Pretty Little Liars actress Sasha Pieterse says she gained 70 pounds at age 17 during PCOS battle

Sasha Pieterse says she gained 30 pounds in about a year as a teenager while dealing with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome).

“When I turned around, it was probably around 15-16, I started noticing a difference in just my metabolism in general,” the 27-year-old star said on the podcast Wednesday The pinch hosted by Taylor Lautner and his wife Taylor Dome.

The Johannesburg, South Africa-born actress said the weight gain started when she was 17.

“When I was 17, I put on 70 pounds in the year for no reason,” said Pieterse, best known for playing Alison DiLaurentis in Pretty Little Liars and Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists.

She said that at the time: “There was no explanation for it.”

The actress delved into medical details about how she sought answers from “more than 15 gynecologists” about her physical condition.

“I’ve never had a normal period,” she said, “and gynecologists always said I was just young — like, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll regulate.'”

Pieterse said on the podcast that she was misled by some of her doctors into believing the weight gain was a direct result of her actions.

“It was very, very confusing,” Pieterse said. “It was the most frustrating experience and disheartening.”

The Honor List actress said that “things actually got worse rather than better,” despite doing everything she could to combat the problem.

“No matter what I did, no matter how well I behaved, no matter how well I treated my body,” she said.

Help eventually came in the form of an endocrinologist who was able to properly diagnose the cause of her illness as PCOS, a condition she was initially unaware of.

“I was like, ‘What’s that?'” Pieterse said. “I had never heard of PCOS. And it’s a disease, it can’t be cured, it can be dormant.’

Pieterse is best known for playing Alison DiLaurentis in Pretty Little Liars and Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists

Pieterse said on the podcast that she was misled by some of her doctors into believing the weight gain was a direct result of her actions, adding: ‘It was very, very confusing’

Eventually help came in the form of an endocrinologist who was able to properly diagnose the cause of her illness: PCOS, a condition that Pieterse was initially unaware of

The actress, who is mum to son Hendrix, four, with husband Hudson Sheaffer, 33, said she had ‘a lot of those outward signs that everyone could see’

Pieterse said “the most frustrating thing about” her situation was that it was “fairly easy to diagnose.”

She added, “It’s a hormonal imbalance. It’s a hormone disease, and it’s so easy to see because your testosterone or your estrogen will be very high, you will have very low vitamin D levels, you will be deficient in a lot of things.”

She said symptoms can vary drastically from person to person, including weight gain, hair growth, ovarian cysts or gastrointestinal problems.

The actress, who is mum to son Hendrix, two, with husband Hudson Sheaffer, 33, said she had “a lot of those outward signs that everyone could see.”