I thought this may be helpful to write incase anyone is experiencing similar situations.
I'm 42, will turn 43 later this month and for about 3 or 4 years now I'd say, maybe more, I just haven't felt 'right' whatever that is, but It started where I have got extremely fatigued, nauseous and achy pretty much all the time. Gradually, it feels like it's got worse over time, and my menstrual cycle is complete chaos, please mind this bit is going to be a bit gross but I want to tell the raw truth. I started having 2 periods a month which I put down to the reason I was feeling exhausted, I went to the doctors and was given tranexamic acid, which is a temporary medication that reduces the flow If you have heavy bleeds, the gp wouldn't let me have any form of the pill, which is used primerally as a contraception but is also good for regulating periods, but the gp said no as I was told my bmi was too high, and I was too old, I was late 30's at this stage, it felt like I was not being listened to if I'm honest, so I said that wasn't good enough and she arranged for me to have a scan on my pelvis to see if there was any thing that would show up on that, potentially thinking there may be fibroids, or polycystic ovary syndrome etc but nothing showed up on it, just that I had a high cervix, I'd not been through child birth and they said there was nothing to be worried about, so the gp said I have menorrhagia which is a fancy way of saying I have heavy periods, and put it down to mother nature being a bitch, thanks mammy nature 🙄
From the age of 28, my hair started to fall out, it's took til recently for gp's to take that seriously, I'm currently awaiting a wig and I'm seeing a dermatologist every few months and been diagnosed with scarring alopecia and female pattern baldness, it's pretty devastating that I'll loose it all eventually, it's currently looking similar to a monks hairdo, I prefer to have the lot shaved off as It makes me sad as it grows back there's nothing in the middle and just grows around the sides, and as it grows longer what little there is, it starts to fall out more and looks in a unhealthy condition too, but there we are, glad to get a diagnosis on that, and is an answer to why my white blood cell count was a little higher than it should of been, in laymans terms with that, the good cells were fighting healthy hair roots, which has made the pores scar up, there's no chance of hair transplant as it is an auto immune disease within itself so would only kill off the transplanted hair roots, so bugger that one 😅
So, as I was going back and forth to the gp trying to get an answer to l the different symptoms I had, a locum noticed my stomach issues, it turned out to be diverticular disease which was a relief as I was fast tracked for cancer, that was very scary indeed. As a kid I seldom ate and was frightened of food going down my throat, food has always been some kind of enemy, I have various allergies and Intolerances, so had a bad relationship with food, then in my teens I used food as a source of comfort, so I got bigger, I'd gone from a skinny kid with ribs sticking out into a whale as soon as I hit puberty, from day one of my periods, they were nothing but trouble so started the pill very early, my mum was not pleased about this being a strict catholic so I had to drum it into her that it was for health reasons, I didn't have any interest in boys like she was insinuating, I had plenty of boy pals but when it came to boyfriends I had zero interest, but there was an underlying reason for this which has affected my whole life that I don't want to talk about in this blog, maybe another time.
I'd kinda got used to the mother nature being a bitch and the poor woman would get the blame for it all over the years, and I didn't want to seem like some kind of hypochondriac, so tried to not pester the docs over the years, one of the most embarrassing things that happened was developing a cyst, right on an unmentionable body part, OK, it was on my clitoris, gp reckoned it was because I'd continued to take tranexamic acid for too long a time, an error on their part as I thought I was supposed to keep on taking it and nowhere did it stop me from getting it prescribed, so I had to have the cyst surgically removed, it caused discomfort when I walked, sat, anything, I think the thing that caused the most distress was down to 1 minute before waiting to go into the operating theatre, the surgeon was unsure whether or not they were going to put me to sleep for the op or not so with seconds to go, with an anesthetist waiting for the word go not knowing as well, they decided I was going to be awake for it, which was a very surreal experience! I even had a nurse who was there just to hold my hand which was nice, the procedure was thoroughly unpleasant, I had to have anesthetic in a very sensitive place as you can imagine, things down there have never been the same since and I hope no one has to ever have that done, I've never seen so much blood in my life, and the stitches where the most cruel part, I was in absolute agony it was horrible, I had a nurse knock on the bathroom door saying in a very sympathetic voice asking me was I OK, no, it was like I'd been severed, I can still remember the pain, a whole heap of no! They sent me away with cocodamol for pain relief (i know, wtf?!?) and I was back in hours later with a bad allergic reaction to that 'pain relief' absolutely fucking charming!!!
Anyway moving on....! That happened, and thankfully they gave me meds to stop my periods for a while, I can only be thankful for that, let's move onto the next bit of this story shall we...
So, I'm 42 now, and it's took to move to a different county to be taken seriously, we had those damn lock downs, and we got evicted during that, now before you judge, we were paying our rent, the landlord was kicking us out because in his words 'it was only going to be a short time anyway' absolutely bloody charming, he was letting himself in whenever he wanted, I've wrote a whole blog about it so do read it if you want to know more, but he was doing the same to our neighbour and she ended up putting a lock on her door, as one time, she had got out the shower and he was stood there, thank goodness she has a towel on, not a nice chap at all! Anyway we had 6 months to move out, my health was bad, I was having 2 periods a month sometimes, then would have 2 months with nothing, I was honestly feeing like crap, and had decided I was going to see a gp once we had settled into our new place, we had to move it all ourselves as we knew no one, and we (i mean my Fiancé and me) probably still haven't recovered from that.
