Borderline personality disorder and polycystic ovary syndrome

Résumé

The letter presents a case report of Emma, who is a 22-year-old woman with a history of sexual abuse by her stepfather from age 10 years until she ran away from home at age 15 years. Since then, Emma had multiple psychiatric hospitalizations for suicide attempts, ongoing self-harm (lacerating her arms and legs), rapid mood swings, very poor self esteem, episodic outbursts of rage and poor concentration. Emma received PCOS treatment of metformin (1000 mg twice daily [BD]), transdermal oestradiol (100 μg patch) and cyclical progesterone. She described great improvements in her mood and self-harming thoughts and behaviors. The case above and recent work indicate that ovarian hormones might have significant effects on psychological functioning of women with BPD. Additional work is needed to ascertain whether there exists a causal relationship between altered hypothalamic– pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis hormone levels and BPD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)