Don’t worry, I’m not done with the ‘Letters to Lovers’ series yet. There are just some stories that are difficult to put into a series of stories. One of those stories is the story about my hormonal problems. If you’re a guy and grossed out by this, then…skip this one and wait for a new post. But I’d rather see you reading this anyway, because I’m gonna write about a lot of things us ladies have to deal with.
I remember it as if it was yesterday. I was 13 years old and had been sick for a few days. We had no idea what it was and we were wondering if I maybe had appendicitis. I had lots of cramps and it wasn’t like anything I had ever felt before. I remember walking outside and being forced to stop and sit on the ground because it hurt too much. It was on my sisters birthday that I found out it wasn’t appendicitis. It was, in fact, my first period. I didn’t have the moment of pure shame a lot of girls have. You know, the moment where you have your first period leakage and everybody gets to see the bloodstain on your pants? Not experiencing that was a gift, but that doesn’t mean my first period wasn’t awful. It hurt, it was a lot of blood, I was constantly in fear to actually do experience the period leakage and I was afraid anyone would notice.
The week before my period starts has always been a difficult week for me. It became even worse when I was 15. The earliest clear memory I have of that was at high school. We had this school trip to Rome and some classmates and I were on a local bus, when suddenly I just became unwell. I was getting really weak and people around me started shouting: ‘Stop the bus! She needs fresh air!’. The bus stopped on the side of the street and let me and some classmates out. Once I got out, I sat on the sidewalk and fainted. I woke up real quick, but was shaking heavily and I was hot and cold and sweating a lot. One of my classmates got me some food and water and we waited until I felt well enough to stand up again. This was my first of many faints.
I also remember one day I was feeling very sick at school, I knew I needed to get home quickly. I felt the fainting coming, but I absolutely didn’t want it to happen in public. I was in public transport when I just felt my legs losing strength. I got out at the next stop and was so heated that I had to lay on the cold ground. I didn’t faint, but I knew I had to lay down for a while before I could function again. People at the tramstop were observing me and probably had no idea what was going on. The next tram arrived and the people at the stop went in and some other people got out. An older lady came to me and offered help. She had biscuits in her purse and had a bottle of water. She stayed with me until I could stand up again. I was so embarrassed. And not just this time, but every time things like this happened. My period was regular right away. Which is nice, because I knew exactly when I could expect it. But it was also terrible, because I immediately had it every month, when most girls start with just a few periods a year.
At some point I had enough of it. I asked my mom if we could go to the doctor to do something about it. First I had to do some blood tests. It turned out I have anemia the week before and during my period. I started to drink this lemonade with added iron the week before my period. That helped a little bit. I also started taking contraceptive pills to stop ovulation. It wasn’t ideal, because I had quite some side effects (discharge, discharge, candida, discharge), but it was way better than the cramps, fainting, sweating and not being able to function one or two days a month. This went “good” for about four years.
I was 19 or 20 years old when it turned into one of the worst things I had to deal with. I started having terrible cramps again, the becoming unwell came back, I suffered dryness (OUCH!), there were months the spotting didn’t stop (spotting is losing drops/small amounts of blood, but not having a full-on period) and I was nauseated a lot. I went to my GP (a new one, because I had moved) and she wanted to do some tests: another bloodtest and a smear test. Nothing interesting came out of those tests, so she said she could give me a painkiller or we could try another contraceptive pill. I chose the latter. I tried that for about three or four months, but it didn’t really make things better. My GP said I had to try it for a bit longer and so I did. Then suddenly one month I was menstruating for four weeks straight. Like…no pause whatsoever. My GP again said: ‘Hmm…wait a little longer, maybe it will change’. Two months after my four-week menstruation, I was menstruating for SIX weeks straight. In case you didn’t read this properly: SIX WEEKS! Can you imagine? Bleeding for six weeks straight. Not okay.
So I went to the GP again. She finally agreed on it not being okay and she wanted to do a chemical curettage/abortion pill. For the ones (hello guys) who don’t know what that is: It’s what’s used to clean or empty the uterus after a miscarriage or what’s used to terminate a pregnancy. To be clear: I wasn’t pregnant. Chemical curettage is trash. It’s so damaging to your body. But I didn’t really know what it was or what else to do or try. I was relying on my GP and I regret that. Did it work? No. Nothing had changed.