So I was registered with a new gp, the receptionist I found was a bit of a grump, but they seem more proactive than any other ever had, the usual thing was 'your fat, loose weight' even with something like a ingrown toenail, it almost seems like you have to bully the doctors to get anything done, I'm not fond of it, but needs must mad all that!
I had to have repeat bloodwork done as they were concerned about a result of anti nuclear antibodies, I'm still not sure what that means if I'm honest and a high number of prolactin levels, every time I had a new bloods done, the levels were increasing, so they started to take me seriously. I was sent for a breast scan, that was more to make sure that there was nothing sinister going on with the girls, and thankfully it came back with a normal result, hand on heart, it wasn't as bad an experience as I was expecting, your boob gets a bit squished Inbetween the 2 plates, and you do have to stand in some weird positions like some kind of gymnast, I have limited mobilty due to negligence after a road traffic accident, so that made that bit extra fun! Yes, anyway, nowhere near as painful as I expected, but I wonder if maybe for ladies with smaller bosoms it may be different and more painful, as I'm of the more bigger knockers variety it may of been at some advantage with more tit mass I don't know the science behind it, so please don't be too scared when you have to go for a breast scan, it's good to do, I was a little embarrassed having to get my baps out but at least there's peace of mind that they are doing OK, and that meant it was more than likely to be hormone related.
The same gp that wanted me to go for the breast scan arranged for an mri as he was concerned it may be my pituarity gland that's causing all the problems, he hit the nail on the head with that one, turned out he was right, and I had a diagnoses from that of a pituatry tumor, my diagnoses is a pituitary adenoma, which has been the cause of the fatigue, nausea, dry heaving, not feeling hungry, extreme hunger, mega tiredness, extremely heavy periods to the point of me flooding overnight and thank our lucky stars we have a mattress protector and stain remover, headaches, dizzyness, seeing stars, and nearly fainting, it's been horrible to say the least but I'm so thankful for an answer! It's scary the thought of a growth that should be there on the bottom of my brain, but such a relief rather than nothing or mother natures fault, it makes me feel like I'm finally being taken seriously, and I'm not some mad hypochondriac!
I've been given anti depressants a few months ago, it was very dark thoughts and times, a lot of it to do with I think my family dont care, it is scary to me that i am estranged from my family, it's honestly good though that I don't have contact with my mum's family, they are toxic and were constantly gas lighting me, it was hard to cut people off, but sometimes you just have to do it, I had no help from family when I was a carer for both my parents, but the good thing now is I'm currently receiving trauma counselling and my next step is to write a letter to my dad, I haven't really gotten over the death of both my parents and I feel it more so with my dad, I was a daddy's girl, and I miss him terribly.
So I'm telling you this now, after seeing a endocrinologist appointment today, I feel positive after that, and she wanted me to have a blood test there and then to check on other hormone levels as well as my prolactin levels, the funny thing is, the symptoms listed for that, just one has never happened to me, which is breast milk leaking, I've never had children so maybe that's why, I imagine if anything did leak out it would be in some sort of powder form 🤣 I don't know why, it just amuses me to think like that!
So, as soon as the endocrinologist does her write up and sends that to my gp and if they find anything else in a blood test I can start treatment to shrink my adenoma, I'm going to call it Trevor, as she's my favourite character from this is England, wee but fiesty 😂😂😂
Over the last 3 months, I'm having the most heaviest periods I've ever had in my life, it's weird though, as they only last 4 days, I'm just having to lie down all the time though when I get them and they've been 2 a month as well, I had a 6 month gap with no periods which was weird but wonderful before that, which had me convinced I had perimenopause, I was hoping to get to 12 months and be officially in menopause, but earlier than expected and I'd gone the doctors, originally expecting to start HRT, so has been rather unexpected and out of the blue! But there we are, answers finally, and who knows what kicked it off and how long it's been there!
So, my final conclusion is to always trust your instinct, you know your own body and ask for a 2nd opinion if you aren't happy and you are entitled to change doctors, just for the sake of saying I didn't move counties because of this, where I lived we wanted a new start and too many bad memories where i was, so hence why, thought I'd clear that up, but yes, you've got to almost bully the docs to get to the bottom of something, don't accept no for an answer, now the only thing I'd change is that my veins are so thin, the nurses have trouble getting blood from me, I come out of there looking like I've had a fight with a porcupine, and thank goodness there's some nurses who can be called up who are professional level vampires, I had a nurse struggle today so had to call another one who was just finishing her lunch, and she had her eye on a juicy vein on my hand as soon as she walked through the door which made me giggle, and she got the bugger in one 😂 I told her not to drink it all at once...
Anyway, I have all the punchlines when this happens every single time I'm used to it and blood tests don't bother me, I used to faint as a kid as they were scratching around for a vein, there was one I had where she was poking around for half an hour, and I don't remember much apart from it going black and waking up on the floor, grim! But I'm used to it now and I either say I've got veins like jack Duckworth off coronation street, my veins are elusive like the scarlet pimpernel, or yeah vampire jokes, I should think of some more puns, got to have laugh! Anyway, I hope this helps someone, just keep pushing as I don't like the idea of others bring fobbed off x
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