My health is out of control (kind of graphic/TMI)

[firaplays]

So right off the bat, if you're squeamish, maybe don't read this one. I seriously debated even posting about this, but I needed to get some of this off my chest.

 

 

Basically my menstrual cycle is completely out of whack. It's always been an unpredictable mess (skipping months, severe pain, depression and the like), but it got way better when I started taking medicine for it. I eventually spoke with a doctor about using medicine to stop it completely, which worked for a while, but then I started bleeding again out of nowhere. I had one period that lasted three weeks and threw me into a depression so deep I was incapable of leaving my bed for a day. Now I've got my period again, and it's incredibly heavy. I'm still on medicine that's supposed to be controlling it, but the blood won't stop. It's horrible. I take medicine, the bleeding doesn't stop. I take different medicine, it still doesn't stop. I get painful tests done and the doctors find nothing. I'm bleeding and there's nothing I can do to stop it. The lack of control is devastating. Lately it's been getting to me so much I've started having panic attacks (which is a recurring problem, but that's a different discussion). I know having a period is just a natural part of life, but this is not normal. I just want to figure out what's wrong with me and fix it. The worst part about everything is the idea that the medicine I'm taking doesn't work and I'm just going to have to accept that my cycle is unpredictable, as well as accepting all the pain that goes with that. I try not to borrow trouble, but my doctor has implied that it's possible that I'll have to come off my medicine, and that really scares me. I'm just having a real rough time of it right now. End gross rant.

 

Sorry to make you read all that. Have a puppy.

[megbowles17]

are you on any type of birth control? 

The reason i ask i have the nexplanon and it does me this exact same way . so i know how you feel it is horrible :(

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[sylphrenai]

Hey, I recently went through about two months of doctors appointments, ultrasounds, etc. I don't want to elaborate on all of that but the hormonal IUD has been a huge help and I would suggest you look into it if you have really heavy/crampy periods and/or feel like your hormones are outta whack. Feel free to message me if you want more info, I'd be glad to share my personal experience if it helps out.

[firaplays]

Yeah, I'm on birth control. I just switched recently because the last one I was on wasn't helping with my periods anymore, but this one isn't really working either^^' I've thought about getting an IUD, but I'm moving out of the country soon, so I'm not sure if that's an option I want to consider right now. Maybe once I've gotten a better feel for the medical system in Japan. I might pm you for more details depending on what my doctor says the next time I talk to her, though.

[Midgetlegs]

I know in high school I had a period that lasted non-stop for 13 months. That's when my doctor put me on the pill, which fixed the problem. Though my doctor never really explained anything about what was going on. I assume it's a hormonal thing, but if you're already on some sort of birth control then that solution had already been tried. On a side note, I switched to an IUD almost on a whim about 2 years ago. I have no complaints aside from it being the most absolutely horrible pain I've ever felt EVER. I guess if you've had kids already it hurts less since your cervix is used to being opened, but yeah. Installation was very bad.

[smoss1]

Maybe it needs to be another type of medication or birth control. I got on it for the same reason plus my stomach cramps would not let me go to school when I was in high school. I had to try a couple of meditations though. My whole goal was to continuously take the birth control so my period would completely stop. The first one I tried let everyone bleed every two weeks and were much heavier. My doctor said that I needed a stronger one. A few tries later and I finally had one that worked. I'm not on it anymore because it's not necessarily the best thing for your body to to not have a period for a super long time. But, over the four years that I used it, I didn't have a period.

I really hope you sort this out...  It's not fun to deal with

[Sinvanor]

I'm on depo shot. It's completely stopped my periods outright. I get no cramps, no bleeding. I don't know if it's messed with my depression, my libido is definitely affected negatively, but my cramps and bleeding are pretty heavy so it's not a bad trade off and honestly I think my sex drive is more caused by other mental issues rather than the hormone shot, so it might be worth a try depending on if it's worth it for your specific situation.

Perhaps that might be an option for you. You get it every three months, totally protected and after a few times of getting the shot, your period is usually gone completely.

Either way, I dearly hope you get this figured out hun. I know just what it's like to have lots of physical issues, yet nothing wrong with you, nothing to explain what's going on. Good luck in Japan and good luck fixing this problem. Wishing you all the best and keep us updated if you like. 

[rntracy1]

Hi.  I may need a little more information.  Did all of this start before or after you started taking birth control?  Meaning, are you taking the birth control because of these issues, or did these problems start after you started taking birth control?  There could be several causes for your problems, and your doctor telling you that everything is fine (or that nothing is wrong) is not very helpful.  If I were you, I would get a second, third, fourth...............opinion.  If NOTHING else, bleeding heavy, for extended lengths of time, can cause severe anemia and other deficiencies.  It could be something as simple as a hormone imbalance (not simple but not life threatening) to endometriosis, to a benign or malignant tumor of the uterus and/or ovary(s).  But like I said, I would need to know more about how and when this issue started.

[WhiteWolf]

Do you know if other women in your family are prone to periods like you're describing? I had really bad ones too, but I found out that my mom and grandmother had them too. It may sound strange, but genes can throw you some weird curve balls.

[SootSprite]

I think some women just have it a lot worse than others.

