Hi Ladies! ( I tried to post this earlier but for some reason it didnt work...so here it goes!)
Thank you so much for your feedback! It can be pretty lonely road having endo as not too many people are aware just how consuming it can be!
Nic: I have just moved to Melbourne so I will need to find a new gyno. My OB/GYN who delivered my DD in canberra was fantastic, but unfortunately he didnt know anyone to recommend down here, so the search begins!!
Fancy a Dr believing that endo is age discriminatory!! we get told so much BS as women that it's just not funny sometimes! (like the midwife who told me that have a pethidine injection would help me sleep through most of my labour!! fat chance of that happening!).
I'm not sure why my gyno at the time told me that it could increase my chances of infertility. I believed him and on my own decision decided not to go ahead, as he had also just told me that even without it (the Lap) i will most likely only be able to conceive with IVF. At the time, I was more worried about fertility issues than pain issues as i felt that I could control the pain on my own...lol!
Chris: I guess with the pain relief I was just self-medicating. I had somehow convinced myself that I was exaggerating the pain (even though at times I would have to pull the car over to the side of the road to sit it out!!), so I would take some anti-inflamm pain killers when it got too bad to deal with on my own.
It wasn't until I started passing out from the pain that DH decided he had seen enough and booked me in to see the Dr who specialised in homeopathy (we were in Italy at the time and had no access to conventional doctors). She prescribed me some treatments that didnt help with the pain, but with the endo itself. I was amazed at the result, by my 2nd AF I had my first 'normal' cycle in years! and yeah, as i mentioned in my last post I was pregnant 2 months later. Since then I have not taken any measures as AF only arrived 2 cycles ago and it was only this mid-cycle that I began experiencing really bad pain again. I took some panadol, but as you girls probably know it was like a drop in the ocean!! lol!
so back to square one I guess...and yeah, if you have any tips or recommendations on what can help, I am most willing to take it ALL on board!!
sorry for taking so long to reply girls.
Chris - I can't recall having nose bleeds, but I only did about 3 and a half to 4 months on the synarel. I did start it in the middle of winter, and did manage to get a cold as well. I went to the chemist and they checked out what I could have for my stuffy blocked nose and gave me yet something else to sniff lol.
Clare, have you noticed if there are any foods that make AF worse? I noticed that whenever I had a coffee or coke, and sometimes even chocolate, my AF was worse. It was only for the first couple of days though, about day 3 I could have a coffee again.
Hope you can find some answers about your pain returning.
Yeah sorry for the late replies...hectic times with work and bub! (no complaints tho!)
Hi Nic, yeah i find that if i have coffee, chocolate etc in the days leading up to and during AF the symptoms are MUCH worse. this is also the case during mid-cycle. that's interesting that you have the same thing. it must be a trigger of some sort. Maybe the caffeine...
Nic/Cassius - I also found that eating anything sugary/fatty made my endo symptoms/cycles much much worse. I worked this out from when I had my lap I completely went off crap food and ate really blandly, simple veggies/wholegrains/meat etc and AF was great, then when I started adding sugary/fatty foods back into my diet, the endo pain started to slowly come back.
I definitely think diet has a lot to do with Endo. I find coffee and sugar are my biggest culprits, and tend to make the pain worse. If only I didn't crave both!!
A question for ladies that have spotting before AF. After you had a lap, did the spotting continue? I've found that the lap did nothing for that symptom, or really for any symptoms for that matter.
The acupuncture i'm having is helping I think, but its hard to say. I think i'm getting better, then the next month I get the mother of all AF's. I'm also taking herbal and nutritional supplements, which i've been on for almost 3 months now, and to be honest, I don't know if its all helping or not. I did have a really good month with no pain killers, where I didn't drink coffee pre-AF, I took a magnesium powder every day, and took a herbal anti-inflamatory at really high doses for 4 days before AF and 2 days into it. It's just getting really expensive with acupuncture and all of my supplements!
Laranna, did you take herbal and nutritional supplements after your lap? I know you said that you didn't take the hormonal medication recommended to you. Did you just change your lifestyle and diet? Your situation sounded very similar to mine and I need a little encouragement at the moment. I keep thinking that maybe I should have just taken the menopause injections.... its very disheartening when things keep getting worse since the lap.
Angel - after I had my lap all my symptoms disappeared for a while. With the supplements, I saw a naturopath who put me on to Vitex Agnus Cactus (chasteberry I think?) which was a really foul tasting liquid. It is meant to balance everything out and regulate your cycles. Unfortunately, I had the biggest mood swings after 3-4 days of it so I stopped it. I just sticked with the healthy diet and exercise and found this to be enough.
I haven't tried acupuncture, only saw a basic naturopath. When I was looking at seeing a chiro for my preg back pain, I heard they may also assist with menstural issues, something about alignments and nerves around the pelvic area so that may be something else you could look into?
Its funny you mention about the Chiro. I actually went to an Osteopath about a year and a half ago, before my endo diagnosis, and she mentioned that my pelvis was out of whack/alignment. I know that menstrual pain can be worse if you have poor circulation to the pelvic region, its just trying to fix that which is the hard part! I should get back into pilates!
I've probably had the worst AF pain this week since my lap in october, but its also the month that I conceived last year, and coming up to a year since my misscarriage, so I think stress and emotions has a lot to do with my pain.
A naturopath told me that "wanting" a baby will make endo worse (and the stress and emotions that come with that)... not exactly easy to NOT want a baby when you've had a misscarriage and been told that it will most likely be hard to conceive again. All of a sudden everything becomes about just that, and its hard to maintain normality. I hate my uterus sometimes! lol.
Actually, I should change that to 'I love my uterus and it is healthy and pink and will carry a precious baby sometime soon'. Thats better.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks