Dr. Vliet’s Health Tip: It’s Not Just Your Ovaries: The Truth About PCOS/PMOS, the Master of Disguise

Are you a young woman struggling with major middle and upper body fat you can’t lose?  Do you have severe acne, facial hair or excess body hair?  Are your periods irregular, or infrequent?  Do you have episodic pelvic pain that can take your breath away?

If your answer to these questions is yes, you may have one of the most common, and sadly most overlooked, endocrine disorder in reproductive age women, and significantly on the rise even in pre-teen girls: Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), renamed in 2026 to Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS). This serious endocrine-metabolic disorder is a 21^st century epidemic and threat to the health and fertility of young women, hiding in plain sight among obese teenagers and young women.

My message to you is this: your body isn’t broken, it is being sabotaged – by misdiagnosis, wrong guidance on foods and medicines, and by hidden saboteurs called endocrine disruptors in your foods and the environment, as well as the new dangers to your ovaries and endocrine system from the COVID gene therapy injections!  You need reliable guidance on addressing all of these factors sabotaging your endocrine health, especially if you have PCOS/PMOS.

I first described PCOS in my book It’s My Ovaries, Stupid, published by Scribner in 2003, and then I devoted an entire book in 2005 on PCOS, discussing in depth the many causes and how it is often misdiagnosed as a psychiatric disorder.  My books, available at www.ShopTruthforHealth.com,  go into detail on the integrated approach to evaluation and treatment I have been using in my medical practice since 1985.

Because of its complexity that cuts across medical specialty “boxes,” PCOS/PMOS has been a frustrating medical disorder to get doctors to recognize, evaluate properly, treat in an integrated way with a combination of Rx medicines, proper supplements, the right meal plan and exercise regimen and other lifestyle changes.  And it has been difficult to get doctors to stop passing these young women off to psychiatrists because they are “anxious and depressed” –often about their inability to lost the serious excess body fat or get help for excess body hair and cystic acne.  Women deserve to be taken seriously with their concerns, and not just written off as “overanxious about weight” and told to “eat less and exercise more.”

Fortunately, PCOS has finally come out of the shadows. The new name in 2026 has revived attention to this major problem affecting young women’s fertility and metabolic/endocrine health.  Women’s magazines now mention it more often, some doctors are talking about it, and there is more attention among podcasters.  Yet, even with these positive developments, the full story still isn’t being told.

Why was the old name Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome changed in 2026 to Polyendocrine Metabolic Disorder?  Primarily because expanding research has led to a new and broader understanding of the many tentacles of this disorder that reach into every aspect of our health.  AND – research that has shown this metabolic endocrine disorder can affect males in the same family along with young women.

PCOS/PMOS is not a just “cosmetic problem” of excess body fat, body hair or acne.  It is not just a quirky ovary with a few cysts. It is a complex, multi‑system endocrine and metabolic disorder that reaches into every corner of the body—from brain and mood to metabolism and weight, to fertility and long‑term heart and cancer risks.

I have even taken my original self-test for PCOS from my books (1995-2005) and expanded that into a PCOS/PMOS Self‑Test Calculator you can use as a Self-Check if have any of the symptoms described in this health tip and you are not getting the answers and help you need from your personal health professionals.

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)/Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) is the most common hormonal disorder in reproductive-age women affecting estimates of 90 to 120 million women worldwide. Yet, it is still routinely missed unless a young woman is trying to get pregnant.

The most common symptoms are infertility, menstrual irregularity, frequent ovarian cysts, middle body weight gain, and symptoms of androgen excess, including severe acne, loss of scalp hair and excess body hair. Doctors often dismiss the weight gain and acne as just “cosmetic” symptoms and completely overlook the more serious metabolic and endocrine imbalances because they don’t test the correct labs!

PCOS frequently causes increased risk of marked and abnormal weight gain, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, early diabetes, and early onset of heart disease. Left undiagnosed, it can impair fertility, cause unexplained fatigue, and often leads to loss of self-esteem due to the weight gain and acne. Androgen excess/insulin resistance, increased long-term risk for heart disease, stroke, uterine cancer, and depression.

