#and I plan on getting a hysterectomy at some point for my endometriosis

[gxlden-angels]

I hate hearing about the Quiverfull movement. I hate hearing about it politically. I hate hearing about it from people who don't know anything about it. I hate hearing about it from people who only know the Duggars. I hate hearing about it from people who grew up next to it, but not in it. I hate hearing about it from women stuck in it right now. I hate hearing about it from women who were stuck in it. I hate the Quiverfull movement and I hate hearing about it.

[vamptastic]

I mostly just really hope this isn't another problem related to my reproductive system and is just GI stuff, I'm kind of worried I'm dealing with endometriosis because I never got an ultrasound to check for it when getting diagnosed for PCOS and I was supposed to. I need a hysterectomy so bad it's not even funny

[dzzystrs]

LOE UPDATE; i got spayed (a hysterectomy)!

i just wanted to talk about it a little bit, i know i dont use this blog much anymore especially for personal stuff, but this is kinda yknow. a huge life update!

i tried two birth controls over the last year and a half that both made me um. crazy. worsened my depression significantly, did not improve my periods, yada yada. my psychiatrist (who i LOVE!!!!!!) had referred me to her childhood best friend who is an obgyn and EXTREMELY queer friendly (and she is a lesbian!!!) and we discussed my options going forward, which was essentially iud or surgery. i refuse to try anything i couldn't stop taking immediately (bc of my past experience w birth control), so i got referred to her obgyn surgeon that she adores (and i also now adore <3)9

and pretty much he agreed that surgery was probably in my best interest, im trans w/ no interest in having children, i probably have/had endometriosis, and my periods were ruining my life, so despite my living in oklahoma and being 22 y/o, he got my scheduled within a month and half to get my surgery. WHICH WAS A LOT TO PROCESS, but now im one day post op and maybe its the oxy talkin but im so . relieved. happy.

they found a cyst on my right ovary while operating, plus lesions that are indicative of endometriosis, but allegedly the cyst can be a sign of severe stage of endometriosis which. explains a lot of the pain i was in. and also for me at least justified my hysto so much more. it's only been about 24 hours since they used a robot to remove thangs from me, but i've felt very little pain so far.

and the craziest part about all of this is im not medically transitioned my doctor is so crazily transfriendly and the first thing i heard when i woke up from surgery was someone gendering me correctly. i never heard my deadname once throughout all of this, my preferred name is on all my medical documents and my wristband. i feel so fortunate and grateful and just. happy. joy. i got a fucking HYSTERECTOMY in oklahoma as a non medically transitionated they/he and i was respected the ENTIRE time. i feel insane /pos

ok i think thats all my thoughts for now. i just wanted to share this experience while i was having all my feelings about it n stuff. i might post more, i might not, i think i Will have to crowdfund at some point to help pay off my surgery depending on how my payment plan gets set up, if not then to at least supplement some of my income that im losing while on leave to cover essentials and medical copays. so you still might hear about it in that capacity lol

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hey sex witch,

So I’ve suffered from V Bad Periods since I was around 13(passing out, throwing up, the works) and have been on various hormonal for the past 15 years. It typically helps for a while, but sometimes stops working after a while or, with the Nuva ring I have now, works some months and not others.

My family has a loooong history of endometriosis, and my aunt and grandmother both had hysterectomies, so I brought it up as a possibility to my doc, and she said “everyone has some endometriosis, it’s not a reason you’re in pain”. When I asked to be examined for it anyway, she did some pressure tests with her fingers where she pressed spots and asked if it hurt (it did after a while but not like cramps, which I told her, just like discomfort cuz it sucked) and she told me that my uterus was “overreacting in preparation to nonexistent trauma” from past bad periods and to take some Tylenol a few days leading up to my period and maybe see a pelvic floor doc.

Am I wrong to feel super dismissed? I thought endometriosis was checked with an ultrasound, not fingers? Should I get a second opinion or am I overblowing it?

hey your doctor can meet me in the fucking pit, I'm so sorry you were treated this way

"everyone has endometriosis" is??? categorically untrue; only about 10-20% of people w/ a uterus are estimated to have endo, and if you do then it's absolutely something that you can reasonably expect to be causing pain and difficult periods. it's also known to run in families, which means it's ENTIRELY reasonable to suspect that you also have it and ask for help making sure.

and more to the point: if you have a patient who's been experiencing chronic, severe, life-altering pain for over a decade, chalking it up to overreacting is a dick move and frankly irresponsible medical care. if you don't think it's endo, great, but jesus christ you need to be working on a plan to help figure out what the fuck is going on, because "it's nothing" doesn't cut it when someone's passing out on the reg.

also re: ultrasounds: they aren't a way to definitively diagnose endo, but they can help locate cysts in your reproductive systems that a standard pelvic exam could miss. based on everything you've told me here, an ultrasound looking for reproductive anomalies is a very reasonable thing for you to be seeking.

genuinely fuck this doctor, please send me her address so I can fight her while you seek another opinion elsewhere.

[vaspider]

So... I know we often avoid talking about "what else this drug is used for" when it comes to birth control and abortion medication, and for good reason - those uses don't need other justification.

But like, I do think that when we talk about some of these medications, there are people who are incredibly well-informed about these issues - who make it a point to be well-educated - who don't realize, hey, wait a minute... outlawing this has a lot more impact than I thought it would... maybe it's time to make people aware.

I picked up a prescription for misoprostol today. For myself. Now, I had my fallopian tubes put 4 years ago. I can't become pregnant unless my eggs learn to teleport or IVF gets involved, so why would I need this medication?

Well, without getting too far into the weeds, because I've been living with an incredible amount of abdominal pain for months, and while we have found fibroids that might be causing it, with my family history of endometriosis, the surgeon wants to make sure that she's doing the right surgery when I get my hysterectomy. So before I go under the knife, she needs to do an endometrial biopsy.

That means she needs to dilate my cervix enough for that biopsy.

That means misoprostol: a safe, effective means of dilating my cervix so I can have this very necessary procedure done so we know what kind of surgery I need.

I cannot stress enough that I've been loud about abortion rights for decades, and I'm the kind of nerd who wants to know how things work. I'm exactly the kind of person who should know that this is another use of this medication, and I didn't know. So if I didn't know that, I'm willing to bet the vast majority of other people don't know it, either.

This has implications for everybody who can become pregnant, yes, the plans that these asshats have, but those implications go far beyond even that massive impact.

When politicians play doctor over their current wedge issue, people suffer. We're seeing that writ large in the Katie Cox case, but now let me repeat: even if you can't get pregnant, even if you're not trans, as politicians continue doing their Fascism Conga Line through people's rights, you are not safe. The medication you need might be a multi-use medication that could also be used for a Forbidden Purpose, and then you'd be SOL.

You're going to see a lot of posts on here in the next year about how "both sides are the same" and "you might as well not vote" or "oh anybody with a conscience should vote Green" or whatever.

It always happens, like clockwork. It's depressing how many people can't spot this shit a mile away.

We have been hurtling towards this tipping point basically since Bush v. Gore, and headed towards it for longer. The Dominionists - literal Christofascists who truly believe that Jesus will arrive on earth if they can get all the Jews into Israel, among other things - have been playing an extremely long game with stacking courts and state-level jobs, and they've got enough people in enough places to push us way back.

The Presidential race is extremely important, yes, unspeakably so, but this next round of elections is important at every level. We've seen what school boards can do - or undo - and we've seen what elections for state Supreme Courts can do.

It is imperative that we listen to what we're being told. These people are saying, "I'm going to be a dictator, and we're going to push back civil rights on every level as hard as we can." We have to fucking listen when they tell us that.

