symptoms before your diagnosis

I was curious about what some of your symptoms were before your diagnoses, if you're willing to share, and if any of you can relate to me or shed any light on this:

See, I had/have the severe pelvic pain (as you've all known and read about endlessly *giggle*)....but what finally made me go to the doc was back in February when my periods stopped. An ultrasound was done and a 4cm x 5cm ovarian cyst was found...and she also determined the endometriosis from those ultrasound pics. Still, no period, no period, no period.

So, did anyone else's periods just stop? I ended up having one in June, AFTER I had been on Lupron (to shrink endo), ironically, but that has been it, all year. Everyone here talks about heavy bleeding associated with all their pain....but mine is gone! I should also mention that at my exam in August when my doc decided to move forward with the hysterectomy (and did another ultrasound), the cyst is now gone, and she thinks the endo is localized to my bladder and bowel, and my pain is probably due to adenomyosis. Which I ALSO thought came with heavy bleeding!

I'm wondering if I could have something going on at the BACK of my uterus that wasn't detected on the TV ultrasound? Is that possible? Because I do have a ton of back pain with the pelvic...

Wow! Hope you are feeling better, and if not, at least relieved that it will all be over soon!
I think everyone has different symptoms. I should have posted like you, before my surgery, because I'd look and see that my symptoms didn't fit anyone else's.

To tell the truth I knew something was wrong for quite along time (almost a year). My periods had slowly become stronger (where up until the year before I had ALWAYS considered myself lucky for having what I call " a squished mosquito" kind of period, it was minimal in pain, duration and quantity), now they were lasting a little longer, not starting on time, hurting a lot during, before and after (all sorts of cramps, in the back, front, ovaries etc).
Then I felt a bump. It slowly grew. At first I thought it was poop, (hahaha, really, you CAN laugh) because I was also having all sorts of intestinal/digestion problems; which I had checked out because I had those BEFORE I had the period issues, they did endoscopies and nothing major showed up, they said I either had Crohn's disease or IBS and I KNEW I did not have either. I just knew.

Anyway, the lump grew and I actually was OK with it. I even delayed going to get my yearly physical. But by the time I went to my physical I was peeing all the time, always feeling pressure on my bladder and totally not pooping regularly; and when the doctor did the palpating, it hurt a lot and SHE felt the lump and sent me to get an ultrasound. I had a fibroid tumor, the big one plus some smaller, and cysts in my ovaries. However the cyst thing seems to often dissolve (as it did for you) they just keep an eye on the cysts.
The doc still ended up taking one ovary because it has a bigger cyst and did not look good.
I am SO much better now. As the months have passed with no period, I start to realize what a pleasure it is to not worry about it. I still het sharp pains in the ovary that's left, but it is minimal compared to before and I don't notice it much.
The migraines I suffered from since I was a teenager are GONE GONE GONE!!!!
The intestinal issues are GONE!!!
Lower Back pain: GONE!!!!!

So no matter what you have going on anywhere else, they'll see it when you have your procedure; at least my doctor checked everything (even my appendix!) while she was there, she said, to make sure I was all good when she stitched me up.


PS Sorry for the terrible typing and grammar but am at work and trying to do this quickly!!!

best of luck!!!

Thank You for taking the time to reply at work!

See, you make an excellent point about the doc "looking around" while she is in there to check it out- I'm borderline for TVH or TAH, something about being tiny and not "prolapsing at all" when I beared down during my exam (makes no sense to me). I'd almost rather they go abdominally because, A- I'm not thrilled about my va-jay-jay being stretched and the stuff being pulled through it. and B- I feel like the doctor would be able to get a better look all around at what's going on if she is in there "right where it's happening"! Although she is going in laproscopically as well....I dunno! Thanks!