Two months later I had a four-week menstruation again. I went to my GP…again. She said I was probably immune to the contraceptive pill, because I started at a young age. She advised me to stop the contraceptive pill for a while, to find out what it would do. I give you three guesses. What do you think happened? Sweating, pain and fainting fainting fainting. I went back to my GP to beg for a referral to a gynaecologist and I finally got one.
My GP referred me to a gynaecologist to find out if a hormonal IUD was something for me. I got a gynaecological examination and after that I got the advice to try the Mirena (a hormonal IUD). She said all the side effects I was suffering would go away with the Mirena. I would have a normal period or a shorter one or even no menstruation at all. I would have no discharge and bla bla bla. This desperate lady, yours truly, fell for it and agreed. Choosing the Mirena would mean I had to try it for a year. Oh if only I would have known.
It started with the placement; My gynaecologist had an intern that needed to watch the procedure. I wasn’t particularly happy with that. Then the insertion started and it was and is seriously the most awful thing I have ever felt. Even thinking back on it hurts. Oh My God. I can’t even describe it, because there is absolutely nothing that feels the same. I fainted. I had to stay in the hospital for three hours, when normally they place it and you’re off to go. It was hell. The first three months after placement were nice. I had no complications, I had close to no menstruation at all and there were no side effects or whatever. And then it started.
The Mirena ended up being the worst thing I ever tried. There were moments I couldn’t walk because of the pain. It felt like I was imploding almost daily. Sometimes it felt like my intestines were stuck. I had rectal cramps, ovary pain, back pain and probably even more. I went to the gynaecologist again and she examined me. She found out I had cysts on my ovaries, but said that was pretty normal due to the hormones in the IUD. She advised me to try it a little longer and so I did. Yes…I can see the pattern now. I know I shouldn’t have listened. I know I had to stand up for myself. But I didn’t.
After a hellish year and two months I went to my new GP to let the Mirena be removed. I found out my gynaecologist was fired and the removal was something a GP could do anyway. Yes, you are reading that right: the gynaecologist was fired. I wonder why. The removal of the Mirena went so well and I was so relieved. My problems definitely weren’t over, but I was actually kinda happy with the pain my “normal” period gave me. I was okay with this pain for a few years. Yeah my period was still awful and I still fainted or almost fainted a lot. I had to call in sick for work almost every month and when I was too embarrassed to do that so often, I went to work sick. At work I went to the toilet a couple of times a day to lay on the cold ground and wait out the waves of pain that came over me. It was not okay.
At some point I moved to a house with a bathtub and this really helped me so much. For some reason the warm water in the bathtub gives me some pressure from to outside to drown out the pressure from the inside. It feels like the baths help me to survive the day. Or the night. There have been times I couldn’t sleep because of the pain. I would draw a bath at 2.00 AM to lay in it for 5 hours. Yes people, five hours. And because I would be extremely tired, I would also sleep during those 5 hours. I still take these baths almost every month, actually. Days and nights, depending on when I need it the most. Another thing that has helped me is a TENS. There is a TENS device called Livia and it’s amazing. I use it on days I feel good enough to not be in the bath for hours, but not good enough to function properly. The Livia is discrete and kinda looks like an MP3-player. The wires just don’t have earbuds, but gel pads attached to them. The constant electrical pulses help to block out the pain signals of my period cramps. The pain is still there, but it’s so much more tolerable with the Livia.
Its nice to have a bath and painkillers and a TENS, but I still wanted to know why I’m in so much pain. So I did some Googling, because…that’s what we do, and I found out my symptoms could be signs of Endometriosis. I found a special practice that is specialized in endometriosis, called Endometriosis in Balance. I went to my new GP (yes a new one again) to get a referral and he was such a dick about it. Unbelievable. Seriously. I sat there, talking about my struggles. I told him about everything and asked him for the referral, because I wanted to know if I had endometriosis. And he just said: ‘Nah, there isn’t a way to diagnose endometriosis’. To which I said: ‘Yes there is, they can examine it at Endometriosis in Balance’. And he answered: ‘That may be, but you can’t do anything about it anyway (which is completely wrong btw). Why don’t you just take an ibuprofen?’ Yours truly learned from earlier stubborn doctors and said: ‘Yeah, maybe…but give me the referral anyway’. Mister GP was annoyed, but did give me the referral.
