Up until she received a PCOS diagnosis, Victoria Monét didn’t know what was going on with her body.
Polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, is a condition that causes hormonal imbalances. The 37-year-old artist shared in an interview with Sirius XM that she and many women don’t know that weight gain, excessive hair growth, and reproductive challenges could be symptoms of the condition. None of her previous gynecologists had informed her about the possibility that she may have it.
“I hadn’t heard about it in all my gynecology appointments. I hadn’t heard about it until I went to go see a doctor named Dr. Aliabadi, and she let me know that this is what’s going on with my body, Monét said.
She continued, “[Aliabadi] was showing me the ultrasounds of like literal cysts in my ovaries, and I’m like, wait, it kind of makes sense because I had been in really long relationships where, quite candidly, that we weren’t using protection and I never got pregnant until my big age. So I’m like, ‘Oh, I understand now it was more difficult for me to do so.'”
More and more public figures have been shining a light on their experiences with the condition, including Black celebrities like Lori Harvey and Keke Palmer. Though PCOS affects one in 10 women of childbearing age, Black women with PCOS may experience more severe symptoms, making a diagnosis absolutely crucial. But Monét pointed out that many people don’t understand what PCOS is in the first place.
“But there’s a lot of people and women operating in the world that have no idea what those letters mean, what that disease is or the condition is, that there is no cure for it and how to go about it and combat whatever hormonal changes are happening within it,” she said.