For decades, women were told that “polycystic ovary syndrome” was about tiny cysts on their ovaries, irregular periods, and trouble getting pregnant. If you weren’t trying to conceive, you were sent home with a shrug and maybe a prescription for birth control or an antidepressant. We now know that story is dangerously incomplete.

PCOS/PMOS is:

• A multi‑system endocrine disorder, not a single organ disease.
• A metabolic disorder, tightly intertwined with insulin resistance, central fat gain, abnormal lipids, fatty liver, and early cardiovascular disease.
• A lifelong condition that changes over time—your symptoms at 18 may look very different at 28, 38, or 48.

Some women gain weight rapidly and develop acne, and the characteristic darkened, thickened skin called Acanthosis nigricans, most often occurring in body folds and creases. AN is a well-recognized clinical sign of insulin resistance (and the resulting high insulin levels/hyperinsulinemia), which is common in PCOS/PMOS.  The darkened skin patches are often associated with numerous skin tags in the same areas.

Young women are often distress by these hyperpigmented skin changes, especially in visible areas like the neck and face, when their skin becomes dark brown or grayish, depending on skin tone, thickened, and develops a soft, velvety or papillomatous (warty/raised) texture with accentuated skin lines or folds. It is usually symmetric, develops gradually, and is typically asymptomatic—though it can occasionally itch, feel dry, or become macerated/odorous in moist areas. It cannot be scrubbed away and is not contagious or infectious. The most common locations include:

• Back and sides of the neck (very frequent)
• Armpits (axillae)
• Groin and other intertriginous (skin-fold) areas
• Under the breasts
• Elbows, knees, knuckles, or other flexural sites
• Less often, the face (facial acanthosis nigricans), around the umbilicus, or other areas

TIP: Presence of these skin changes is a clear indicator that testing is needed for insulin resistance/androgen excess!

Other women with PCOS/PMOS are actually quite thin, menstruate “almost normally,” and yet still harbor significant androgen excess and insulin resistance. Some of my “thin” PCOS patients over the years have actually had much more serious insulin resistance and damaging cyst formation than the obese PCOS patients. Some have obvious facial hair; others do not.  The outward body appearance can be wildly variable, and confusing, which is one of the reasons so many women are told by doctors:
“It’s just stress.”
“It’s just your age.”
“It’s just part of being a woman.”

BOTTOM LINE: PCOS/PMOS is not “just” anything.  The underlying hormonal chaos and metabolic-endocrine damage is widespread, consistent across body types, progressively worsening over time and needs to be taken seriously.

Why the Name Changed to PMOS

The term “polycystic ovary syndrome” is an accurate description, but it reduces a complex, poly‑endocrine, metabolic condition to a narrow focus about cysts on the ovaries.  The newer name, Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS/PMOS), highlights the reality and complexity of the syndrome:

• Polyendocrine: multiple hormone systems are involved—ovaries, adrenal glands, thyroid, pancreas (insulin), and the brain’s hypothalamus and pituitary.
• Metabolic: insulin resistance, hyperinsulinemia, visceral fat, abnormal cholesterol, triglycerides and other components of the lipoprotein family, and fatty liver are central features of this disorder, not just “side effects.”
• Ovarian: the ovaries remain key players, but they are part of a much bigger hormonal orchestra, and the same features (minus cysts on ovaries, of course!) can also occur in young men in the same family.

You will still see “PCOS” used in many places, and frankly this is the term I have used for so many years that I often still refer it it this way too. But it is important to think of PCOS and PMOS as the updated name for the same condition—one that acknowledges ALL of what women have been experiencing that medicine has sadly misdiagnosed and treated inadequately and piecemeal over most of my medical career –which is one reason I have made it a big part of my medical practice and have written several books on how to get help.  My books are available at www.ShopTruthforHealth.com and all profits go to support the public charity.

• Are overweight and told the problem is simply “calories in–calories out.”
• Are thin and told they “can’t possibly” have PCOS because they don’t “look like it.”
• Have irregular or absent periods; others bleed monthly but ovulate rarely, if at all.
• Have noticeable facial hair; others have very little hair change but significant metabolic risk.

