Medical stuff

Dec 10, 2008 by Lyanna

So – it seems I finally completely found out why I’m bent over in pain every time I have my period. For the guys here, if tmi, get out of here now

I’m 10 years further from when I first started hurting, and my new gp probably hit her finger on the right spot when I went to see her this afternoon because I am so SO fed up with being in pain during my menstrual cycle. She looked at my medical files, asked about my symptoms, came up with a possible diagnosis for me to look at on the internet (which wasn’t it, but hell, here’s someone who suggests something new instead of saying to me it’s in my head and I should get used to it), and then told me that she thought that in all likelihood it’s an abnormal amount of tissue hormones that I produce under the influence of my menstrual cycle.

In other words, I’ve got a spastic bowel because of overproduction of prostaglandines during my period. This was suggested way back in 2003, but my OBGYN decided that it was more likely I had endometriosis (not) and then we never came back to this early diagnosis. Wish we had.

Prostaglandines cause two things: they stimulate your nerves to transmit the message to your brain that you are in pain, and they cause contractions of the tissue they are aiming at. In fact, prostaglandines are the main substance of pills to stimulate contractions during labour. You could say that during my period, my bowels are in labour. Which hurts very VERY badly.

Another symptom is low bloodpressure. Which I’ve had since like forever. It all fits. And it hurts. Damn.Today I couldn’t even sit straight, I was leaning on one buttcheek at the gp’s. She took me seriously right from the start, which was a relief.

She also got pretty pissed at the OBGYN who told me in 2005 that a Mirena spiral wouldn’t be a good idea for me because I hadn’t had kids yet. She got even more pissed when she saw on one of the echo sheets attached to my medical file in 2003(!!) that the echoscopist had already suggested I should have a Mirena spiral implanted. If the OBGYN had followed the suggestion, I might not have been in this pain for the last five years.

Anyhow – she’s placing the spiral on friday. I’m a little nervous, but it can’t possibly hurt more than what I’m feeling now. I just hope that with this done, and the constant hormone level in my body, things will even out and I won’t be in pain anymore.