The miracle of whey protein

Ok, so it has been since April and I had sort of promised myself that I wouldn't blog again until I was in another place, taken another journey, and could say something that would prove to be new and maybe useful information to someone else.

And so - although I have not traveled anywhere recently - and in fact in the past couple days I have hardly left my house, I have certainly been on a journey over the past few weeks.

For those of you who don't know, I have a disease called PCOS - polycystic ovarian syndrome. This means that I have the joy of having a tendancy towards obesity, extra hair, and infertility - check, check and double check. I have been lucky in the first two catergories in that both are relatively mild but the infertility hit me with a vengence. For the past three years my absolutley fabulous and increadibly patient and persistent husband and I have been going through the basic infertility treatments, clomid, Gonal - F and IUI (pills, shots and turkey basters for those of you not in the know). But as the fates would have it, we got pregnant twice only to miscarry just days later.

So we were faced with the dilemma - do we stop here and move on to the adoption that we know we are going to do eventually OR do we venture in the VERY scary world of IVF - in vitro fertilization. Personally, I did not think that I was up for IVF. I can understand the moral arguements against it and I wasn't sure that I wanted to become my very own walking Orwellian incubator. My husband, the ultimate scientist, argued about cells, cells' potential and the circle of life. I responded with religion, ethics and plain old pain and discomfort (he flat out refused to let money be a part of this decision as he said if there is anything worth spending money on - this would be it - bless his heart). So I talked with family, I talked with friends, we met with the minister multiple times. And after it all, we decided that for us, God would not strike me down for trying to create life, and that at the end of the day we would want to to feel like we had tried everything available to treat my (our) infertility. People have heart transplants and I don't think twice about the freaky science that that surgery involves so although I understand this is different, it is all playing with life at different levels. So, holding onto my husband's hand and praying every night to God, we decided to go ahead with our first round of IVF.

I was worried about the side effects of the medications, I had anxiety about the anesthesia required for the egg retrieval, I was not excited about the pain of the injections but I really did not give a second thought to any potential side effects like OHSS - ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. I was healthy, my husband and I go for a 2 to 3 mile run or walk every day, I eat well, am within normal BMI ranges, and generally consider myself pretty tough when it comes to discomfort and pain. Again, Murphy having his way, the first three concerns went very smoothly - no crazy lady from the meds, anesthesia was fine and the IM injections aren't even hurting (at least when I stab myself, the muscle ache is a different story).

The real trouble with my first round of IVF was my happy little ovaries that made many many eggs. After the anesthesia wore off, I was in pain - and I usually am pretty good - had two screws removed from my knee under local anesthesia in my doctor's clinic office - no tears - no crying but this was unconfortable. After a longer than usual recovery, I went home feeling pretty crummy but figuring that it would get better by the next day. The CNP told me that I would be given an albumin like product during the procedure to help prevent OHSS and also gave me a sheet that explained the signs and symptoms of OHSS aand a sheet on whey protein being useful to prevent this from happening. OHSS basically results in women retaining (third spacing) fluid to the point where they might have to have their abdomen tapped or hospitalized as it can interfere with breathing and other such non-essentials.

So my husband ran to the store for the gatorade, extra strength tylenol and the whey protein powder. I started the shakes right away but was only using one scoop which has 27.5 grams of powder (but only 16 grams of protein). We figured three a day would be enough. The next day brought little relief, I wasn't in as much procedure pain but was VERY bloated and uncomfortable - and when I weighed myself I realized that I had already gained 5 lbs of water weight in one day. Not great. Then that night I was starting to be short of breath (though I denied this vehemently - my poor husband...) but we also realized that I was short on my protein intake by 30 grams a day according to recommendations.

This brings me to the miracle of whey protein. I doubled the scoops per shake today and just this evening I have started to lose water weight by leaps and bounds and am feeling SO much better. The shots still make my legs ache but the actual injection process is OK and we only have 11 more days in this journey until we start another one or we are granted a well deserved break.

In any case, the main reason I wrote this was so that if there are any women out there suffering from OHSS or worried about OHSS, I would encourage them to try the protein shakes but not just to have a shake or two a day but to make sure that they are consuming at least 80 grams of whey protein a day. Who knows if this will be the remedy to keep the OHSS from coming back if I do get pregnant (it gets worse again with pregnancy) but for now I am going to enjoy starting to feel like a human again - not cured but definitely better.

Thanks to all who read this, my apologies to those who don't understand or who choose to judge my decision. I, too, thought I would never be here but until you come to the fork in the road, you really don't know which way you will go.