Modern diagnostic criteria reflect this diversity in the way this multi-faceted endocrine disorder presents. A woman does not need to have ovarian cysts to have PCOS/PMOS. She does not need to have absent periods. She does not need to meet a particular outdated stereotype.

Diagnosis now relies on a combination of:

• Hyperandrogenism: clinical signs like hirsutism (excess growth of coarse, dark “terminal” hair in females in a male patterned distribution), “apple shape” upper body fat typically with large, heavy breasts and underarm body fat, severe acne (often cystic), with lab test evidence of elevated androgens (total and free testosterone, DHEA-S, DHEA unconjugated (free), androstenedione.
• Ovulatory dysfunction: infrequent or absent ovulation.  This is can be confirmed objectively by testing cervical mucus, using an ovulation test kit, or checking follicular and luteal phase ovarian hormones for FSH, LH, estradiol, and progesterone.
• Ovarian changes: can be detected on transvaginal pelvic ultrasound, although the cysts can be missed if ultrasound done at time when they don’t happen to be present.  Ovary status related to fertility may be checked with a blood test of anti-Mulllerian Hormone (AMH) level.  AMH is produced only in small ovarian follicles, and blood levels of AMH have been used to attempt to measure the size of the pool of growing follicles in women as a measure of the size of the remaining egg (follicle) supply – or “ovarian reserve”.

Any two of these criteria, with other causes excluded, supports the diagnosis of PCOS/PMOS. This flexibility now opens the door for the many women who never fit the old, narrow picture to get properly diagnosed and get the help they need to correct the underlying problems.

PCOS/PMOS as a Metabolic Disease

When we talk about PCOS/PMOS, we must talk about metabolism.
Women with PCOS/PMOS commonly have:

• Insulin resistance and higher‑than‑normal insulin levels that causes increased storage of body fat and difficulty losing fat.
• Central fat gain, particularly around the waist and upper body, breasts, and under the arms.
• Increased visceral fat: this is fat deposited around the internal organs, causing multiple increased health risks, including diabetes, vascular disease, early heart attacks, and many cancers.
• Abnormal lipid patterns, including high triglycerides, low HDL, and elevated LDL, elevated lipoproteins that increase cardiovascular disease risk.
• Higher risk of type 2 diabetes, often at much younger ages than expected
• “Fatty liver” and early onset of high blood pressure
• Long‑term increased cardiovascular disease risk that occurs in the 30s and 40s long before risk normally increases for women after loss of estrogen at menopause.  CVD risk can even exceed that of men in the same age range.

The visible symptoms—weight gain, fatigue, mood swings, acne, excess hair—are the “warning lights” on the dashboard. Beneath them, the metaphorical metabolic engine is overheating and being damaged.

Understanding PCOS/PMOS as a metabolic disease changes the questions we ask and the tests we order. It moves us away from, “Is she trying to get pregnant?” and toward, “How do we protect her heart, brain, and metabolism for the next 40 years?”

Why PCOS/PMOS Develops: Internal and External Causes

You will hear many simplistic explanations for PCOS/PMOS: “It runs in families,” “It’s all your diet,” or “It’s just stress.” The truth is far more complicated.  PCOS/PMOS develops when inborn vulnerabilities collide with environmental, dietary, and lifestyle exposures. In other words, it’s the interaction between your genetic makeup, your current biology and the world around you, including your food choices and daily habits.

Internal Factors: The Body’s Own Vulnerabilities

1. Genetic Susceptibility

We now know there is no single “PCOS gene.” Instead, many small genetic variations add up.  For example:

• Some affect how your body responds to insulin, and makes lipids.
• Some shape how your ovaries make and respond to androgens.
• Some influence how your brain controls ovulation.
• Some affect how your brain responds to stress and regulates mood.
• Some affect how your gut-brain communication patterns take place.

Family patterns are real—sisters and brothers of women with PCOS/PMOS often show their own versions of androgen excess, insulin resistance, abnormal lipids, or early metabolic syndrome.