I had to wait three months for my appointment at Endometriosis in Balance. In the meantime I read a lot of reviews and everybody was so positive about them. They called it personal care and a warm bath. People really felt like an individual and not like a number. Ha. Ha. That was, of course, not my experience. It started with the time of my appointment. I had to be there at 15.30 with a full bladder. I wasn’t allowed to pee for two hours prior to the appointment. I sat in the waiting room, waiting and waiting, when some assistant came to get me at 16.15. She asked me a lot of questions I had already answered on some kind of introduction form. The questions were personal and emotional and she never gave me any form of understanding, comforting or empathy. Then, after half an hour she brought me to the examination room. I was examined by a man. He didn’t speak my language and his English didn't seem that well either. He didn’t look me in the eye when we shook hands and it really felt like I was just another product on the assembly line. There were three other people in the examination room: The assistant and two interns. During the examination the doctor didn’t say anything. He sometimes waved where I had to put my legs or how I had to lay down, but almost no words were used. He never said what he was going to do, so I had no idea what to expect. I’ve had my fair share of gynaecological examinations, but this was the worst. By far. I didn’t feel safe, I didn’t feel comfortable and out of nowhere, without any warning whatsoever, I got a rectovaginal examination. I felt sexually assaulted.
Right after the examination the doctor told me he couldn’t find anything. I have a little bit of endometriosis on my sacrum, but that isn’t enough to cause me so much pain. The doctor advised me to try out another contraceptive pill. One just containing progesterone. I tried the pill for two weeks, because…why not? After two weeks I was done with it. It had the worst side effects. My breasts hurt. Not a little. No, premium hurt, especially my nipples. I suffered vaginal dryness so badly I could barely walk. And the progesterone pill had a huge impact on my mental state; I was constantly crying and couldn’t stop. So I quit taking it and decided I was done with all of it. I just had to accept I will be in pain during my periods.
Because of trying the progesterone pill, a new problem had occurred: The dryness didn’t fully go away. I couldn’t use tampons anymore, they were too painful to remove due to dryness. I definitely didn’t want to use sanitary pads, so I had to find an alternative and found that in menstrual cups. I’ll spare you the details, but they are amazing. I can’t believe I never used these before. It’s better for the environment, because there is a lot less waste and it reduces the risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome. And they are just so comfortable. Would definitely recommend.
Anyway, back to the story. Two years ago I was fed up with it all again and I still wanted to know what was going on. I went to my, again new, GP and he was determined to find out what was going on. Oh how I appreciated that. He said he wanted to do blood tests, send me to a new gynaecologist and if necessary refer me to an internist. Nothing new came out of the blood tests and when I was at the gynaecologist she told me: ‘You’ve been examined so many times, what are you doing here? You won’t get any new insights, but oh well. I’ll do the examination’. And of course she was right: nothing was found. I went back to my GP to ask for the internist referral, to find out my GP had been replaced. My new GP said I just had to deal with the situation. I already did everything possible, there was nothing to do about it and I just had to take stronger painkillers. According to her.
Last year I became self-employed. Because I still have to call in sick almost every month, I got annoyed for missing out on quite some money, because of my stupid period. I had a talk about it with the mother of one of my clients and she asked me if I had ever considered alternative medicine. This was definitely not in my frame of reference, so I decided to look into it. I did some research and felt most comfortable with acupuncture. And so I tried that out. Acupuncture was nice. It did help a little bit, but not fully and not every month. It also seemed to make my cycle shorter and I definitely don’t want that, haha. Shorter cycle means more periods, so no no no…better not.
I told a friend about this all and she told me she had her hormones checked. Another friend told me his wife sometimes has similar problems and she probably has thyroid issues. I decided I want to get my hormones checked and made an appointment with my GP. It was a phonecall, because of Covid19. My GP was kinda annoyed I came back with the same problem, after she told me I just had to deal with it. She didn’t want to give me a referral to an endocrinologist. She said an endocrinologist wouldn’t even examine me, but refer me to a gynaecologist straight away. I told her she couldn’t possibly know that for sure and I asked her to give me the referral anyway. Just in case. But I couldn’t convince her. I cried after that phonecall.
This was two months ago. I’m sure this story will be continued, but it’s kinda where it ends for now. I just had an awful period again. I was in a lot of pain, I fainted twice and I spent way too much time in bath. I’ve been in bath for over twelve hours in three days. This needs to stop, but I’m so tired of the fight for help. If you have any suggestions, let me know. I’ll keep you all updated.
