I finally had the follow-up appointment after my ultrasound on Friday. It was pretty much a waste of time. She told me they’ve confirmed that the endometriosis is back and she doesn’t understand how. Jory came with me to this appointment and it was nice to have his support, I always go to these appointments alone. I was happy that he got a chance to ask the doctor his questions and was participating in finding an effective treatment for me.
I’m not scheduling another surgery at this time, the doctor says it’s too soon to operate again. This is good and bad. Giving my age, it’s not good that I’ve already had as many surgeries as I’ve had. I am happy I don’t have to have another operation, but am frustrated that I won’t be getting the relief I was hoping for. I basically have to sit around while these things continue to grow, waiting ’till I’m ready to get pregnant.
Dr. Perry brought up Lupron again and I once again expressed my reluctance to the medication. Lupron is given in injections and tricks your body into thinking that it’s in menopause. The treatments are 6 months long. The side effects are a nightmare, hot flashes, weight gain, nausea and so so much more. I am not comfortable taking Lupron, even though for the first time last night, I considered it. Like most things, people rant about the negatives more than the positives so I haven’t been able to find many Lupron success stories.
I am not ready to go through menopause at 26.
Unlike I thought, hysterectomys are NOT a good treatment for endometriosis. In my ideal world I’d have two or three kids and then have a hysterectomy, providing me with relief for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Endometriosis feeds off of estrogen. After a hysterectomy you still have to take synthetic forms of estrogen, which the endometriosis feeds off of just as easy as natural estrogen. The disease still grows.
We’re going to try one last thing, acupuncture. It might be able to help me get some pain relief and it’s offered through Kaiser. If it’s not working, I am going to consider Lupron. I hate hate hate hate the idea of it but I’m starting to feel like it’s my only option to get my life back.
I was given the green light to exercise again, as long as the pain is tolerable. This made me VERY happy, as I am starting to gain weight again. Considering I can still barely walk, I’ll have to let my feet heal first… but I am very excited to get active again. I am thinking about getting that Bladium gym membership I’ve been wanting. I am SO self-conscious when it comes to working out and wish I had a work out buddy. Yoga is supposed to be extremely beneficial and I hope to get some help from it.
There is an aspect of loneliness with this disease, as I’ve described before. It’s apparent now more than ever. I feel repetitive. I feel like screaming when people tell me I can adopt. I feel like I’m repeating myself and hate when people ask me how I’m doing, because I sound like a whiney, pathetic broken record when I tell them yet again how miserable I am. I almost think it’s time to start lying to avoid looking like a victim or someone who’s just plain lame. I feel like people don’t understand my impulsiveness to have children and how much it hurts me to think about not having any. I feel like people have absolutely no idea what I go through on a daily basis and that I should “get over it” or “suck it up”. It’s a horrible feeling and I’m very embarrassed. I haven’t returned any calls from people seeing how Friday went. I just don’t want to deal with it.
I found a helpful website today. http://www.endo-resolved.com/ There’s a lot of good information on there. It also suggests I do yoga for a few different reasons. This is the list of symptoms that come along with Endo and I would hope that people with these symptoms would get checkd out:
The most common symptoms of Endometriosis are:
- Pain before and during periods
- Pain with intercourse
- General, chronic pelvic pain throughout the month
- Low back pain
- Heavy and/or irregular periods
- Painful bowel movements, especially during menstruation
- Painful urination during menstruation
- Fatigue
- Infertility
- Diarrhoea or constipation
- Headaches
- Low grade fevers
- Depression
- Hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar)
- Anxiety
- Susceptibility to infections, allergies
Other symptoms which are common with Endometriosis include:
Alie's Blog 
Glad to hear you are looking into acupuncture. It did wonders for me!
Good to know, I have heard a lot of positive feedback. I’ll try anything before putting horrible medications in my body. I don’t even like taking Advil!
Hello. I just wanted to chime in. I’m at the end of my first lupron shot and so far so good. I haven’t had any side effects other than constipation. I’m still skeptical about the treatment, but I figured I would give it a shot. I think that the only reason why we only see horrible stories online is because only people who have reason to complain do. Anyway, I’m also going to look into acupuncture and herbal medicine. I need to find out if my insurance covers it.
I totally get what you mean about not being able to get pregnant. Only people who go through infertility can truly comprehend. My case is a little different as my husband is the infertile one and I have no idea how fertile I am. All my tests say I should have no problems getting pregnant, but I’m not sure if I can. I guess I’ll find out once the treatment is done because we’ll be doing an IUI with donor sperm.
Good luck on your fertility pursuit and keep us posted on what happens with you.