"GOP operatives have already crafted an expansive blueprint, 887 pages long, laying out in painstaking detail how they intend to govern, including plans to leverage virtually every arm, tool and agency of the federal government to attack abortion access. The document explicitly names their intention not just to rescind FDA approval for the abortion pill if they regain control of the White House in 2024, but to revive a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending or receiving through the mail any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” that could be used to facilitate an abortion. That law, the Comstock Act, is viewed as a de facto federal abortion ban by reproductive rights advocates and anti-abortion activists alike."

When somebody tells you in that much detail what they're going to do if you let them... believe them.

Please get registered early, and vote.

[farfromsugafanfic]

My Mom’s Pregnancy & What Happened

This week has been among one of the worst of my life. A variety of factors within my personal and professional life contributed to this. However, the thing that took the cake was that my mom got pregnant.

Allow me to explain.

While in almost every other circumstance, my mom getting pregnant would be a happy occasion. While edging close to 50, it wouldn’t be impossible for her to carry a healthy baby to term without issue. There’s only one problem. My mom doesn’t have a uterus.

When I was a kid, my mom had a hysterectomy where her uterus was removed to treat endometriosis and other issues. Her ovaries and Fallopian tubes were left, however, my mom had had her tubes tied some years before.

In every way, it should’ve been nearly impossible for my mom to get pregnant. And, since she did not have a uterus for the embryo to implant itself, the pregnancy was ectopic.

Ectopic pregnancies refer to when a baby implants itself in a structure other than the uterus. This most common occurs in the Fallopian tubes, which is where my mom’s pregnancy was.

Ectopic pregnancies are extremely dangerous. The two main risks are: 1). The ovary or tube bursting causing massive amounts of internal bleeding and causing the person to bleed to death 2). Sepsis which is where an infection reaches the bloodstream. Sepsis often comes with a 50% chance of survival.

My mom had been feeling tired and off for a few weeks. This past week she began to vomit and even remarked to my stepdad, “This feels like the morning sickness I had with [my brother’s name].” She eventually felt bad enough that she went to the doctor.

The baby survived almost to 16 weeks. Nearly 4 months. That is absolutely insane for an ectopic pregnancy. By the time the pregnancy was discovered, the placenta was gone. Doctors believed that the baby had a placenta at one point, or else the baby would have died long before.

The baby had no chance of survival. While alive for a short time after discovery, the baby died within a day. Since the baby had no chance, the doctors told my mom to abort the baby since he was going to die anyway. The medication would not be available for a day.

The baby, who we found out was a boy, died before my mom took the medication. However, unlike a traditional miscarriage, due to my mom’s altered anatomy, she still needed to take the medication to remove the baby from her body. If she did not, she risked either her tube bursting or sepsis.

Doctors gave her large doses of antibiotics to prevent infection and sepsis. At this point on the second day after the baby died, my mom’s tube was about to burst.

My mother is one of the strongest people I know. She was a single mom for most of my life, a breast cancer survivor, survived and dealt with four decades of emotional abuse, and always worked hard to give my brother and I a good life.

This is the most broken I have ever seen her. When I was finally able to come and stay with her, she told me about how she cried when the cashier asked her how she was, had to leave the grocery store when she saw a mom buying diapers, and she still believes this is somehow her fault.

My mom is physically improving everyday. She is still on a 4000mg dose of antibiotics (that is inordinately high) which is taking a toll on her body. She still feels pain and gets tired. But she’s getting better.

Mentally, she still can’t see kids too much. She is still crying a lot. But, I have been able to provide her comfort that I feel only a daughter and other woman can provide. Normally, my mom lives only with my stepdad and brother. I think having another woman in the house who can understand this on a level they cannot has been helpful.

For me, this was scary. I almost lost my mom to breast cancer when I was young. While I was not aware of it at the time, I still think everyday about the cancer returning. I am especially close with my mom and the thought of losing her, especially to something like this, made me want to burn the world down.

I thought of the people who would value the life of her dead baby over her. How they would condemn her to death along with her child. I wish I could erase the guilt my mom feels. I wish I could erase the pain and the hurt. I wish this never would’ve happened.

For a few days, even after taking the medication, the situation was tenuous. My mom had a fever and her tube was on the cusp of bursting. She could’ve been rushed into emergency surgery at any minute. As someone with anxiety already, I found myself the closest to a mental breakdown than I have for years.

The one person I cannot lose in this world is my mom. And I almost did.

It is going to take some time for my family and I to recover from this. We are planning a memorial for the baby and need some time to allow our mental health to improve.

For me personally, I am looking into psychiatric evaluation, more extensive therapy, and possibly medication. While I have been working towards all those things for a month or so now, this made it an absolutely necessity.

I truly hope that none of you experience this. My mom had no choice but to let the baby die. We had no choice but to wait and watch and hope my mom’s condition would improve.

Please be patient with me as I take some time off from writing. Thank you 💜

Alyce

[coridallasmultipass]

Vent / personal / tmi / menstruation / endometriosis / long post ... Im so fucking sick of healthcare professionals telling me to just wait it out and pushing my problems onto other doctors I just got my 5th shot of lupron and have 1 more next month. On my appointment last week i told the gyn how ive been having much more cramping and tissue but not blood coming out regularly and he said its possible the combined lupron and norethindrone are making my uterine lining too thin, and to stop the norethindrone (it was being prescribed to help any menopause-like side effects the lupron can have) And less than 24 hours after my first missed dose i get a full blown period complete with extreme mood swings and depression Im not bleeding this week but im still cramping and the mood swings are so fucking bad, being chronically ill and not getting enough relief from any of my medications is making all of this worse but im literally breaking down over any little thing The lupron and norethindrone combined i guess have been suppressing all my emotions bc this is what it was like on the daily before i started it (just not as bad) which is telling me that none of my psych meds are working but whatever I just now got off the phone with my psych and he said he doesnt want to do anything with my meds or dosing bc he says its related to hormones and thats what my gyn needs to address and i Need To Wait im fucking sick of waiting i cant do this ive been waiting since last august!!!!!!! I now have to wait 2 more whole months of mood swings until i can have another appointment with him hes refused to actually screen me for adhd too and says its bc im An Artist type that im not able to sit down and draw anything since last fall like i fucking hate him and he never gets my name or pronouns right and i cant go see a new psych bc of all the closures and i dont wanna call my gyn bc he said if things get worse i need to have a pelvic ultrasound done again and i cant do it!!! I fucking cant do it it hurts too much im too traumatized from depoprovera and mirena that i cant even touch myself without extreme dysphoria and fear that im going to cramp Its killing me that as someone who was so personally sexual to completely be traumatized from the road to an endometriosis diagnosis that i can no longer masturbate or even talk about sex without anxiety and being trans on top of it hurts even more Next gyn appt is my last injection of lupron and im really gonna push to plan for a partial hysterectomy (i only had endo cysts on the back of my uterus but it was 100% confirmed with surgery and biopsy) so i hope it will help so i can stop taking all these fucking hormonal medications like Before being diagnosed i was really planning on going on testosterone but now im too scared because i feel like it would really fuck up my health problems more - mentally and physically Ive given up on passing and am trying to focus on body acceptance especially now that ove had rapid weight gain that isnt being addressed by any of ky doctors i bring it up to God im just trying to vent here but seriously Do not take the diagnosis of endometriosis lightly its super serious to go forth with any treatments and you really have to commit to long term treatments and its a gamble either way For me not starting any treatments was unacceptable i needed help with extreme monthly periods and all forms of birth control ive tried exacerbated symptoms and never stopped bleeding - i literally cannot personally recommend any form of medical birth control bc every one has fucked me over, many different pills at different points in my life, shot (depoprovera gave me debilitating cramps and i bled non stop all 3 months which started this whole journey to diagnosis), iud (iud was the worst i had to go to the er bc the gyn refused to give me pain meds and i was screaming in pain a few hours later unBle to move or think - i really cannot stress enough how painful and long insertion is like it was the longest 5-10 minutes of my life crying while it felt like a knife going through me) I really dont want that ultrasound tho ffs i had to get the first one done while i was in full force cramps during my depoprovera shot and the pelvic ultrasound rod is humongous and they dig it around inside you (i already had a painful and hard time trying to have pleasurable penetration even by myself or with partners) and it takes like 40 minutes of jumbling around your insides for them to document every thing like at least at that time i was only like 2 months from my last time jerking off but now its been almost 6 months of me not even thinking about putting more than one finger in to clean myself in the shower like to go right into an huge ultrasound is going to be so painful and anxiety inducing and i cant do it id rather go straight into surgery My biggest phobias have to do with pain around this part of my anatomy i cannot stress enough how long ive wanted a hysterectomy just so i dont have to fear accidentally getting p r e g... like i would literally kms... i would probably be able to handle the pain of cutting off my arm with a rusty knife better than extreme cramping pain like i had with the iud or ultrasound its such a phobia and now its source of trauma for me from everything ive gone through the last 6 months Having to readjust my life goals from doing p o r n as a hobby and wanting to transition and be who i am, to becoming a vegetable and trying to cope with the fact that i cant ever transition how i hoped Everything just really sucks for me right now and i have literally no social life any more, not even online bc im so stressed about my health and my attention is so bad i cant focus on a convo online, my laptop is about at its grave so all i have is a phone and xbox with bare minimum internet speed.. i live in the middle of nowhere and cant get my license bc the person who was guiding me to drive is an essential worker in a hospital so i cant go in their car any more... im just so fucking alone i cant do anything except break my back gardening and then cry about it later bc my fucking meds dont fucking work!!!!!!!!! Oh thats another thing im also dealing with fucking gerd on top of all this and i cant get the proceedure i need done to confirm if i need surgery or not bc the fucking lockdown!!!! So im stuck taking pantoprazole (been trying similar meds since march 2019 and its currently june 2020!!!!!!) I just want to eat tomatoes and chocolate again it fucking kills me if i dont take pantoprazole i will lose my voice and have such a sore throat and ears from the stomach acid and i know im gonna have to stop it for 2 weeks for one of the tests i need done and its going to be literal hell like it feels worse than strep throat ill probably do the thing where i start choking and coughing at night bc it gets so bad Im a fucking mess like why couldnt all of this happen one at a time I really want to get my belly pierced again bc i feel so naked without it but i cant bc i probably will be having 2 surgeries once covid blows over (if it ever does) Sorry for taking up so much dash space im just really hurting and need some outlet bc therapy isnt helping rn

