Actress Lauren Ash has been very open on her PCOS battle and how it’s effected her daily life and mental well being all while helping others who are suffering.
For actress Lauren Ash, 37, her decision to come forward about why her appearance was changing on social media and her battle with debilitating PCOS, something she never heard of, was an easy one. “You know what’s interesting is that it was actually a rage tweet, is how it all started,” Lauren told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY at the BlogHer 2020 Health Summit in Los Angeles on Feb. 1. “So somebody who talks about thin privilege not existing, which is a laugh, first of all, to suggest that there isn’t a bias in general in society to typical thin, skinny type people. Certainly in the industry that I’m in. And so, and the tweet that somebody had written was that anyone who’s overweight chooses to be that way. And that’s when I saw red because I had been battling PCOS and my weight for so long at that point, and prior to that, it sounds funny, but I felt very alone in my diagnosis. I really felt, I had never heard of PCOS before. I didn’t know anyone else who had it.”
According to MayoClinic, PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome is a disorder that effects hormone levels and is considered fairly common in women of reproductive age. It’s exact cause is unknown, however, symptoms can include physical pain, acne, type 2 diabetes, changes in weight and depression, which Lauren was understandably frustrated by. “When I was diagnosed, prior to me being diagnosed with PCOS, I was working out,” Lauren said. “I was eating extremely clean, extremely regimented, and I was gaining weight. I gained 30 pounds in six months having not changed anything. Then I implemented this diet and exercise situation and I kept gaining weight. And I started to feel like I was legitimately losing my mind because it defied science. I was like, “But if I calorically ingest less than I burn then I lose weight.” This is what we’ve been taught, right, from the beginning of time, if you know anything about health and fitness. And it wasn’t working. And so it was truly crazy making. And it’s certainly also being in an industry where there’s obviously, those pressures exist across the board. But I started to get worried. I was like, “What happens? What happens if I keep blooming? What happens if all of a sudden I’m 60 to 80 pounds heavier than I was when I booked my job? How do you write that into the storyline? Do you? Do I lose my job if I start to look wildly different than I once did?” So it was wildly vindicating when I finally got my diagnosis and realized, and my doctor said literally, and this is the proof, “You can literally eat nothing but celery all day and work out four hours a day and you will gain weight. It’s a disease of the endocrine system. Your body is not working properly. You’re not processing things properly.” And just the idea that it wasn’t my fault felt so powerful in that moment. But then also daunting, because it was like, “Well, how do we fix this?” It’s like, “Well, we can try X, Y, or Z.”
The rapid weight gain and unanswered questions by doctors led Lauren to a dark place, and things got so bad for her that she contemplated taking her own life. “This was serious,” Lauren said of her thoughts at the time. “And it was the lowest time in my life. And again, just feeling so alone because I knew at that point that I had PCOS and we were trying to treat it. And I was trying to do my best. I knew I couldn’t take birth control. I trusted that this motive kind of treatment could work for me and it really didn’t. But when you get, and this is the other thing I want to say, when you get into that kind of spiral, when you’re that depressed and you’re that suicidal, you’re not rational.”
Through finding the right doctors, Lauren has found happiness again all while being able to take off over half of the weight she gained. Though she still deals with debilitating, daily pain, she’s thankful to have found a course of treatment that has worked for her both mentally and physically. “For me Metformin worked,” Lauren shared. “I was up to a weight that was so uncomfortable. I’d never been that big in my life. And currently now I’m probably 20 pounds lighter than that. So about another 10, 15 pounds-ish and I would be back to my pre PCOS weight. I don’t stress it. I don’t sweat it. I have people in my life that are going through really difficult cancers and it’s really added into my personal outlook. I made a New Year’s resolution at the beginning of 2019 that I won’t speak about my body negatively to myself or anyone else. And it’s changed my life in every possible way. I recognize that in 20 years I’m going to look back at pictures of me now and be like, “I wish I could have that body again.” Which is what I do now with pictures of me from high school. So I’m like, I’ve got to enjoy it now. And this body is amazing and I’m lucky and there’s so many things that I love about my body, but why wouldn’t I just focus on those?”
Sourse: hollywoodlife.com