1. Neuroendocrine and Ovarian Changes

PCOS/PMOS reshapes the entire brain–ovary communication signaling:

• The hypothalamus and pituitary send different patterns of signals (especially LH), pushing the ovary toward more androgen production and less orderly cycle progression and ovulation.
• The ovary, in turn, responds by growing many small follicles that do not reach the size needed for ovulation, a pattern reflected in elevated AMH in many women with PCOS.
• Estradiol and progesterone production and rhythms become erratic, making cycles irregular and the hormone levels of the second half of the cycle (luteal phase) lower than needed to support implantation of a fertilized egg (if there was an ovulation),  As a result of lower than optimal levels of estradiol and progesterone, in the setting of excess androgen (“male”) hormones, women can experience sleep disruption, marked irritability, anger outbursts, self-cutting urges, and even “anxiety” attacks with the excess androgens.
• This hormone imbalance is the underlying cause of mood symptoms that get labeled “psychiatric” and treated with antidepressants and other psych meds instead of the hormone imbalance being properly diagnosed and treated.
• Metabolic Dysfunction

Insulin is not just a “sugar hormone.” It is one of the body’s master conductors that directs fat storage and release, stimulates growth of cells and a host of other functions.  In PCOS/PMOS:

• Cells become less responsive to insulin (insulin resistance).
• The pancreas responds by pumping out more insulin, trying to force glucose into cells, but in turn the excess insulin leads to more body fat storage and creates a vicious cycle.
• High insulin drives the ovaries and adrenals to make more androgens, which also contribute to more central body fat storage, especially in the abdomen and around internal organs, the viscera.
• Low‑grade inflammation, oxidative stress, and gut microbiome changes are both the result of the insulin-androgen excess and ovarian hormone imbalance, and also feed this cycle, making it easier to gain weight and harder to lose it, even with serious effort.

This is the “vicious spiral” many women describe: the less they eat, the more exhausted they become, and the more the scale seems to move in the wrong direction. It is not a moral failing; it is a severe metabolic syndrome that needs the right interventions, including Rx medicines at times to break this vicious cycle.

External Causes: Endocrine Saboteurs in The World Around You

Now we turn to the part we often don’t see and few doctors ever talk about: the ways our modern environment full of endocrine disruptors, our highly processed foods full of sugars, and our sedentary lifestyle act on those internal vulnerabilities, and in effect, are pouring gasoline on a fire making it far worse!

1. Endocrine‑Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs)

We live surrounded by chemicals that were never part of the human story for most of our evolutionary history. Some of them can mimic or interfere with hormones—and they do so silently.  I wrote about the many types of endocrine‑disrupting chemicals in my book It’s My Ovaries, Stupid! in 2003 but modern medicine basically ignores the damage they do.

Common endocrine disruptors include:

• Plastics components such as bisphenol A (BPA) and related compounds
• Certain phthalates used in flexible plastics, cosmetics, and personal care products
• Pesticides and herbicides, such as atrazine, glyphosate and many others/
• Flame retardants and industrial solvents
• Some heavy metals, like arsenic, mercury, and cadmium

What makes endocrine disruptors so problematic?

• They can bind to estrogen, androgen, and other hormone receptors, but they don’t act like your natural hormones. They can block, interfere with, or distort the normal cellular signals.
• They increase oxidative stress and low‑grade inflammation—exactly the kind of environment already causing damage in insulin resistance and PCOS/PMOS.
• They can alter how your body handles glucose and fat, pushing you rapidly toward obesity, fatty liver, and diabetes even if you think you are trying to eat a “reasonably healthy” diet.
• In some studies, women with hyperandrogenic PCOS/PMOS have higher levels of BPA in their blood than women without these features, suggesting a real link between chemical exposure and androgen excess.  We need more studies to identify links between PCOS/PMOC and other endocrine disruptors, such as glyphosate and atrazine.

Perhaps most alarming, these environmental chemicals affect the developing baby in subtle and silent ways. A pregnant woman may feel fine, but the baby’s tiny, rapidly developing brain and ovaries are exquisitely sensitive to hormone‑like signals. We are now seeing patterns of earlier puberty, menstrual disturbance, and fertility problems that likely reflect this early exposure to these endocrine-disrupting chemicals in foods and the environment.