[millerflintstone]

reproductive system update

When I went to my gynecologist’s office earlier in the year, the news I got in terms of what can be done due to my almost never ending periods was not the best.

It seems I  have adenomyosis - “occurs when the tissue that normally lines the uterus (endometrial tissue) grows into the muscular wall of the uterus. The displaced tissue continues to act normally — thickening, breaking down and bleeding — during each menstrual cycle. An enlarged uterus and painful, heavy periods can result.” I have a fibroid that might make an ablation difficult. Ablation lasts about 10 years, from what I was told. I’d probably be in menopause by then to where I wouldn’t need another one.  Based on where the fibroid is, it’s possible it could be done but not guaranteed.

There is surgery to remove fibroids but they tend to come back in a lot of cases.

Based on the options available and their pro / cons, I decided on getting a hysterectomy. I’d keep my remaining ovary since I’d like to not go into menopause yet. I have no history of ovarian cancer in my family either.

I figured I’d need another surgery at some point because of the endometriosis but I never considered a hysterectomy being an option. It floored me. 

I was having some second thoughts about it until this past weekend. They prescribed a Nuva-Ring to help with the bleeding. It helped last month. This month I’m still bleeding with the damn thing. It’s not heavy, but it’s still happening. And the cramping has been bad. Honestly, the uterus, cervix, and Fallopian tube that remain can go. I’m so tired of this.

I am going to make an appointment to talk to my gyno, who will be the surgeon, about the procedure and the concerns I have with any endometriosis that may have spread. I do know it will be a robotic hysterectomy and that my recovery time should be quicker. So far it’s set for September 16th. 

My insurance company confirmed what my cost should be. I also remembered that I have a maximum out of pocket, which is good to know. When my insurance plan benefit person estimated the high end price in general, my soul left my body. My maximum OOP is about 6K, which while not ideal, I could technically stick on a credit card in the worst case scenario. The hospital can work with me on a payment plan schedule. 

[sorceryandjellybeans]

Update

I’m pretty sure nobody here really cares what’s been going on with me over the past year or two since Salt Lake City Comic Con but just thought I should mention, in case anyone’s been wondering...

1) I got into intensive therapy late last year for worsening depression

2) I’ve gone back to college to try to get the degree that I should have gone after the first time.  It’s going to take a while due to my family obligations (smol’s in first grade now and doing well)

3) I’m still with my husband for now but once I’m graduated it’s up to him if that remains the case.  I will say he hasn’t gotten better, he’s still drinking every night and still yelling at me.  I’m just not having it anymore.  I’m trying to stay focused on school because having a career from aforementioned degree is going to be my ticket out.  At that point he can either swallow his pride and get some help, in which case I’ll consider staying to help him through it, or he can watch me walk away and be miserable without me.  At this point I really couldn’t care less which way he goes.  He might wind up pushing me out before that, though, because of point #5....

4) I had a hysterectomy due to painful periods that wouldn’t really stop.  Surprise, surprise, I had endometriosis just like my mother and grandmother.

5) I’m ftm transgender and just started *microdosing* testosterone therapy, for now, at a level that will hopefully keep any physical changes subtle and very slow in coming, if they come at all... it’s more for my mental health (and holy shit does it help).   My family doesn’t know yet, though, and I’ve only told a few of my closest most personal friends, though my immediate LGBT community knows because I had been a drag king for about 7 months prior to that revelation pulling all the pieces together in my brain (gender euphoria is a thing).  Telling my family is a whole nother set of problems due to their, shall we say, religious conservative stances on literally everything, but I’m doing my best to come up with a plan that will hopefully maximize the chances of them accepting me, as much for smol’s sake as mine.  I’ve suspected or known for about a year, though, even though I didn’t say anything, so even though I haven’t talked about it here, it’s actually not like this is a sudden decision.  Right now I’m planning to tell the family around January so I can increase the dose around then.  Maybe get my name and IDs changed around June or so.

[hope-for-olicity]

After a while, the true-life horror stories women tell about their struggles to get reproductive health care start to bleed together. They almost always feature some variation on the same character: the doctor who waves a hand and says, “You’ll be fine,” or “That’s just in your head,” or “Take a Tylenol.” They follow an ominous three-act structure, in which a woman expresses concern about a sexual or reproductive issue to a doctor; the doctor demurs; later, after either an obstacle course of doctor visits or a nightmare scenario coming to life, a physician at last acknowledges her pain was real and present the whole time. Sometimes there’s a quietly gloomy boyfriend or husband in a secondary-character role, frustrated by the strain his partner’s health issue is putting on their intimacy.

That many women have stories of medical practitioners dismissing, misdiagnosing, or cluelessly shrugging at their pain is, unfortunately, nothing new. Research cited in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics in 2001, for example, indicated that women get prescribed less pain medication than men after identical procedures (controlling for body size), are less likely to be admitted to hospitals and receive stress tests when they complain of chest pain, and are significantly more likely than men to be “undertreated” for pain by doctors. And there’s a multi-million dollar industry of questionable alternative health remedies that was arguably built at least in part on a history of doctors being dismissive toward women’s bodily health.

