‘Anything Goes’ Can’t Stop Laughing Emma Chamberlain, 23, Says PCOS Diagnosis ‘Really Changed My Life’— How Her Perspective On Beauty Has ‘Shifted’

Speaking in YouTube video for vogue, uploaded on April 22, Chamberlain, “I got diagnosed with PCOS at the hair salon. I was sitting in the chair getting my hair washed and a woman was next to me and she turned to me and she said, ‘Do you have PCOS?’

“I was like, ‘I don’t know. My mom has PCOS. She has PCOS and endometriosis and she’s had a lot of challenges.’ And she was like, ‘I think you have PCOS.'”

Chamberlain explained further, about the hair salon incident that took place last year, “She could tell by the acne that was on my cheeks. Turns out she was an OBGYN and she diagnosed me with PCOS.

“It’s really changed my life, to be honest.”

As for how the diagnosis has been life-changing, as she was able to find a medication that helped her condition, she said, “My periods are so much more chill. My skin is so much more predictable.

“My hair is getting thicker. It’s just feeling like I’m coming back to myself in a way.”

Chamberlain noted that the medication she’s been put on for her PCOS has helped her “body regulate hormones.”

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Speaking on the Vogue vlog, after insisting how she doesn’t prefer to use blush, even though it’s “so in,” she continued, “Makeup becomes more fun when it’s more about sort of enhancing what you already have. Or transforming into a character.

“When I think back to when I had acne and I was wearing makeup to try and cover the acne, and it was sort of this stressful thing. It wasn’t fun when that was my relationship to makeup. Where as now … I’m either putting it on to look weird or look kind of cute at the store.”

She continued, “My perspective on beauty has shifted a lot. I think, I’m personally less concerned about looking conventionally attractive.

“And I’m far more interested in looking sort of interesting.”

Chamberlain previously spoke about her PCOS publicly in March of last year, explaining on her podcast “Anything Goes,” I found out it’s the reason that for many years I’ve had irregular periods, cystic acne, anxiety, depression, and a slew of other issues.

“It could also possibly impact my fertility, which is upsetting. It’s definitely a bummer.”

She added, “It’s common. I know a lot of girls with PCOS and I think I have a milder version of it. I don’t have the cysts, I don’t have all of the symptoms of PCOS, but alas, I have it.”

Chamberlain, whose mom has PCOS, noted how she hopes she will be able to have children in her future, like how her mom was still able to have her despite living with PCOS.

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Noting how her mom also has endometriosis, Chamberlain said, “Apparently I might also have [endometriosis], but I haven’t been fully tested for it. Whatever. My mom has PCOS. She’s managed it throughout her life pretty well. She was able to get pregnant with me pretty easily, and I think that that gives me hope in a way that hopefully I will be fertile.”

She continued, “But she also put me on a medication that will help with my hormones to hopefully keep the PCOS in a better state. Because you can’t heal PCOS, there’s no cure for it, but you can manage the symptoms and manage your hormones so that it doesn’t impact your life as much.

“So she put me on this medication. Now I’m not going to share what medication it is just because I think everybody’s on their own journey, and I think it’s best to speak to your doctor instead of hear what somebody else is on and be like, oh, I want to do that. I just think that that’s a slippery slope.”

Learning About PCOS & Cancer Risk

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) stems from a hormone imbalance impacting women during their reproductive years.

While health experts can’t pinpoint the exact cause of PCOS currently, the CDC says women with higher-than-normal androgen levels play a role in developing the condition. Other risk factors include being insulin resistant or overweight if you have a family history of PCOS or type 2 diabetes.

The National Institutes of Health points to the following symptoms that are associated with the condition.

• Menstrual irregularities (missed periods, no menstrual periods, very heavy periods)
• Excessive hair growth
• Severe acne
• Weight gain
• Oily skin
• Patches of thick discolored skin

While there is no cure for PCOS, leading a healthy lifestyle that includes proper diet and exercise helps. Medicines can also help with associated symptoms.

According to the National Institutes of Health, “PCOS increases the risk of some types of cancer. For instance, some research has shown that risk of cancer of the endometrium, the inside lining of the uterus, may be higher for women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) than it is for women without PCOS. Irregular periods, or a lack of periods, can cause the endometrium to build up and become thick. This thickening can lead to endometrial cancer.

“Data on links between breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and PCOS are limited. While some small studies have suggested that a lack of ovulation, as occurs with PCOS, is linked with an increased risk of breast cancer, other studies have not shown an association.”

The NIH adds, “While some research has shown more than a doubling of the risk of ovarian cancer in women with PCOS, scientists have not confirmed these links in large population studies, and further studies hint that women with PCOS may have a lower risk of ovarian cancer. Therefore, any associations between breast or ovarian cancers and PCOS remain inconclusive.”

Dr. Dana Chase, a gynecologic oncologist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, previously told to SurvivorNet,”PCOS is a condition that involves irregular menses, meaning women with PCOS have anovulatory bleeding. They don’t ovulate every month.

“So anovulatory bleeding is a risk factor for endometrial cancer, and it’s one of the characteristics of a patient that has PCOS. ”

Dr. Dana Chase explains what would be considered irregular bleeding

Additionally, PCOS increases insulin resistance so that the body’s cells don’t respond normally to insulin. This further over stimulates cell growth.