2. Persistent Organic Pollutants and “Obesogens”

Some chemicals do not go away. They build up and concentrate in soil, water, and fat tissue— ours and the animals we eat—and persist without being broken down for decades or even longer.  These persistent organic pollutants (POPs) can:

• Build up in our body fat and remain there over our lives.
• Disrupt the normal control of appetite, energy balance, insulin-glucose regulation and how the body handles blood fats (lipids).
• Act as “obesogens” (promoting fat gain) and “diabetogens” (increasing diabetes risk) by reprogramming key metabolic pathways.

This helps explain why two women with similar diets and exercise habits can have very different experiences with weight gain and ovarian hormone function and balance: the unseen chemical load in their bodies may be tipping the scales.

3. Modern Diets and Excitotoxins

Our American food system has changed profoundly since the 1970s.  Prior to that time, most families ate “real foods” locally grown or raised.  In the 1970s, we saw massive pushes and marketing campaigns for newly developed highly processed foods, loaded with chemicals, artificial flavor enhancers, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) sweeteners, soy derivatives, and “supersized” soft drinks full of sugars (either HFCS or artificial sweeteners), processed meats full of nitrates, nitrites, salt and chemical flavorings.  All of these foods aggravate the underlying metabolic-endocrine problems I described above and further add “gasoline to a roaring fire” to accelerate the damage.

Day after day, this pattern of food intake and lack of physical exercise, trains your body into insulin resistance and the “burn out” of your metabolic engines normal function.  On top of that, certain additives—especially high doses of glutamate and related “excitatory amino acids”—act as excitotoxins in the brain to over‑stimulate neurons in the hypothalamus, the very region that coordinates reproduction and appetite.  The result?

• More chaotic signals from brain to ovary (or testes in men)
• More disordered eating cues, and abnormal hormone production
• More difficulty maintaining stable cycles and stable energy

No single snack food “causes” PCOS/PMOS, but the cumulative load of these chemicals and additives, layered onto genetic and hormonal vulnerabilities, can push women into more extreme metabolic damage and abnormal weight gain—again like putting gasoline on a fire making it roar out of control.

1. Lifestyle: Stress, Sleep, and Movement

Those with PCOS/PMOS are even more vulnerable to the physiological damage of lifestyle habits that we often dismiss:

• Chronic stress raises cortisol, promoting central fat gain, insulin resistance, and sleep disruption—all of which amplify the damage already occurring in PCOS/PMOS.
• Poor sleep and sleep apnea are now clearly associated with PCOS/PMOS and these disturbed sleep patterns lead to worsening  insulin resistance, abnormal body fat gain, and also more mood disruption.
• Sedentary life reduces muscle mass, increases fat mass, and increases insulin resistance.  The damage of being sedentary has adverse effects even in people who are not overweight.

These lifestyle damages are not “nice to address when I have time.” These are essential steps to address as part of your treatment plan because they are part of the group of “accelerants” that cause devastating long term health risks in PCOS/PMOS.

1. Unique Damage from the COVID Vaccines

All of the currently available genetic COVID shots contain lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) coating the mRNA or DNA. These LNPs are highly toxic chemicals (including PEG, similar to the chemical in antifreeze) damaging to the ovaries in women and testes in men, even though the LNPs are present to deliver the injection’s genetic material across the cell membranes to be incorporated into the cellular DNA.

Even worse, the LNP’s also drive the COVID shot genetic material across the blood-brain barrier, and also across the placenta in pregnancy to affect the developing baby (the first time an agent deceptively called a “vaccine” could cross either of these protective barriers for the brain and placenta).

The experimental gene therapy products, unlike traditional vaccines, were designed and have been demonstrated to:

• Distribute lipid nanoparticles (coating for mRNA or DNA) to tissues throughout the body, far from the site of vaccination in the arm muscle
• Accumulate in tissues with high levels of ACE-2 receptors (ovaries, testes, lining of blood vessels, heart, lung, intestinal tract, brain). The coronavirus spike proteins bind to ACE-2 receptors to enter and infect our body cells.
• The mRNA is reverse transcribed into human or animal DNA, which then directs the body to continuing generating synthetic spike proteins in cells throughout the body. No one knows how long this occurs. Recent studies show LNPs and spike proteins persist months to years and spike protein levels even rise over time. In testing my own patients, I find increasing spike levels over time, even 6 years after the last COVID shot.  It is seriously wreaking havoc with peoples’ health.
• Stimulate your body to produce antibodies to the spike proteins (which is the immune response).