But in 2018, these stories of neglect and unhelpfulness within women’s health care, especially women’s sexual and reproductive health care, are bubbling up to the surface—being documented, circulated, and acknowledged by public discourse—in curious abundance.

It started early in the year. In January, a widely cited Vogue cover story on the tennis great Serena Williams, who gave birth to a daughter in September of 2017, told the harrowing tale of how Williams had to urgently insist to the hospital staff in her recovery room that what she was experiencing after her C-section was a pulmonary embolism in order to get the treatment she needed to stay alive. “The nurse thought her pain medicine might be making her confused,” the story reads. A month later, Vogue published an essay by the Girlscreator Lena Dunham on her choice to have a hysterectomy at age 31 to end her struggle with what she understood to be endometriosis. “I had to work so hard to have my pain acknowledged,” she writes. “And while I’ve been battling endometriosis for a decade and this will be my ninth surgical procedure, no doctor has ever confirmed this for me.” After her uterus is removed and she wakes up in a recovery room, she writes, the doctors are eager to tell her she was right: her uterus is “worse than anyone could have imagined.”

Then, in April, The New York Times published Linda Villarosa’s revealing reporton the dangerous endeavor of being black and pregnant in America, a phenomenon partly attributed to medical practitioners’ “dismissal of legitimate concerns and symptoms.” The story’s primary character, 23-year-old New Orleans mother of two, Simone Landrum, recalls being told by a doctor to calm down and take Tylenol when she complained of headaches during a particularly exhausting pregnancy; those headaches were later found to be caused by pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy complication that causes high blood pressure and can result in the placenta separating from the uterus before the baby is born. This happened to Landrum, and her pregnancy ended in a stillbirth.

The stories kept coming. Netflix’s The Bleeding Edge, a documentary released last month, is primarily about the poor testing of many medical devices on the market, but it nonetheless also functions as an indictment of carelessness toward women’s health at the regulatory-body level. Three of the four primary narratives  are about medical devices hastily approved by the FDA and marketed to women as safe, easy solutions for fertility- and childbirth-related issues. One prominently featured woman whose medical device—the birth-control implant Essure—lands her in the hospital so many times she loses her job, her home, and her kids over the course of the documentary, recalls being told by a doctor that her abnormally heavy, persistent vaginal bleeding after its insertion is “because she’s Latina” and that her problems are all in her head.

The new KCRW podcast Bodies, a series about medical mysteries in women’s health that launched in July, kicked off its run with the story of a woman in her twenties who experiences deep, burning pain during sex and is initially told by a doctor that nothing’s wrong, lots of women have pain during sex, and that she should just wait and it’ll probably go away. After getting a referral for a specialist from a friend who visited 20 doctors over the course of  seven years before getting a diagnosis, she’s diagnosed with and successfully treated for a type of vulvodynia—which the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecologydescribes as “common” (though “rarely diagnosed”).

Sasha Ottey calls this phenomenon “health-care gaslighting.” Ottey founded the Atlanta-based nonprofit PCOS Challenge: The National Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Association in 2009 to raise awareness of PCOS, a hormonal disorder affecting the ovaries that’s often linked to infertility, diabetes, and pelvic pain. Despite the fact that PCOS was first identified and researched in 1935 and the CDC has estimated it affects some 6 to 12 percent of adult women in the United States, many doctors still don’t recognize the symptoms. Women with PCOS and similar conditions like endometriosis and uterine fibroids, Ottey says, “have been told to suffer in silence.” Additionally, because PCOS often causes obesity or weight problems, many women with PCOS experience not just sexism but what Ottey calls “weight bias” in the health-care system. “Many women and young girls are told, ‘Oh, it's all in your head. Just eat less and exercise more,’” says Ottey, who herself recalls being initially instructed by an endocrinologist to lose weight and come back in six months. “People who are following an eating plan and present their diaries to their physicians or nutritionists will be told, ‘You left something off. You're lying. You're not doing enough.’”

Ottey, who spearheaded the PCOS Challenge’s first-ever day of advocacy on Capitol Hill in May, has noted the recent shift in how—and where—women talk about their struggles getting the sexual and reproductive health care they need. “We're at a critical juncture in women's health, where women are now feeling more empowered to speak up. Because frankly, we're frustrated,” she says. “We're frustrated with the type of care that we've gotten. We're frustrated that it sometimes takes someone decades to get a diagnosis. It's been a year, or a few years, of being empowered and emboldened."

Katherine Sherif, an internist at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and the director of the hospital’s women’s primary care unit, says she hears “day in and day out” from patients “about how they are not listened to [by other doctors], how they’re blown off, how a clue was missed.” Sherif believes most of the minimization of women’s health concerns is “unconscious” on the part of both male and female doctors, but blames general societal sexism for the gaps in women’s sexual and reproductive health care. Men with sexual and reproductive dysfunction have to fight for the care they need sometimes too, she points out, but “to a lesser extent” from what she’s seen.

In her 23 years practicing medicine, Sherif has received a lot of thank-you notes from women she’s treated—and “they don’t say ‘Thank you for saving my life’ or ‘Thank you for that great diagnosis,’” she says. “They say, ‘Thank you for listening to me.’ Or ‘I know we couldn’t get to the bottom of it, but thank you for being there.’” So Sherif sees a common theme in the recent flurry of high-profile expressions of disappointment in women’s reproductive health care, feminist protests against President Donald Trump, and the #MeToo movement: All three, she says, result from women feeling that their complaints, concerns, and objections aren’t being listened to.

“Perhaps it parallels what’s changing in our society,” Sherif says. “When we shine a light in those dirty, dark corners, I think it may give us courage to shed light on other things.”

Ottey, meanwhile, believes women’s increasing candor about their health- and health care-related frustrations can be traced back to the advent of social media. Ottey describes her own struggle to finally get a diagnosis and a treatment plan for PCOS in 2008 as one that made her feel “absolutely alone,” but in the years since, she says, she’s seen women with similar conditions and complaints find and support each other on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. “Women see other women, and other girls, speaking up,” she says.

Ottey’s social-media strength-in-numbers theory is borne out in The Bleeding Edge, too: Women whose health deteriorated after getting the Essure birth-control device implanted eventually created an advocacy campaign after finding each other through a Facebook group launched in 2011. Thirty-five thousand women had joined by the time The Bleeding Edge was filmed.

Angie Firmalino, the Facebook group’s founder, remembers being surprised at how many women quickly joined the group, despite it being a project she’d started just so she could warn her female friends about the device. “We became a support group for each other,” Firmalino says, as a montage of selfie videos women have posted to the group page play onscreen. “The day I was implanted, I left the hospital and I was in pain,” says one woman. “They told me to take some ibuprofen and it’ll get better,” says another.

When Firmalino researched the process by which Essure was approved for sale and implantation, she found the FDA hearings had been videotaped, but the video company that owned the tapes would only release them to her for several hundred dollars. So she posted on the Facebook group asking for donations to buy the video—clips of which are repurposed in the documentary and account for its most chilling moments. They raised $900 in 15 minutes.

[jeanboehm]

My Scary Postpartum Diagnosis

“Are you going to have another one?” is one of the top questions I’ve gotten in the past year.

I don’t judge people for asking this question, but I’m always taken aback by the flippant way it comes out of their mouth.

When is number two?

I am honestly just starting to come up for air after the past year of healing, both physically and mentally. Yes, it has taken me an entire year to fully wrap my head around the events that took place after I delivered June. In case you missed the memo, after I delivered June things took a turn south as my blood pressure dropped and placenta would not pass {see video here}. My placenta was attached so deeply and firmly inside me, that the doctor had to reach in and pull it out, resulting in third degree tears. It was horrific.

