So, it’s been about two years since I really posted about how my lady bits are doing . For the first few months of this blog, it was all lady bits drama all the time. But since mid-2010, things have calmed down in my down there since I started taking birth control pills for hormone replacement therapy.
If this was not already obvious, TMI abounds.
Artist's rendition.
So, for the most part, POF is one of those diseases where pretty much everything stops working, so there’s never really a need for me to post frequently about My Uterus and Her Partner-In-Crime, Rightie. (For those of you new to this blog, I only have my right ovary. Long story short , my Leftie went AWOL back in 2000.)
There’s never really much to post about because, well, they don’t really do anything anymore. Granted, I still get withdrawal bleeding about every three months when I take my week of sugar pills, and sometimes I have the occasional (and annoying) breakthrough bleed, but for the most part, not a whole helluva lot is going on in my ‘ute.
Until last week.
Late Monday night, I was working on some stuff at my desk and noticed that Rightie was incredibly tender and sore. So much so, that I was having pain in my lower back and down to my right knee. Larry called me on the way home from Boston, a good 45 minutes away. I told him I was feeling like poo and would be in bed by the time he came home. I popped two Advil and went to bed.
By the time he came home, the pain was worse and the Advil only made me sleepy, doing nothing for the pain. We debated going to the ER but decided since it was so late, that I would call my doc first thing in the morning.
By morning, the pain had dropped somewhat. That afternoon, I met with the nurse practitioner who does women’s wellness and GYN appointments at my doctor’s office. I got a pap smear, since I told her I think I went all of 2011 without getting one (bad Keiko, bad!) and she did a pelvic exam. Nothing felt out of the ordinary, but I was still pretty tender. She ordered bloodwork and an ultrasound.
(In other news, I bled like a stuck pig after my pap smear. That was new. Has this ever happened to anyone else?)
I couldn’t get an ultrasound until the next afternoon, which I knew would be pointless since I bet that my pain would be gone by the next day. I was right, but I still had the ultrasound just the same.
My ultrasound tech was rather cheery and G-d love her, she took me back right away since I was pretty sure if I had waited another minute, I would have peed all over the waiting room floor. Being kind of fat means they have to press down harder for the abdominal part, so she’s very lucky I didn’t pee all over the table.
One quick and much-needed trip to the bathroom later, it was time for my Date with Wanda. This part sucked. The transvaginal ultrasound took easily 20 minutes. Lots of digging around, trying to get good images. It took her forever to find Rightie, since she’s super small (as a result of the POF). And then she asked me…
“Do you have a history of fibroids?”
“Um, no? Why, do you see any?”
“I’m not sure…”
In the waiting silence of the next 10 minutes, I think about the craziness I had two years ago when they tried to tell me I had endometriosis . Which, thankfully, I do not. But her question reminded me of that time I was laying on the table, ultrasound wand up my hoohah, and the tech bringing in a second doctor to try and figure out what the weird half-inch anomaly on my right ovary was. (Which, turned out to be… nothing.)
The tech didn’t say much as she finished. I bled again as she had the wand pressing so much on my cervix it aggravated whatever the pap smear had irritated the day before. And I was all kinds of sore.
I got my results Thursday morning.
“There is a probable pedunculated posterior fundal fibroid measuring 1.1 x 1.0 x 1.1cm.”
Translation: I most-likely have a dime-sized doorknob-shaped fibroid on the back of my uterus.
Um, great?
A Dr. Google search revealed that fibroids have a 1 in 1,000 chance of becoming cancer and may get huge, fill with blood, and cause severe hemorrhaging during vaginal childbirth. They also could be completely harmless and never bother you. After exactly 2 pages, I stopped reading about fibroids online.
Nobody knows what causes fibroids, but they can run in families. I learned that three of my aunts had fibroids so bad they eventually had hysterectomies after they were done having children. Fantastic.
I have a follow-up appointment next Wednesday. From what I can tell, I shouldn’t worry about the fibroid. Keep an eye on it yes, but worry about it no. So we’ll see.
The other fabulous revelation I got from my test results was that my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) was through the roof: 5.29. Second-highest reading I’ve had since 2009, when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. For reference, my last TSH reading back in October was only 1.41. TSH in the 1.0 range is my happy thyroid zone. Anything over 1.5 and I feel like mush. It makes sense – all of the exhaustion I’ve felt recently I’ve been writing off to the stress of working from home and working crazy hours all the time.
Nope, turns out my thyroid is probably eating itself again. Hooray for anti-thyroid antibodies!
So next Wednesday I’ll be asking my doc about upping my thyroid meds (again, in this endless yo-yo of dosage adjustments) and double checking that no, I don’t need to worry about the doorknob in my hoohah.
We’ll see what she has to say and of course, I’ll keep y’all posted.
How are your lady bits doing? 
