myself, but nothing worked.  We finally split up and I decided to live my life as me and my son against the world.  I don’t have to live by anyone else’s rules, right? 

But ending a bad relationship didn’t stop the depression and the anxiety and the never ending battle with my weight.  I know I am a big girl, and even with weight loss I will probably always be a big girl.  I am large framed and tall, and although I can stand to lose weight, I will never be a stick figure or a supermodel.  Honestly I don’t want to be those things – I just want to be healthy to watch my son grow up and be a healthy happy adult, and maybe grace me with a few grandkids someday.

Now, twelve years after giving birth to that wonderful little Peanut, I finally found something that is working for me.  And right now I feel almost as blessed as I did the day I had him.

I woke up on January 1, 2011 and decided this was my year.  This is the year that I am going to take control of my life. This is the year that I am not going to let the doctors shame me or have the pharmacists look at me all shady because I am picking up my prescription for my anxiety med or my anti depressant.  This is going to be the year that I am going to take back my life, no matter what happens or how I have to do it. I took control and started that day.  I “googled” everything I could on PCOS and weight loss, pcos and depression, pcos and anxiety, pcos remedies.  One common thing kept popping up into my search results – Chiral Balance.  What is the thing called d-chiral-inositol.  I looked it up on every vitamin web site I have used, finding almost nothing.  I looked at research studies on mice and on humans and was intrigued.  Could this be the one? Could this help me stop being who I despise?  I had to find out.  So I placed my first order.  Hey, it’s not the first time I have spent $60 on something to be disappointed.

When I got the bottle I wasn’t sure what to think.  An unassuming bottle of plain white pills.  Two pills a day is going to help me?  That’s it?  Ok.  huh.  So I took them.  That night I watched every YouTube video I could find on the product and other women’s results.  I didn’t find much, and it was hard for me to feel confident. 

And then something happened.  I woke up after a few days and I felt…good.  I wasn’t lethargic and I didn’t need as much coffee to get me going.  I got up and I got on my exercise bike and I rode before work.  I keep thinking this feels pretty good.  And it just kept getting better from there.  I have energy.  My moods have balanced out.  I do not feel like I am going to lose my mind or that my world is being pulled out from under me at all times.  And most importantly, my food and sugar cravings have come to a complete and utter HALT.  Oh, and that pesky hair we ladies with PCOS hate?  Diminishing by the day.

Now I am going to admit something to the world wide web that I never thought I would do.  You see, I weighed two hundred and eighty pounds on January 1, 2011.  As of February 1, 2011, I weigh 252.4.  I can’t give Chiral Balance all the credit – I have been working hard to get this weight off of me.  I have been riding my exercise bike and I have been counting calories.  What I am going to give Chiral Balance all the credit for is removing every single craving I have ever had.  I don’t want or need the sweets.  I don’t have the sugar crashes where I feel like I am going to fall over if I don’t get food.  I am eating five to six small meals filled with protein and vegetables every day, and it is just enough for me.  I am not starving, I am not feeling deprived, because the cravings are just GONE.

And that, my new friends, brings you to me today.  I plan to lose another 77 pounds in the next 11 months.  Yes, I know this is not going to be an easy journey.  I want to share it with you, especially my experience with Chiral Balance.  I am hoping and praying that I am able to see my hirsutism diminished even more.   I am waiting for my first monthly cycle to come along, to see if that acne that I hate so much appears this time, or if it stays away.  I have so many questions, and I hope to answer them all in the future.  I hope you have questions too, and I hope you ask them.  Let’s find out together how to beat this monster called PCOS.  Are you ready to do battle with me?  The only hard part for me is realizing, for the first time, just what normal is. But like I said, it feels pretty darn good. 

Welcome to my voyage.  Fasten your seat belts.  This could be an interesting ride.