{TMI Alert: Getting more graphic after this point}

The months after my delivery, I went through what I figured was typical postpartum stuff. And even though I told my doctor time and time again that my periods were feeling very different and that my leg was still aching from SPD {Symphysis pubis dysfunction}. She signed off for me to go about my life, but something just still didn’t feel right.

Just to give you a quick history: About 7 or 8 years ago, I was told I have PCOS {Polycystic ovary syndrome}. I’ve gotten pretty used to dealing with “bad periods.” Just before my diagnosis, I had an emergency surgery to remove a contorted ovarian cyst. We also believe that it was the cause of a miscarriage I suffered from many years after that.

Flash forward to last year, postpartum: My periods were heavy, extremely heavy, resulting in golf ball sized blood clots {I know, gross} and they would last longer than a week. I would also get shooting pain down my leg like a lightening bolt when doing simple things like standing up from a chair or walking up the stairs {which is totally unrelated}. I kept going back to my OB, but I was brushed off that I must just have “bad periods.”

You guys, there would be days that I could hardly function the pain was so severe and bleeding was so bad that I could barely leave the bathroom.

I knew I needed a second opinion but months went by and life got in the way. I honestly just chalked it all up to postpartum adjustment. I also thought maybe it was my PCOS getting worse. It wasn’t until only a few weeks ago that I finally found a doctor, my “third” opinion, who looked past the typical text book response and gave me some answers.

After countless hours staying up at night doing research on all sorts of topics, dozens upon dozens of doctors appointments, MRI’s and ultrasounds I am finally starting to get some true answers about what is happening with my body.

My new doctor patiently listened to my story. I told her all about my pregnancy, labor and delivery and postpartum recovery.

I have never talked about how horrible pregnancy was for me, or the aftermath, because I feel an extreme amount of guilt for even opening up about my ailments because I do not want to seem ungrateful for the miracle that I could even get pregnant and have a beautiful baby.

After listening to me, doing an ultrasound exam and evaluation my medical charts, I was diagnosed with adenomyosis.

Adenomyosis, which is very similar to endometriosis, is a condition in which the inner lining of the uterus breaks through the muscle wall of the uterus. The condition can cause severe menstrual cramps, lower abdominal pressure, and bloating before menstrual periods and can result in heavy periods. The condition is typically found in women between the ages of 35 and 50 {I’m 36}.

Adenomyosis can be difficult to diagnose — and, without seeing a specialist, symptoms like heavy bleeding and pelvic pain are often dismissed. My doctor says that if I get pregnant again and wish to deliver vaginally, that I run an increased risk of hemorrhaging {damn}. The second fun fact of information I was given was that during my delivery I was most likely dealing with an undetected, potentially life threatening pregnancy complication called placenta accreta.

After you deliver, your placenta is supposed to come out. However, mine stayed attached inside my uterus. This can cause severe blood loss after delivery. Women with placenta accreta usually don’t display any signs or symptoms during pregnancy. Sometimes a doctor will detect it during a routine ultrasound.

It’s just so bizarre to me that I knew something was wrong in the delivery room after my labor. I could feel it in my bones the minute June was delivered.

After a year of healing from a broken tail bone, third degree tears and a new diagnosis of adenomyosis, I am honestly just so relieved to have some answers to what has been happening with my body since February 1, 2019. It’s taken a lot. A lot of time, a lot of patience, a lot of tears {tears like crying, not tears like ouch} and a lot of frustration, but in the end I knew to trust my gut.

The only definitive cure for adenomyosis is a hysterectomy, or the removal of the uterus. This is often the treatment of choice for women with significant symptoms. Luckily, I’m not walking down that road. I’ve made a plan to get back on birth control for now {which helps with symptoms} and I am scheduled to see a naturopathic doctor to explore other options.

If any of you have PCOS or adenomyosis I would love to hear about your experience in the comments below. I am still learning so much and doing a ton of research about it all.

“Are you going to have another one?” they ask. Well, I don’t want another near death postpartum experience. I definitely don’t want another year of agonizing pain and periods. And I don’t want another doctor ignoring my symptoms and writing me off as another statistic.

But if it means I get another June…well then, maybe

My Scary Postpartum Diagnosis published first on https://lenacharms.weebly.com/

[solemnrosary]

So, um. I suppose I should make another post about Finland’s trans-clinic stuff. ‘s not very happy, so be warned.

Now, I requested a referral for trans-clinic treatment at the latter half of May, 2018. My first appointment turned out the be in the November of that year. That’s- a fairly long time to wait. This was still when the capital hospital’s psychological department was in an entirely different area all together.  

All in all, between that first appointment and the one at the end of January 2020, I’ve had 11 appointments at the clinic and 5 at an artistic therapy. I’ve had meetings with 2 different doctors, 2 nurses, a psychologist and a therapist. It should go approximately 3 with a nurse, then 1 with a doctor, then another 3ish with a psychologist who evaluates... your entire spiel, then another with a doctor and then the meeting where you hear your diagnosis and get your treatment plan. 

Should, being the key word here. The clinics are busy and there’s alot of waiting involved. for months. between each step. and then I had to re-do some because the people who were involved left. cool. great. 

I’ve been at this, struggling a low-paying part time job that had be wake 5am just so I could commute to work for 7:30, the insomnia it caused, my mother’s dreadful behavior and blatant disrespect- for a long ass time. And I had waited for this change for 6 years so I’d be an adult and have some resources to go with! It’s been almost 8 now. 

And do you know, what the conclusion they arrived in was? 

You’re an edge-case, you been bullied and your family is abusive- so we won’t help you. We’ll end this here. 

....the fuck do I even say to that one? 

Sorry for existing, I guess? It’s not like I’ve had much of a choice in any of that. 

... I don’t know. How do- how do you just- assume I have the faith to go on like this, with no relief in sight? and that the relief you promised, if I do ever get out of this house- only applies to half of what I wished for, because the law forbids those with nonbinary diagnosis from receiving the other things? That you said that I should try a privatized healthcare for hysterectomy- when you know full well that even those with endometriosis are hard pressed to find a doctor who’d agree with a surgery. What do- how do- I can’t- 

What, am I just- living for the sake of working in the vain hope that I’ll get scraps? How do you calculate the factual worth of my quality of life and determine it isn’t worth improving? I’m just- supposed to go on for however many fucking years it’ll take, like this? Until social and healthcare remodels roll WHO’s ICD 11 and the law stops being shitty? 

Where is the point when you’ve had enough?  When can you say “I can’t keep walking”?

All I’ve gained in these last 2 years are the rotten speeches of my transphobic mother and a father who, in his silence, agrees. The day before these news, she asked whether a lobotomy would suffice as treatment. It wasn’t enough to say ‘I wish you’d never been born to this family’, it seems.  

I’ve lost a home and gained another dead end. 

I’ve lost so much- and they sent me out with smiles.

[lifeaccordingtonixxie]

My Endo Story

This blog is going to be slightly different.

I have a condition called Endometriosis. It’s a condition where the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, forming adhesion's and causing severe abdominal pain. Worst part, it’s not just during periods.

Typical Symptoms include

Pelvic Pain Pain during sex Severe bloating

Which yes is horrible. Yes it sucks. And yes its debilitating. I just really want to put my story out there.

