So, I ran across this post in my email this morning. Not much info there, other than to say that chronic pelvic pain is another co-existing condition we may run into with Fibro. What she doesn’t mention is one of the main causes of chronic pelvic pain that often goes undiagnosed…. Endometriosis. Since the only way to know for sure if you have Endo is to have laproscopic surgery and go in and look, a lot of women end up not knowing, especially if pain is the only symptom you have of it.
For some women it’s much easier, they have large cysts that show up on ultrasounds or heavy bleeding or some other primary Endometriosis symptom that gives the Drs a better idea that it is Endo. But, if it’s just pain, it’s very easy for Drs to just write it off. What’s worse is that we write it off. If the pain only shows up during sex, we just avoid sex. And, really who likes talking to their Dr about sex, let alone that they have pain during sex. I’ve mentioned pain during sex to my Gyno at least 4 times in the last 2 years (at least). At one point she gave me a cream to try and mentioned sending me down to see this specialist if it continued. It seemed to improve for a while but then after I started having this pain in my abdomen it returned (in a different place). By then I was seeing my GI doc every few weeks trying to figure out the abdominal pain and I finally mentioned the pain during sex to him (in a moment of utter frustration). I swear I think I saw the lightbulb go on over his head and it was at that point that the possibility of Endometriosis came up. If we hadn’t already done pretty much every test possible seeking a GI cause for this pain, I’m not sure he would have thought of Endo when he did. Even then, my Gyno’s preference was to send me to the specialist. However, with a 3+ month wait list to see the specialist, I was able to get her to just do the laproscopy. She did and she found it.
I say all that to say this. Don’t let Drs get away with using your Fibro to diagnose everything else. Even my GI doc (before I mentioned the pain during sex) was starting to go down that trail. Don’t allow it. Keep digging. Just because we have Fibro doesn’t mean that is the root of all of our pains and issues. Almost everyone I know that has Fibro has been diagnosed with some other major co-existing condition (that actually shows up on a test).
I am happy to say that I am doing a lot better. I still have some pain in my abdomen but not as much as before. I’m recovering from surgery. I still can’t wear jeans (even the ones from 20lbs ago) comfortably. But, I can go for two days now before I wake up dead. This is a huge improvement over last week where I was having alternating dead days. My appt with the specialist is still on for next week. So, I’m going to see what he says before I decide about the Lupron.
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