Welp!

[soc_puppet]

Just heard back from my doctor about my test results. Surprise! It's not PCOS, it's endometriosis! Time for me to do some more reading on the subject, I think.

(I'm also not anemic from all that bleeding, so that was either the power of suggestion or a byproduct of stress/grief. I'd buy either at this point.)

Comments

[alexseanchai]

also fun, augh

[soc_puppet]

Yup. Still, it's nice to have answers.

[type_wild]

Ay, good luck with that :/ I got my doctor to check for endo way back when because I got so bad cramps. It wasn't, but I've heard the horror stories and I hope you can at least manage it well.

[soc_puppet]

Well, I've got a doctor who's on my side, so that's at least half the battle right there 👍

[satsuma]

I'm glad you don't have anemia! Hopefully you're able to figure out a good way to manage your endo symptoms, I've heard they can be really rough <3

[soc_puppet]

My doctor has me on a new hormonal birth control pill, which so far seems to be working much better than the last one! The goal is to reduce menstrual cycles as much as possible, hopefully to nothing, which I gotta say I am on board for.

I had a whole paragraph about how my cramps usually "only" average about a 4 out of 10 on the pain scale, and I can usually knock them out with two ibuprofen, so they're not so bad! But uh. I think I finally managed to put that into perspective for myself. I can't believe I was giving myself a hard time for being in uncomfortable-to-distracting levels of pain two days a month! So this has convinced me to stop doing that, which I'm grateful for ♥

[partlyopenbook]

Congrats on getting a proper diagnosis! That can be tough... It's maddening how terribly women are treated when it comes to medical issues.

It sounds like you're on the road to improvement! What a relief!

[satsuma]

I'm glad the new pill is working better than the last one!

And yeah I feel that on the temptation to underestimate! I tend to use the Mankoski Pain scale ( http://valis.com/andi/painscale.html ) which is pretty similar to the one you linked -- its definitely helpful in helping me keep things in perspective, both in terms of not underestimating where I am on the pain scale and managing my expectations for myself when I'm in pain

[soc_puppet]

Not to mention other uterus owners. I definitely lucked out in getting a good doctor; I only started asking about doing something for my cramps in December, so this is remarkably quick turnaround for the medical sector!

So far so good! I'm still giving it another few months before I'm satisfied, but I'm tentatively optimistic about this particular treatment.

[soc_puppet]

Yeah, so far so good! No leaking or spotting yet. Still gotta give it a few more months, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Oh, that's a good one, too! Looks like my 4 average holds with that one, as well. And yeah, all of that and trying not to compare myself to other people. I know it can be helpful to remind myself that I don't have things as bad as other folks do sometimes, but when I'm trying to get treatment for myself is not one of those times, you know?