I went years, before I could convince any doctor to believe me anything was wrong. I spent years, and multiple thousands of dollars in ER trips over the years, at about every 6 months. My credit is now shot just from hospital and doctors visits just to figure out my endo. Every single time I went in I got an I.V. drip of some sort of pain medicine, some sort of anti nausea, and some standard saline. I started to feel like a drug addict. It was like clock work. Thankfully my nurses were never the same, and always different doctors. And every single one said the same thing. “It’s just a painful period.” or “They happen to alot of women, that’s just how it’s supposed to be.” Mind you this when the pain went full blast I was in my late teens and early 20′s. Every single time no one believed me. I was scared to get a real OBGYN because I knew if I did it would be real. And maybe those ER doctors were right. It was just all in my head, I was crazy, over reacting, being a baby. Which I’m not. My pain tolerance is pretty high.

I lost jobs because of my undiagnosed Endometriosis. I missed so much work. I didn’t know what was happening. I was sick. I was terrified my appendix burst. Because I have Ovarian and Tubal cysts, that are reoccurring. So I would call in almost every period, or every other. Some times I thankfully had the day off. Day 1 and 2 are the absolute worst. So I prefer to stay home if possible. Well obviously suspiciously calling in gets you fired from any job. Endometriosis made me look untrustworthy, and unreliable. It wasn’t fair to me something I couldn’t control, had so much control on my life.

I finally decided to find a good OBGYN. Dr. Hammons is serioulsy the best thing to happen to me. My first appointment ever, after examination we talked and he actually listened. And was willing to try surgery to see if it was Endometriosis and diagnose me. He was willing to take a risk that I was more than willing to do. At this point I was ready to just give in a get a full hysterectomy. My life was miserable, I was miserable, and talking about periods is taboo. I had already done my own research, since you know we live in an age of medical knowledge all over the internet. I had already kinda figured out that it was endo, just from my symptoms alone. It didn’t help that I have a cousin that has it also. So after discussing my options with the OBGYN, a couple months later we were scheduling surgery.

I had an elective exploratory abdominal laparotomy to diagnose Endometriosis Oct. 13, 2016. My fiance, he was just my boyfriend then, drove me to the surgery center across from the hospital. Where my mother met us, and oddly my great grandmother showed up, but oh well. This was the first time Brandon had ever taken me anywhere doctor related, I always just did it myself, or had my mom help me. It was honestly terrifying to me. I don’t know why, it was just awkward, I love him, and he’s the love of my life absolutely, but it was still weird to me. After the surgery Dr. Hammons was called away and I didn’t get to talk to him after, which I had a follow up appointment the next week anyway. He did however talk to Brandon and my mom. After they discharged me and they wheeled me out to our car, Brandon told me. That I was right! I was right all along. I wasn’t crazy. And that they cauterized all the adhesion's they could find. They even had to open me up at a second location to try and get all of them. Unfortunately there was one right next to my bladder and he risked nicking that and causing an even bigger problem, fine by me. I had answers I knew what was wrong. Finally I knew that I wasn’t crazy. During the surgery we also found out that not only did I have those reoccurring cysts on my ovaries, I have reoccurring cysts on my tubes as well. Which could be dangerous for myself.

I changed my eating styles and my life became better.

About a year almost, I went Gluten Free. It was the best decision all around. Between potential celiac, and galbladder issues. Gluten free is proven to help with Endo pain and symptoms. Thanks to being GF, I have lost weight, which has made endo significantly better. There arent as many fat cells as there were to have to potentially have problems with. It was just an all around better health situation, that was completely unexpected. I didn’t think I would lose this much weight this quick but I did.

Thanks to being GF I became healthier. I lost a total of 80 lbs! Which is crazy. I’ve gained a few and lost a few recently with the stress of wedding planning and life.

Once I made the connection of just trying to eat healthier. I made it happen. I made it work no matter what. I was desperate for help. Just a little relief. Between the constant feeling sick, from eating gluten in general, and the endo pain. I was miserable. I needed a break. Just a small, minuscule amount of time, where I felt normal. And it did. It happened. I felt normal. I didn’t feel sick. I didn’t feel just bleh any more. I wanted to do things.

For the first couple weeks I was kind of weak, and tired. Just from eating differently and not being used to it yet. Once my body finally realized I was helping by eating this way, I had energy. I wanted to do things. And when the endo pain did happen it didn’t feel unbearable. Gluten free has helped my life so much. It doesn’t just help digestion problems. I was so relieved. I’m now 2 years GF, and it’s helped so much.

(I know this isn’t typically what I normally do. But I needed to get my story out there. I try not to be political, or just get radically involved. But women need to speak up! We aren’t believed because we don’t speak up. We don’t tell our stories. And I wasn’t going to be another statistic.)

[arunbeniwal-blog]

IVF Test in Vadodara | Anant IVF Centre | Dr. Pallavi Satarkar | Elawoman

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Anant Hospital began its voyage on nineteenth June 2005, with the guarantee to convey the best of Gynec obstetrics and laproscopy medical procedures. It initally started as an exclusive armed force, dreamchild for Dr. Pallavi Satarkar. In 2012, we made a child stride in expanding it in devoted IVF center by the name Anant IVF Center. Since then Anant IVF has conveyed with comitted care as continuous exertion more than 1,000 live births and more than 500 high hazard supernatural occurrence babies (IUI and IVF) multiplying the delight of infertile couples.If you a question in you mind related IVF Test in Vadodara get answers from us at elawoman.com.

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She has done IVF medications of various patients and she is a knowledgeable in this field. Her field of skill includes Gyne Laparoscopy, Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), High-Risk Pregnancy Care and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).get more about IVF Test in Vadodara  can contact us at elawoman.com.

A contraption sagacious and energetic about work.

Finished therapeutic school in 2002 and 2008, I went Germany for my super-claim to fame Diploma for Laproscopy. Again in 2012 for IVF went to Germany. I was constantly sufficiently competent to work in the IVF field. Be that as it may, financial impediments took five years of realizing the dream into the real world. I adore my work and I work in an intense way. Be that as it may, subsequent to becoming mindful and committed, because of duty I don't get time for myself. The more you become incredible the less you become accessible to yourself. Multitasking is a stroll on a tight rope however god has made ladies monstrously equipped for doing it. I am pleased to be conceived as a ladies.

I don't have anybody in the family from medicine foundation. Initially, when I began as a gynecologist, was certain to work for myself where I have opportunity of thought. Time went things began shaping up the manner in which I have dependably wished. I trust the main exertion you put in can become your advancement.

Sneh IVF Center (Venus Multi Speciality Hospital)

Sneh IVF Center (Venus Multi Speciality Hospital) is a Multispeciality Center situated in Old Padra Road, Vadodara and offers services, for example, Infertility Assessment, Invitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Hysterectomy, Normal vaginal conveyance techniques. Other restorative specialities accessible at the center include Neurosurgery, Spine speciality and in addition Vascular and Endovascular Specialities. The hospital additionally gives rescue vehicle and drug store services. Dr. Shetal Deshmukh rehearses at the hospital.Sneh ladies' hospital and IVF Center is committed to give the great human services offices to the community with the most elevated ability and care at reasonable charges.We are the group of profoundly qualified, inspired and humble doctors, who are exceptionally understanding and thoughtful to your medical issues and will give the benefit of the treatment.

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Sneh IVF Center (Ami Hospital)

Sneh IVF Center (Ami Hospital) is an IVF Center situated in New Sama Road, Vadodara. The hospital offers services, for example, Infertility assessment, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Hysterectomy, Laparoscopy, Surrogacy, FET, Semen and Embryo freezing methods.

The center is had some expertise in providing gynecological and infertility services. The center is committd to give amazing medicinal services to the ladies for a mind-blowing duration. Dr. Ushma Patel and Dr. Shetal Deshmukh practice here.