RELATED: Endometrial Cancer — How to Spot the Signs And Symptoms Earlier

If you have PCOS, this does not necessarily mean you will get endometrial cancer, Dr. Chase noted. Your doctor will recommend regular monitoring and management strategies, to both treat the disease and watch for endometrial cancer. Recommendations usually include lifestyle changes to maintain a healthy weight and medications to regulate the menstrual cycle and reduce insulin resistance.

Additionally, a 2019 Swedish study reported that women with PCOS were at a 3.4 times increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

An earlier Danish cohort study, from 2015, also found that women with PCOS were at an increased risk of developing kidney cancer. The Danish study also found that women with PCOS had an increased risk for developing endometrial, colon, and brain cancers.

Understanding Endometriosis—a Disorder Chamberlain’s Mom Lives With

Confusion may exist about whether endometriosis [an often painful condition in which tissue similar to the tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus grows outside your uterus] is linked to cancer, but there’s no research that connects the two together. Although endometriosis may present symptoms similar to endometrial cancer, it is “not cancer,” OB/GYN and oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Dr. Bobbie Rimel previously told SurvivorNet.

“Endometriosis is the term for whenever those endometrial cells, those lining of the uterus cells, are outside of their normal place, which is inside the uterus,” Dr. Rimel explained, again adding that it is a benign condition, which means non-cancerous.

Dr. Bobbie Rimel explains the difference between endometrial cancer and endometriosis.

“Endometrial cancer is actually when cells of the lining of the uterus become cancerous and begin to invade the uterus wall,” Dr. Rimel continued. “[The cancer cells] may spread to the fallopian tubes, to the ovaries or the lining of the pelvis or elsewhere in the body.”

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, endometriosis usually occurs on or near reproductive organs in the pelvis or abdomen, can be found in other areas such as the fallopian tubes, ligaments around the uterus (uterosacral ligaments), lining of the pelvic cavity, ovaries, outside surface of the uterus, space between the uterus and the rectum or bladder.

In rare circumstances, it can also grow on and around the bladder, cervix, intestines, rectum, stomach (abdomen), and vagina or vulva.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Endometriosis often causes severe pain in the pelvis, especially during menstrual periods. Some people also have pain during sex or when using the bathroom. Some people have trouble getting pregnant.

“Some people with endometriosis don’t have any symptoms. For those who do, a common symptom is pain in the lower part of the belly (pelvis). Pain may be most noticeable during a period, during or after sex, when urinating or defecating.”

Some people may also experience the following symptoms:

• Chronic pelvic pain
• Heavy bleeding during periods or between periods
• Trouble getting pregnant
• Bloating or nausea
• Fatigue
• Depression or anxiety

Resilience Through Adversity

We truly admire Emma Chamberlain’s determination to manage PCOS, which is why we’d like to point out how SurvivorNet specializes in covering the lives of people who overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It’s looking at the positive side of things that helps them maintain their resilience.

WATCH: Defining and Building Resilience

Dr. Zuri Murrell, an oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously spoke to SurvivorNet about the role of a positive outlook on survival rates, saying, “I’m pretty good at telling what kind of patient are going to still have this attitude and probably going to live the longest, even with bad, bad disease. And those are patients who, they have gratitude in life.”

Resilience is an important trait, but not the easiest to build. The ultimate goal is not to avoid tough times, but to be able to bounce back from them. And yet, when they are faced with an overwhelming, life-changing situation, how do people shift their view? How do they learn to see the problem as temporary, rather than permanent, and figure out a solution?

It’s complicated, because building resilience is more about your mental and emotional fortitude than anything else. According to the American Psychological Association, “the resources and skills associated with more positive adaptation (i.e., greater resilience) can be cultivated and practiced.” In other words, resilience is not something you’re born with, which should be encouraging. Instead, after every challenge in your life, you build more and more resilience to those hard times.

You can build resilience the way you build muscle – through patience and steady exercise of the skill. Here are some lessons taken from Fischer, Runkel, and Soller, all who have spoke with SurvivorNet in earlier interviews.

• Be willing to learn. If one way doesn’t work, find a different way. If an obstacle lands in your way, build a path around it or over it. In Resilience, one of the athletes says, “You always have to be learning. Otherwise, life gets stagnant.” The more you learn, the more you grow and growth is a sign of resilience.
• Spend time with people who inspire you. Our world is filled with people who overcome challenges, and their success can energize you to overcome your own. Think about famous people who hava faced adversity and did not give up Stephen King actually threw his manuscript, Carrie, in the trash because it had been rejected by publishers so many times. His wife encouraged him to keep sending it out, and he finally sold it in 1974 launching a massively successful career as a novelist. Take the time to read and learn about the lives of Helen Keller, Jackie Robinson, Bethany Hamilton, Nelson Mandela, and others.
• Allow yourself to grieve. Don’t push away or dismiss your frustration and sadness. Ben Fischer says that life can be filled with lots of crying, but “Those cries make us stronger.”
• Be flexible. Abandon the idea that there is only one solution or that you must stick to your original plan. The best solution or plan is the one that eventually works. You may need to change your original plan as the circumstances change.
• Lean in to your community. Your friends, colleagues, and family are invaluable, and when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed by a problem, their support can carry you. The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest study of human well-being. Many news outlets have covered its results, which show that maintaining strong, healthy relationships helped people live longer lives. Psychiatrist and author Dr. Samantha Boardman tells SurvivorNet that connecting with and contributing to the lives of other people are two of “the three wellsprings of vitality” (the third is feeling positively challenged).

How to Turn Stress into Strength

Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

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