So I have been having health problems for awhile. For two years now, I have experienced a dull ache on the right side of my pelvis. The occasional ache has turned into a constant ache and an occasional pain. In addition to this, I have been on my period since July 1 and it is now September 3. The first problem has been ignored until recently because of an ER visit in which I was told it was nothing to worry about, but the gradual increase in pain and discomfort required new investigation. The second problem has required more recent investigation. Let me tell you all about it.
After having had my period for about a month, I decided to go to the gynecologist to have this checked out. After researching local OBGYN, I made an appointment at a nearby place. Upon arriving to my first appointment, I was weighed, had blood pressure taken, and was told that because I was a virgin, I would be subject to an external exam by the doctor and then he and I would talk about my problems. I get undressed and into the robe for the external exam, which is traumatic enough given that I am a virgin who has never been naked in front of any many, let alone let one have his hands anywhere near Miss. V. When the doctor gets there, he tells me very quickly that he is going to do an internal exam which alarms me greatly. When I tell him I am a virgin, he has the nurse retrieve the “small” instrument used for those types of exams and shoves it up in me. I screamed from the pain. I understand that this is an uncomfortable situation for women who are or have been sexually active…but damn it was excruciating for someone who is 1) a virgin and 2) very shy and modest about both my body and sexual activity. After this was over, I told him my problems, and he quickly dismissed my concern about the prolonged period and was more interested in the pain in my pelvis. He informed me that the prolonged period was a normal thing and that all women eventually went through this kind of thing, but if it continued much longer he would put me on birth control to regulate it. This was early August. He told me the pain concerned him, and ordered both blood tests and an ultrasound scheduled for ten days later. I left sobbing that day.
On August 24 I showed up for my ultrasound, having downed four and a half bottles of water, the technician couldn’t do a proper ultra sound. She sent me into the waiting room for twenty minutes while she attended to another person and informed me to drink more water. So I retrieved my water bottle from the car and drank 3 more bottles. The 7 ½ bottles of water seemed enough. Fortunately the woman was kind enough to respect that I was a virgin and did a normal US, pressing down so hard on the area that hurt already, that I was in PAIN for a few days after. I was told to come back on Friday for the results.
On August 28, I came back for the results of my tests and to see where we needed to go from here. I anticipated getting the prolonged bleeding under control via birth control as he had promised, and I was worried about the pain because the OBGYN had indicated that it could be a growth or something else. When he came in, we had a very interesting conversation. This is how it went:
"Your blood work is normal, which is good and your ultra sound didn’t show any abnormalities. So this is what I think. Sex hormones are what regulate your period. They are fat soluble, so if you are overweight, they do not function properly. So because you are overweight, you have an irregular period. The only way to solve that is to continue losing weight. I know you are on Adipex, and you doctor for that probably already talked to you about that, but Adipex is just supposed to jumpstart you. You actually have to change your eating and exercise habits. And when you do that you're weight will go down. And the pain, we couldn’t see anything on the ultra sound. There might be something there, so if you want to explore than, we could do an exploratory surgery through your belly button and see what the problem is. Or you could wait and see how much weight loss affects the pain. It might go away."
No medication or birth control was prescribed and I left without answers or solutions. Afterwards, I made various phone calls to medical workers, technicians, doctors, and those who had been through the same thing and a few things were determined: 1) Find a new OBGYN, 2) even if being overweight contributes to my problems, a good doctor would have done something to help resolve the problems, 3) there are a million problems that I could be suffering from that could not be seen on an ultra sound and 4) the bleeding might not even be period blood but a result of whatever is wrong.
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