Florence Pugh Reveals Why She Froze Her Eggs at 27 After Being Diagnosed With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Endometriosis
Florence Pugh was stunned at the major life decision she had to make at age 27.
The Little Women actress, now 28, opened up about having to freeze her eggs in her twenties after being diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis.
"I’d just had this sudden feeling that I should go and get everything checked," Pugh said during an appearance on the "SHE MD" podcast with her doctor Thaïs Aliabadi. "Like, I’d had a few weird dreams; I think my body was telling me."
After meeting with her physician, she asked the Hollywood star if she had ever gotten an egg count before. “I was like, 'No. What do you mean? I’m so young, why do I need an egg count?'” Pugh recalled.
The Black Widow star soon started to realize she was exhibiting all of the symptoms of PCOS. "I had acne, I definitely have hair that shouldn’t be in certain places, but I just thought that was part of being a woman and also living a maybe slightly stressful life," Pugh added. "Like, I didn’t think that constant weight fluctuation would also be a part of it. And I’m someone that has never been the same size in my entire life. I’ve always gone up and down and up and down."
After learning of her health hurdle, the U.K. native's ability to have children came into play. “It was just so bizarre because my family are baby-making machines,” she explained. “My mum had babies into her 40s, my gran … had so many kids as well. I just never assumed that I was going to be in any way different and that there was going to be an issue with it.”
"Just by me learning the tiniest bit of information that Thaïs has taught me, it’s led for other women to go and check to see if they also have the same,” she said. “My life is completely changed since finding out this information, and in a great way, because it means that I have to really be on the ball and I have to really wake up and take it more seriously than I would have done.”
Pugh has been extremely candid about her personal struggles since being thrust into the public eye. "It's so hard. [The internet's] a very mean place. It's really painful to read people being nasty about my confidence or nasty about my weight. It never feels good," she admitted in an interview earlier this year.
Despite the negative comments, Pugh has always stayed true to who she is. "The one thing I always wanted to achieve was to never sell someone else, something that isn’t the real me," she added. "I don’t think it’s confidence in hoping people like me. I think it’s just, like, I don’t want to be anyone else. I’m not a model. It’s portraying a completely different version of myself that I don’t necessarily believe in."