Lipid Nanoparticle Damage to Endocrine Organs

Pharmaceutical researchers knew in 2012 – nearly a decade before the shots were rolled out in 2021—that LNP concentration in the ovaries and testicles of all animal species tested, and was a risk to all fertility. Studies of the Pfizer vaccine from 2012 and 2020 show that in two different species of mammalian lab animals, the LNPs used in the COVID shots were distributed throughout many organs of the body and were at least 20x greater in the ovaries than in other organs of the body (Pfizer, 2021).

Dr. Mike Yeadon, PhD, former Vice President of Pfizer Pharmaceutical Co, warned in the fall of 2020 and in the Truth for Health STOP THE SHOT! Press Conferences in 2021-2023 that infertility was a risk with the COVID shots, as we have now seen worldwide in women who got the shot. Dr. Yeadon explained there are similarities in structure between parts of the spike protein the COVID shot mRNA incorporated into our own DNA directs the body to make, and a critical protein—syncytin-1—that is critical for a woman’s body to properly form a placenta to support pregnancy.

Disruption in syncytin-1 function means a woman’s body doesn’t develop a placenta, and a fertilized egg either doesn’t implant properly or cannot develop normally without a healthy placenta.  The spike protein interference with Syncytin-1 adds another layer of infertility risk to the already known infertility problems of PCOS/PMOS. In addition, a recent study showed a 3-fold increase in antibodies against the placenta in women who got the COVID shot while pregnant, which amounts to a vaccine-induced autoimmune attack against the placenta, leading to early miscarriages.  Putting it all together, the COVID shot damage adds to the already serious infertility problems that have existed with PCOS/PMOS all along.

These lipid nanoparticles coating the mRNA and DNA COVID shots are now known widely to concentrate in all the endocrine organs of the body. They cause enormous and potentially permanent damage to especially to the ovaries and testicles, resulting in loss of critical hormone production, and damage to both male and female fertility, as well as to damage to other metabolic endocrine pathways dependent on estradiol and testosterone.

Now in 2026, with the outcomes data coming in from all over the world, we see the widespread damage from the lipid nanoparticles and spike proteins accumulating from the COVID shots: they cause inflammation, oxidative damage and dysfunction of all the organs we typically are testing in patients: ovary, testes, thyroid, brain, heart, kidney, intestines, pancreas, nerves, muscles, tendons/ligaments, and the entire immune system.  It is a devastating picture, causing premature disability and early death for millions of people.

How to Put the Pieces Together for YOU

You did not choose your genes. You did not design the food system. You did not invent plastics or pesticides.  You did not know the full truth about the risks of the COVID shots because our public health officials and many medical professionals lied to patients and covered up what was known.

But you are the one living in this body, at this time, and YOU have the ability to CHOOSE the actions needed to help improve your health and resilience, and mitigate the damage of all these saboteurs around you.

Facing up to the reality that PCOS/PMOS is the product of both internal and external forces that you can now identify and begin to change can be very freeing:

• It replaces self-blame, shame and guilt about body size (“If only you had more willpower…”) with biology, environment and medical factors you can identify and change.
• It teaches you where you do have leverage—reducing chemical exposures, choosing more whole foods, honoring sleep, moving your body, and seeking informed care.
• It validates your experience: you are not “crazy” or “lazy” or “just hormonal.” You are living at the crossroads of complex systems gone awry, and you now have choices and action steps available to you to choose to take.

That’s exactly why I wrote the book on PCOS and created a Self-Test to help patients back in 2003 and 2005. It is also the reason we created this new PCOS/PMOS Self-Test Tool to help calculate your own risk now.

The Role of a PCOS/PMOS Self‑Test Calculator

In a world this complex, how do you even begin to make sense of your own pattern? That is where our PCOS/PMOS Self‑Test Calculator can be profoundly helpful.