I started my period at 10, and my mom put me on birth control by 12 (not for sex, but to somewhat control my periods).

I've always had super heavy cramps, like to the point where I have to sit in a ball all day, and can't go to work. I have straight lost jobs because I've missed too many days due to period stuff. Which in turn makes me feel depressed because I'm like why are all the other women around me able to deal and don't have to call out? But my mom has the same issues so its hereditary. Also been pregnant a couple times, and the pregnancies were BAD. Like so nausea I couldn't even keep down water and just get kept loosing weight. And then all my friends have babies and have perfect little pregnancies and don't understand why it was so hard on me. 

Anywho, sorry that was a lot about me, but ultimately, I just think each woman has very different bodies, I didn't even know you could get medicine for that stuff. But I have realized some birth controls work better than others. I've personally found that Nuva Ring makes my periods the most regular, and I can control when I want to have it and not. 

Have you tried multiple methods of BC?

I wanted to get the one the doctor inserts in you uterus (forget what it's called) but my doctor told me it affects women very differently, and some women end up bleeding for the first year straight and some women are fine right off the bat, but knowing how unpredictable and painful my periods have been, a whole year of that really scared me off. 

 

Also congrats on the move to Japan! That sounds amazing!

[alexinwonderland]

I used to have terrible, heavy periods (not even close to yours so I can't really imagine) with really bad cystic acne. I went on Mirena (non-hormonal IUD) about 2 1/2 years ago and i've basically not had one since. There's definitely some cramping and annoyance in the first few months (which is why a lot of people go off it) but, if you stick it out, it's totally worth it. The worst I've had since is a very very very light spotting one morning. Are you in Japan already? If you have insurance in the US, it's still covered (who knows for how long) so I would definitely talk to a gyn about it.

 

Edit: Props to all the ladies in here willing to talk about it. We all know it's basically still taboo. 

[DesertRose]

We see ads on television for ED, but we ladies can't talk about our period? That's nuts!

[firaplays]

Thank you all for talking to me about this, I honestly didn't know if anyone would want to know more details. I've had rough periods from the beginning, not just since I've been on birth control. I was diagnosed with PMDD, which I like to describe as PMS on steroids, so I would frequently experience debilitating cramps and occasionally depression. I used to skip months fairly regularly, to the point where I was almost getting a period every other month. Which may sound awesome, but the PMS symptoms never went away unless I actually GOT a period, so it was fairly un-awesome. The worst of the mental stuff happened when I skipped two months, which happened twice in my life and never ended well. I ended up going on a regular birth control pill after I skipped a month and decided I had enough (it was Yaz or something, I forget). I got a lot of side effects from that, so I switched to a low dose pill that unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. When that company got bought out, they SWORE nothing changed, but it started controlling all of my symptoms way worse. I started getting worse cramps in places I'd never had them before whenever I got my period, and after a few years, I asked my doctor about stopping my periods completely. She had me do that by taking my pills continuously without using the placebos, and it worked great until it didn't, which leads me to where I am today. I went off of that pill and started one that's specifically designed for you to only get three periods per year, but I couldn't even go two days on it before I started bleeding again ><

I know my mom always had bad periods, but I don't think she had any of the mental stuff to the extent that I did, and she says her periods were like clockwork. I'm not sure about anyone else in my family.

I haven't tried any other BC methods. And I'm not in Japan yet, but I'm hopefully going this summer. It's not so much insurance I'm worried about, it's the physical move as well as having to learn a new medical vocabulary that makes me a little wary of putting something foreign into my body, at least for now. But if my doctor and I can't get this all resolved with pills, I'm probably going to look into it. The only thing I know I CAN'T do no matter what is go back to the way things were in the beginning.

Also, does anyone have advice on how to cope with a super heavy flow? It's not something I've had to deal with to this extent before. I tried googling it, but everything basically just said talk to your doctor, which I've already done. I'm just getting super overwhelmed by the amount of blood and I want to be able to deal with the mess and discomfort better.

[alexinwonderland]

14 hours ago, DesertRose said:

We see ads on television for ED, but we ladies can't talk about our period? That's nuts!

I'm with you. There was a big ridiculous ordeal here about advertising for the "period panty" on the subways. Somehow that was deemed too "graphic" even though they showed nothing; but all the ads for bosom (also, really enjoyed that my first two attempts to write something similar got changed to hissi and cheese) enlargement are totally kosher. Some men just can't handle the fact that women don't exist solely for their enjoyment.

[firaplays]

Wait, people had a problem with those ads? I saw them every day for a while, they were fine! They were admittedly kind of weird, but I didn't see anything wrong with them.

[snowkat013]

Hi OP. In talking with your doctor have you discussed potential issues with your hypothalamus or pituitary gland? Menstrual problems don't always stem from weirdness in the ovaries or uterus.

[alexinwonderland]

On 3/18/2017 at 5:37 PM, firaplays said:

Wait, people had a problem with those ads? I saw them every day for a while, they were fine! They were admittedly kind of weird, but I didn't see anything wrong with them.

Oh yeah. At first they allowed them in the subway cars and then someone complained about them (ruining the youth of america or something equally ridiculous) so they ripped them out. They were finally allowed to advertise in the subway system but, got relegated to the turnstiles. So stupid.