Gopal Fertility IVF Center

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Gopal Fertility Clinic is known for housing experienced Gynecologists. Dr. Sushma Baxi, an all around presumed Gynecologist, rehearses in Vadodara. Visit this medicinal wellbeing center for Gynecologists recommended by 61 patients.In vitro preparation (IVF) is a procedure by which an egg is treated by sperm outside the body: in vitro. IVF is a noteworthy treatment for infertility when different techniques for helped regenerative innovation have fizzled. The procedure involves monitoring a lady's ovulatory procedure, removing ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from the lady's ovaries and letting sperm treat them in a liquid medium in a research center. At the point when a lady's regular cycle is observed to gather a normally chosen ovum (egg) for treatment, it is known as common cycle IVF.

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[fashiontrendin-blog]

3 Women on What Menopause Is Really Like

http://fashion-trendin.com/3-women-on-what-menopause-is-really-like/

3 Women on What Menopause Is Really Like

In the season three finale of Broad City, Abbi unexpectedly gets her period while on an airplane to Israel. During the mad tampon hunt that inevitably ensues, Abbi approaches an older woman, who replies she doesn’t have a tampon but is flattered to be asked. “Oh, I totally forgot about menopause,” Abbi says, to which the woman replies: “Menopause isn’t represented in mainstream media.”

The line was funny, astute and unfortunately very accurate. It’s hard to think of a show or movie that so much as mentions the word. And yet an estimated 6,000 women reach menopause each day in the U.S. alone — that’s over 2 million per year. Defined as the permanent end of a woman’s menstrual period, menopause usually occurs for women between the ages of 40 and 58 as a result of the natural loss of ovarian follicular function. While menopause is technically recognized as beginning after 12 months without a menstrual period, common symptoms like hot flashes, trouble sleeping and mood swings can start several years earlier.

In an effort to chip away at the severe shortage of conversation happening publicly around menopause, I asked three women with different experiences and perspectives on the topic to share what it was like.

“I was fully menopausal by the time I was 40.” Karyn, age 49

I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 39, and unfortunately, my treatment threw me into early menopause.

In some ways, it’s a good thing I went through it then, because now I don’t have to worry about things other women have to worry about. But at the time, I had hot flashes, my hair got really dry and thin, and my skin became dry and patchy. Because I didn’t have many girlfriends going through it at the same time, I had a lot of questions. Luckily, I had a great team of doctors and some people in my cancer support groups who had been through it. And if I was hanging out with my mom and her friends and they were talking about it, I’d be like, “Yeah, I know what you mean!”

For me, the emotions associated with menopause probably fell under the same category of dealing with the changes that came from having breast cancer fairly young. I had a double mastectomy and went through menopause, so basically all the things that made me feel like a woman were eliminated at the same time. I felt like an old lady at 39.

At that age, I still had several friends who had babies and were pregnant, and I wasn’t necessarily thinking that I never wanted any more kids. My husband and I had only been married a year, and prior to me getting cancer, we talked about having a child of our own (we both have kids from previous marriages). But all of a sudden, it just wasn’t an option anymore. It was sad because it wasn’t my choice; it was another repercussion of what I had been through. I believe everything happens for a reason, though.

People go through menopause differently, but for me, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I got hot flashes, and it was weird, but not awful. It was kind of like when you got your first period as a preteen or teenager — it was a change, but it was just part of the continuum of life. You go through so many transitions in your life, from a girl to a teenager to a young adult to a mother…this is just another one.

I’m now the age most people hit menopause — around 51 is the average. Soon all my friends will be starting to join the club, and I’ll be like, “Been there, done that.”

“Menopause is a rite of passage.” Michelle, age 53

For me, menopause started a couple of years ago. I’m not completely through it, but I think I’m through most of it. The symptoms I noticed were hot flashes, trouble sleeping and changes in physical appearance and mood. For me, hot flashes were the worst. I was in a constant state of hot flashes coming unexpectedly, and that was really frustrating and difficult.

All the women I know who have gone through menopause experienced something, even if it wasn’t necessarily bad. From what I’d heard from my friends, I expected hot flashes to happen mostly at night and wake me up with night sweats. The reality for me was they would happen at any time of day or night, and they would come out of nowhere. They would start from the inside and move out, so that all of a sudden I would feel like the inside of my body was 120 degrees, and I couldn’t stop it. It really felt like it was rising up like a thermometer. I would be sitting at dinner, sometimes with business colleagues at an event, and it would just start happening. In most of those situations, I tried to conceal it or would excuse myself and try to move to a cooler place or walk outside. But one time, and only once, I was having a hot flash in front of a complete stranger at a dinner, and I flat-out said, “I’m sorry, I’m having a hot flash.” And she said, “I can actually see it.”

I didn’t talk to too many people about it — maybe just a couple of friends and my husband. My mother had had a partial hysterectomy when she was in her 30s, so I didn’t experience watching her go through anything or get any hint of what I was going to go through. Most of my friends did not experience it the way that I did. I don’t think it’s a weird thing to talk about if you’re talking to a woman, and I was never embarrassed about it, but I would not discuss it with a man other than my husband.

I actually read a book about it when I started going through it. Someone advised me to read it, but I found it completely useless. I just feel like it’s something that’s a rite of passage. You just have to allow your body to go through it. My best advice is to embrace it. Allow the process to take place.

“Compared to what I’d been through with periods, menopause was mild.” Kim, age 54

I felt like my menopause symptoms weren’t that big of a deal because I had been through so much with my periods and endometriosis and fertility issues. I’d been through the ringer.

The worst part about menopause was that I went for about nine months without a period and thought it was over, but they tell you you’re not really out of the woods until you go a full year [without menstruating]. I would get to nine or 10 months and then have a period, so it was like I was back to square one. That went on for about three years, where the periods were few and far between but never far enough to be able to say, “I’m done.” But then, finally, it was over. It’s been around two years now.

My periods were always bad, ever since a month before I had my first period at 16. I experienced painful cramping, nausea, diarrhea — all of that every month. The disorder I had was endometriosis, which causes pain and can interfere with fertility. I had to get a laparoscopy, a surgery used to diagnose and remove endometriosis, as well as a uterine polypectomy, a removal of small growths (polyps), twice.

Getting pregnant was really difficult for me. My daughter was kind of a fluke, born completely naturally with no help, but two years after she was born, we were trying again and nothing was happening. I went through various treatments, from low-intervention to extreme intervention, and I finally got pregnant with twins after my second attempt at in vitro fertilization. Pregnancy was what finally made all the period pain better for a while.

But after the twins were born, there was a point in my late 40s when I was having some very irregular flows — I think periods were coming every two weeks. It was hard to control it and plan around it. I considered getting a hysterectomy, but things were so busy with my life between family and work that I just didn’t know how I could take time off to do the surgery. I didn’t know which was worse — taking six months off to recover or dealing with the erratic periods. Ultimately, by procrastinating and not making a decision, the decision was made for me, and I dealt with it until it stopped. In hindsight, I think that irregularity was premenopausal.

When I finally went through menopause, I had some hot flashes, but they were really fast, only lasting a minute or two, and it was just a warm feeling. It wasn’t annoying or aggravating or intrusive. I also started waking up at odd hours in the middle of the night, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Any emotional experiences I had probably came from a combination of the lack of sleep and the hormones. I think in total it lasted about a year. It’s all relative, so because of the things I’d been through, I didn’t think of it as a big deal.

I have a group of 14 girlfriends who all get together on a monthly basis, and menopause comes up sometimes. My friends are really funny and they joke about it while keeping tabs and taking notes. One friend had three important pieces of advice that everyone should hear: First, whatever you’re going through, whether you think it may be unusual or not, talk about it with your doctors and other people. She was having blood clots the size of pancakes and had to get tested for anemia. Second, never feel embarrassed or inferior by whatever is happening. Some women feel hesitant talking about sexual components of it — getting your period all the time as a menopause effect isn’t exactly romantic. You need that communication. Third, be open to Eastern medicine like acupuncture. That’s what stopped her hot flashes. And if your doctor isn’t willing to discuss those options, find a new doctor.