What It Does.  Our PCOS/PMOS risk calculator is designed to:

• Identify the various symptoms associated with PCOS/PMOS along with menstrual history, body changes, family patterns, and lifestyle factors to help you see if you may fit the diagnosis.
• Highlight patterns that match known PCOS/PMOS profiles—metabolic‑dominant, androgen‑dominant, stress‑dominant, or mixed.
• Flag areas of urgent concern, such as possible prediabetes, high cardiometabolic risk, or significant environmental contributions.

In other words, it takes scattered puzzle pieces and shows you the emerging picture, so you can take the necessary steps for corrective actions.

Why It Matters

Most women with PCOS/PMOS are not diagnosed at their first doctor visit. Many see multiple clinicians over years, each addressing one symptom at a time: acne here, mood there, weight over there, sleep problems with yet another doctor.

A structured self‑test and risk calculator:

• Gives you descriptions and patterns, plus helps you formulate questions to take to your doctor’s appointment.
• Makes it harder for your concerns to be dismissed as “normal” or “just stress.”
• Encourages appropriate testing—such as glucose tolerance tests, lipids, liver health, hormone panels, AMH, and pelvic ultrasound—and get these done sooner rather than later.

Our Self-Test is not a diagnosis. It does not replace a full medical evaluation. But it can shorten the journey from your knowing “something is wrong” to a doctor taking you seriously and helping you get properly tested and treated.

How to Use It
When you sit down with the PCOS/PMOS Self‑Test Calculator:

• Answer honestly about your cycles, symptoms, weight changes, sleep, mood, cravings, and family history.
• Include the environmental and lifestyle questions—even if they feel uncomfortable. They matter.
• Print the results and take it to your personal health care profession, use this as a conversation starter to work with a clinician who is willing to look at the whole pattern, not just one lab value.

Think of it as your personal health spotlight. It doesn’t fix the problem, but it helps you see where to shine your energy, your questions, and your care.
Remember: You deserve more than a label. You deserve an explanation, a framework, and a path forward. PCOS/PMOS is not your fault. It is also not beyond your influence. The more clearly we see its causes—inside the body and outside in the world—the more precisely we can act.
And that is exactly what our tool, the Truth for Health PCOS/PMOS Self‑Test Calculator is meant to help you do.

PCOS Self-Test Tool:  Take the test here. Then print a copy and take it with you to your doctor’s appointment to pursue getting the help you may need.  https://www.truthforhealth.org/app/PCOS/

NOTE: The Truth for Health PCOS/PMOS Self-Test Calculator is adapted from the original self-test in Screaming to Be Heard and The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS and related works by ©Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD (2001–2026). For educational use only — not a substitute for professional medical evaluation. Dr. Vliet’s books are available at the Truth for Health store: shoptruthforhealth.com with profits going to support the public charity outreach.

As you put all the pieces together that I have described today for PCOS/PMOS, many of our natural medicines and supplements with our top quality, cGMP-compliant professional formulas are helpful to improve your health and resilience with this complex metabolic-endocrine disorder: TruMitochondrial™ Boost,  TruNAC™, Tru BioD3, Tru B™ Complex Full Spectrum, TruZinc™, TruC with BioFlavonoids  (Natural sourced Vitamin C with complete Bioflavonoids), and TruProBiotic™ Daily to replenish critical bifidobacteria depleted by COVID shots, viral illnesses, and antibiotic therapy.

All Truth for Health Foundation Products Meet or Exceed cGMP Quality Standards, the highest quality standard for supplements sold in the USA. For more information, references from studies are listed in the Product Data Sheets for each product, available on our website.  Check us out at www.TruthforHealth.org Click on tab for Store.  OR www.shopTruthforHealth.com

CAUTION: As always, we urge you to avoid supplements without checking knowledgeable sources to evaluate your medical situation, proper lab tests to verify what is needed, and to make sure to avoid adverse interactions with prescription medicines and other supplements you take.  Under medical practice regulations, we are unable to answer individual medical questions or make specific individual supplement recommendations for people who are not established patients of Dr. Vliet’s independent medical practice (www.ViveLifeCenter.com).

To Your good health and improving resilience!
Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M