Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

At age 19, when Shere­sa Rahim start­ed ex­pe­ri­enc­ing un­ex­plained weight changes, in­creased pe­ri­od pain, and fa­cial hair growth, she was un­aware that she had Poly­cys­tic Ovary Syn­drome (PCOS). Oth­er symp­toms in­clud­ed men­tal strug­gles and fa­tigue.

Rahim, orig­i­nal­ly from Rio Claro, said she was re­lieved to learn her di­ag­no­sis but had no idea about the syn­drome. She spent the next 10 years learn­ing about the hor­mon­al dis­or­der.

“I re­mem­ber sit­ting in the doc­tor’s of­fice feel­ing re­lieved and con­fused at the same time, wor­ried about what it meant for my fer­til­i­ty and long-term health. It took a lit­tle while for the news to sink in. Af­ter­wards, I felt mo­ti­vat­ed to learn every­thing,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO), Poly­cys­tic Ovary Syn­drome (PCOS) is a com­mon hor­mon­al con­di­tion that af­fects women of re­pro­duc­tive age. PCOS can cause hor­mon­al im­bal­ances, ir­reg­u­lar pe­ri­ods, ex­cess an­dro­gen lev­els, and cysts in the ovaries.

Years lat­er, it was a con­ver­sa­tion among oth­er women at her busi­ness place, “The Face Room,” that sparked her ad­vo­ca­cy. She said they be­gan com­par­ing symp­toms.

“It was al­ways a burn­ing de­sire to get some­thing on the ground for cre­at­ing aware­ness, but I wasn’t sure what it could be,” she said.

As she lis­tened to these women speak about fa­cial ac­ne and un­want­ed hair, ir­reg­u­lar cy­cles, and dif­fi­cul­ty in con­ceiv­ing, she re­alised none of them had been told these could be part of PCOS.

Ac­cord­ing to Aza­lea Health, which has a clin­ic in Trinidad and To­ba­go, near­ly one in four women have PCOS, and al­most 75 per cent of women with the con­di­tion re­port­ed a fam­i­ly his­to­ry of di­a­betes, sug­gest­ing a strong ge­net­ic link. Their PCOS 360 study found that 24.4 per cent of women in the study had PCOS, a rate sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than the glob­al av­er­age.

Rahim said the shared sur­prise on the women’s faces when learn­ing what they may be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing sparked the idea for a 5K to com­mem­o­rate PCOS Aware­ness Month in Sep­tem­ber.

“If ca­su­al chats re­veal this much con­fu­sion… I want­ed to turn that small mo­ment in­to some­thing proac­tive and in­spir­ing,” she said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the 5K.

On Sep­tem­ber 27, through her NGO In­spire­All Foun­da­tion, from the Ma­yaro Pri­ma­ry School, Rahim and oth­ers ran to raise PCOS aware­ness. She chose this method be­cause it’s more wel­com­ing.

“Peo­ple of many fit­ness lev­els can par­tic­i­pate by walk­ing or run­ning, so it’s in­clu­sive. It cre­ates a vis­i­ble com­mu­ni­ty mo­ment, gen­er­at­ing pub­lic aware­ness, and pairs well-be­ing (ex­er­cise) with ed­u­ca­tion. Equal­ly, ed­u­cat­ing men so that they can un­der­stand and take bet­ter care of our women in the homes. This PCOS dis­ease is trig­gered by an im­bal­ance in hor­mones in a woman’s body,” she said.

Rahim was able to ex­plain the symp­toms to those present as she ad­vo­cat­ed for lifestyle changes over con­tra­cep­tion.

She ex­plained that PCOS treat­ments in­clude lifestyle changes (di­et, ex­er­cise, weight man­age­ment), hor­mon­al con­tra­cep­tives, in­sulin-sen­si­tis­ing drugs like met­formin, fer­til­i­ty treat­ments such as letro­zole, weight-loss med­ica­tions like GLP-1 ag­o­nists, and, in some cas­es, bariatric surgery.

Rahim said ear­ly de­tec­tion, ed­u­ca­tion, and lifestyle man­age­ment are crit­i­cal, and the 5K was on­ly the be­gin­ning. She plans to host com­mu­ni­ty talks, school out­reach, clin­ic part­ner­ships, so­cial me­dia cam­paigns, and sup­port groups.

“You’re not alone, and you don’t have to ‘tough it out.’ Symp­toms are re­al and treat­able. Start by talk­ing to a trust­ed GP, gy­nae­col­o­gist, or en­docri­nol­o­gist — and ask for ba­sic screen­ing,” she said.

Any­one search­ing for more in­for­ma­tion can con­tact Rahim of In­spire­ALL Foun­da­tion at 384-4295 / 719-4140 or shere­sarahim@in­spire-23.com.