Talking to friends also puts your own experience in perspective. A couple of my friends did have hysterectomies, and several also had been through things like double mastectomies due to family histories of breast cancer or other major illnesses. I know some of those people went through harder things than I did.

Each woman’s experience is different, but talking about it is good for everyone.

Collages by Emily Zirimis. 

[endowarrior877]

Endometriosis in the eyes of the beholder.

What is it really like living with endometriosis, a chronic illness? I'm sure the question comes up from time to time, not! Still unless you're living with a chronic illness it's hard to image some of the things us spoonies go through behind closed doors. I've even heard some folks say people with chronic illnesses have it so easy because we can't work and just sit watching crappy day time tele festering away being supported by our government. No, living with a chronic illness isn't a life long holiday whilst being supported by benefits. Instead it's a constant fight and one that costs me in time, money, energy, blood, sweat, tears and pain. It's a constant fight to have a relatively pain free life and a constant fight to not have to take several different medications several times a day. It's the constant fight to be there for appointments and then have to sit and listen to a doctor tell you that "your hot water bottle is the best thing for you, and you just need to get used to the pain and learn how to cope". Yes I was told that today at my appointment for the pain clinic. Smh. It's the constant fight of letting family, friends and sometimes your self down when you've had to cancel yet another plan. It's having to drag your partner away from his brothers wedding because the pain is now to much and i need to go home.

That particular pain and sickness flare would last a constant 72 hours and was probably the only time i could ever say I've felt like I've really had a mental break down. I eventually went to the hospital after the third day of constant pain and throwing up, then got sent home 'by accident' because there wasn't much they could do. Only to go home jump back into bed feeling so weak I was even hallucinating then comes a police van with 1 female officer turning up at my house to pick me up and take me back to the hospital immediately because my blood work came back very bad and my kidneys were shutting down as a result of being so ill the last 3 days. The hospital couldn't get in contact with me directly and as it was literally a matter of life or death they had to get the police to find me. Scary stuff right! I had to be readmitted and kept on a drip constantly for a few days because of how sick I got. It was mortifying and I felt like people were staring as I was being escorted back in to the ER with a police officer. It must have looked like I was some kind of criminal. I wasn't though, just very very sick. It was very scary and one of the most painful flares I've ever had and what made things worse was how scared I was to go to the hospital in the first place because normally they just say there isn't anything they can do and send me home. Another problem people with chronic illnesses have to deal with is having to persuade some doctors that there is something really wrong and you're not just there for a score of drugs or that you're not just being a big baby because of your period. At that point the strongest thing in pain relief being given to me was dihydrocodeine and that didn't do anything for the pain and would just add to the sickness because i would be taking the maximum dose to try and get some relief. During those 3 days of being in constant level 9-10 pain i honestly wished I was dead so many times as the hours passed and the pain stayed. Nothing helped and the pain just roared. It was so upsetting, it was brutal. I didn't sleep for being in so much pain and I was exhausted by the time I went to hospital. It felt like world war 3 was happening in my womb and outer areas. I couldn't eat or drink either which resulted in me being so ill and being so dehydrated and malnourished.

Yup, being chronically ill is not as glamorous as we'd all like it to be and you certainly learn some new life skills when the bomb is dropped and life sticks a label on you that won't go away. In reality being chronically ill and more specifically having endometriosis means that for me, I have to plan carefully even the smallest of trips. I need to take into account my medications and anything else that comes in handy during a flare. It means that I have to carry a boiling hot water bottle around even when I'm out running errands or taking the kids to the park. Being chronically ill means saying no to my favorite foods because somewhere along it's journey from my mouth to the other end it causes some kind of sickness wave or pain attack. Having endometriosis is saying no to getting intimate with the love of my life because the pain is unreal and I can't afford to be so sore the next day. I can't keep calling hubby back from work. Canceling social events and family gatherings are a constant happening and making sure if I am away from the house over night I have access to a bath incase I have a bad flare is a stupid embarrassing must. Its choosing to not even have that one drink no matter what the occasion is because the consequences are not worth it. It's a constant battle of fighting different emotions and feelings; some days are okay and some days are the worst, there isn't many good days and even less great days. It's having to get used to a new body affected by not being able to eat, marked with heat rashes and scars from surgeries. Trying to stay positive when everything around you is sore and hurting is not an easy task. People have referred to endometriosis pains as similar to having a baby, gallbladder stones, kidney stones and appendicitis. I haven't personally suffered anything apart from child birth but I can safely say the pains are sometimes actually worse than labour.

In today's world people with invisible chronic illnesses are not taken seriously by people that we really need to be on our side. We need the support of all doctors and not just top endometriosis specialists that we have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see. Unfortunately endometriosis is still treated with methods that were used a 100 years ago. How many other diseases and illnesses are still being treated without of date methods? Not very many. It's one of the only diseases that hasn't moved on with the times. If we had access to better more appropriate care then i bet your bottom dollar you'd see a lot less a&e visits from people with endometriosis too. It's not enough that this disease causes the most debilitating pain a human could ever experience whilst bleeding for god knows how long, but having half the world not really understand what endometriosis really does to a woman and then when we do try and seek professional help because we are so desperate it just feels like a hopeless fight where we are told it's in our head or try bandaid treatment. That's the full package with endometriosis and unless you're rich with a private jet able to pay top dollar to see someone super skilled and fast, there is at the moment a long wait to access care which is resulting in many woman like myself being left in daily debilitating pain.

For anyone newly diagnosed with endometriosis I kind of think my advice would be get ready to fight. Get ready to fight and get yourself educated. Learn about this condition inside out, the good and bad for everything. Your knowledge will save you many unnecessary treatments and will help you search out a surgeon that will be able to help you over time. Remember this is never going to be an overnight fix no matter how skilled your surgeon is. Endometriosis requires the most knowledgeable of doctors and there needs to be more of these people in our local hospitals where everyone can access them and there is more focus on surgical treatments instead of bandaid hormone treatments. There needs to be more awareness all around the world which I think is slowly starting to happen. Aside from all the actual physical symptoms we feel typical to having endo there is a lot more to just having this disease and it's not just about really sore periods. I'm still a firm believer that endometriosis can be treated brilliantly by laparoscopic procedure alone but the key is to finding that magic surgeon. Endometriosis doesn't grow back so it makes sense that removing the 'bad bits' will take away the pain. I'm part of a very good endometriosis resource Facebook page and the amount of woman who are pain free after 1-2 surgeries max is incredible and it gives me so much hope and just because of who they chose to handle their care. I unknowingly made the mistake of moving to the middle of nowhere and then learned about this list of top endometriosis specialists and now the closest to me is the U.K or Germany. Bad timing on my part! I have a good feeling about a Dutch specialist I was recommended to by my FIL's friend who had very bad endometriosis. Funnily enough she started out with the specialist I've just been seeing and had the same issues so asked for a second opinion with a different specialist and agreed to do surgery and found lots. They removed it all and now she's living a great life so I would like to see this doctor and speak with her before i make any rash decisions to rush to Germany in the near future. If she is as good as I hope then maybe she could be added to the list and help others find a good specialist. After asking for a second opinion of my recent MRI results I've asked to be referred to this other Dutch specialist and that should be the ball rolling again and some kind of pain free life will be more realistic. I'm staying positive and hopeful about this one but we will see in due course as ever. This will be my 3rd specialist so hopefully the saying third time lucky will come into play!

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