So, it’s been about two years since I really posted about how my lady bits are doing . For the first few months of this blog, it was all lady bits drama all the time. But since mid-2010, things have calmed down in my down there since I started taking birth control pills for hormone replacement therapy.
If this was not already obvious, TMI abounds.
Artist's rendition.
So, for the most part, POF is one of those diseases where pretty much everything stops working, so there’s never really a need for me to post frequently about My Uterus and Her Partner-In-Crime, Rightie. (For those of you new to this blog, I only have my right ovary. Long story short , my Leftie went AWOL back in 2000.)
There’s never really much to post about because, well, they don’t really do anything anymore. Granted, I still get withdrawal bleeding about every three months when I take my week of sugar pills, and sometimes I have the occasional (and annoying) breakthrough bleed, but for the most part, not a whole helluva lot is going on in my ‘ute.
Until last week.
Late Monday night, I was working on some stuff at my desk and noticed that Rightie was incredibly tender and sore. So much so, that I was having pain in my lower back and down to my right knee. Larry called me on the way home from Boston, a good 45 minutes away. I told him I was feeling like poo and would be in bed by the time he came home. I popped two Advil and went to bed.
By the time he came home, the pain was worse and the Advil only made me sleepy, doing nothing for the pain. We debated going to the ER but decided since it was so late, that I would call my doc first thing in the morning.
By morning, the pain had dropped somewhat. That afternoon, I met with the nurse practitioner who does women’s wellness and GYN appointments at my doctor’s office. I got a pap smear, since I told her I think I went all of 2011 without getting one (bad Keiko, bad!) and she did a pelvic exam. Nothing felt out of the ordinary, but I was still pretty tender. She ordered bloodwork and an ultrasound.
(In other news, I bled like a stuck pig after my pap smear. That was new. Has this ever happened to anyone else?)
I couldn’t get an ultrasound until the next afternoon, which I knew would be pointless since I bet that my pain would be gone by the next day. I was right, but I still had the ultrasound just the same.
My ultrasound tech was rather cheery and G-d love her, she took me back right away since I was pretty sure if I had waited another minute, I would have peed all over the waiting room floor. Being kind of fat means they have to press down harder for the abdominal part, so she’s very lucky I didn’t pee all over the table.
One quick and much-needed trip to the bathroom later, it was time for my Date with Wanda. This part sucked. The transvaginal ultrasound took easily 20 minutes. Lots of digging around, trying to get good images. It took her forever to find Rightie, since she’s super small (as a result of the POF). And then she asked me…
“Do you have a history of fibroids?”
“Um, no? Why, do you see any?”
“I’m not sure…”
In the waiting silence of the next 10 minutes, I think about the craziness I had two years ago when they tried to tell me I had endometriosis . Which, thankfully, I do not. But her question reminded me of that time I was laying on the table, ultrasound wand up my hoohah, and the tech bringing in a second doctor to try and figure out what the weird half-inch anomaly on my right ovary was. (Which, turned out to be… nothing.)
The tech didn’t say much as she finished. I bled again as she had the wand pressing so much on my cervix it aggravated whatever the pap smear had irritated the day before. And I was all kinds of sore.
I got my results Thursday morning.
“There is a probable pedunculated posterior fundal fibroid measuring 1.1 x 1.0 x 1.1cm.”
Translation: I most-likely have a dime-sized doorknob-shaped fibroid on the back of my uterus.
Um, great?
A Dr. Google search revealed that fibroids have a 1 in 1,000 chance of becoming cancer and may get huge, fill with blood, and cause severe hemorrhaging during vaginal childbirth. They also could be completely harmless and never bother you. After exactly 2 pages, I stopped reading about fibroids online.
Nobody knows what causes fibroids, but they can run in families. I learned that three of my aunts had fibroids so bad they eventually had hysterectomies after they were done having children. Fantastic.
I have a follow-up appointment next Wednesday. From what I can tell, I shouldn’t worry about the fibroid. Keep an eye on it yes, but worry about it no. So we’ll see.
The other fabulous revelation I got from my test results was that my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) was through the roof: 5.29. Second-highest reading I’ve had since 2009, when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. For reference, my last TSH reading back in October was only 1.41. TSH in the 1.0 range is my happy thyroid zone. Anything over 1.5 and I feel like mush. It makes sense – all of the exhaustion I’ve felt recently I’ve been writing off to the stress of working from home and working crazy hours all the time.
Nope, turns out my thyroid is probably eating itself again. Hooray for anti-thyroid antibodies!
So next Wednesday I’ll be asking my doc about upping my thyroid meds (again, in this endless yo-yo of dosage adjustments) and double checking that no, I don’t need to worry about the doorknob in my hoohah.
We’ll see what she has to say and of course, I’ll keep y’all posted.
How are your lady bits doing?