I was 29 when I started having pain. I went to my ob/gyn (she isn't mine anymore!) and she pretty much told me, I was approaching 30 and it was probably just my body changing. um.... ok??? Since I hadn't had any problems and never even heard of endo, I just listened to her and went on with life as best I could. The pain became more and more prominent, but I was 30+ at this point and it's just part of life, right? When I was 32, I was going to be an egg donor for a friend and her fertility clinic are the ones that noticed a "cyst" on my rt ovary. They advised me to wait until after my next period and they would check again, well it was a little bigger after my next period, so they told me to go see my doc. I didn't have the same insurance as before, so i was forced to find a new provider. After telling him my plans about donating, he sped things up to get a lap done so I can recover and move forward. I thought I just had a normal ovarian cyst, but that procedure showed endometriosis. (thanks 1st doctor!) He took care of it and I felt great.... for about 3 weeks! As soon as I felt that pain again, that's when I started considering what my next move will be to remedy this and I had been thinking about hysterectomy ever since. That was in 2007, I've just been dealing with the pain, almost getting used to it. But I finally got sick of the pain 3/4 weeks. My pain isn't debilitating, but it is annoying and I feel it affects my daily life. I don't want to have to spend the next 15+ years constantly thinking about this, it's like a monkey on my back and I'm glad I'm finally going to be rid of it.
I did get my original insurance back, but the first thing I did was choose a different ob/gyn and I love the one I have now!

Mine started as a sharp jabbing pain when I would get up, or sit up sometimes. I let it go for a long time...maybe 2 years that it bothered me. My periods were 28 days apart and mild, with occassional cramps for a day or so.

PCP doc (nurse actually) said it was IBS, so I get a colonoscopy. I knew it wasn't that, but whatever. Colonoscopy only showed mild divirticulosis (not -itis, which is the inflammation and requires antibiotics).

By this time, I've had one uncharacteristically heavy period, that didn't impress my gyn. I also had a narrow urethra, which I though was causing pee to slowly trickle out of a full bladder.

So I go to my gyn does an exam and finds nothing, however, the manual exam hurts my uterus. He sends me for an U/S, which shows a cyst. 6 weeks later, I return for the f/u U/S, which shows the cyst smaller. It's concluded this is not the issue.

Gyn thinks my pain is from my c-section scar, so injects marcaine along its length. i didn't think this would help, and it didn't. Now I've determined my pain starts up at ovulation and gets worse until a few days after period begins. Yet endometriosis was never really suspected.

Gyn is perplexed, so sends me to a (out-of-network) gyn pain specialist. He does a quick manual exam and can reproduce the pain quite well. He recommends total hysterectomy.

I decide to go to a gyn surgery specialist, and have surgery performed without a diagnosis, because we all agreed I needed at least a laparoscopy to see what was in there. Belief was that the uterus was plastered to the abdominal wall with adhesions.

That was not the case. However, there were adhesions between the bladder and the vagina, which could explain the exam pain, and the trickling urine. I also had a severely twisted fallopian tube that was filled with fluid. All of this could explain my symptoms.

I still have the original sharp pain that started all this, and I believe it's related to the round ligaments. They're reattached to the vagina after hysterectomy. It's too early for me to say whether this surgery fixed all my pain, but it fixed some pain, and the pee issue, so I'm pretty happy right now.

Severe pelvic pain (on both sides), very bad lower back pain (large fibroid pressing on the spine), extremely heavy bleeding with frequent periods and bleeding every day, bloating/water retention, 18-week size uterus, migraine headaches,hypertension (I put that in the list because it is gone after my surgery), pain shooting down both legs, hernia like pain in upper abdomen (large fibroid pushing down on uterus), heartburn, fatigue, brain fog. It is six months out from my LAVH/BSO and I have to say that I haven't felt this good in years. Good Luck and I wish you the best of results!

This is interesting, everyone, thanks so much for sharing!! I am so curious to see what they come up with for me....it kind of surprises me they didn't want to do some exploring laproscopically to begin with.

I'm almost certain stuff is attached to one another in there. With all my bowel issues and pain, it's gotta be. I just pray it gets fixed along with my surgery Friday!!

Thanks again everyone!

I had ablation 3 yrs ago to solve heavy periods, about a year afterward I started having intermittent pain, that became chronic over 2 years. I have pelvic pain,sharp piercing ovary pain, and an annoying pain that shoots down frt of rt leg. They did laparoscopy 5 weeks ago, removed cysts and some endo and now im scheduled for LSH 10/18 as my pain was back in less than a week. The reason for the lap was ultrasound showed ovarian cysts and fibroids, and due to elevated ca 125. The end result is still hysterectomy, cant wait to get rid of the pain!

I too had an ablation to solve heavy periods - 2yrs ago. The ablation worked for me about a year. Then I started having very painful periods that got progressively worse. After 8 months of this, I went back to the doc and she did a mri that showed once again an enlarged uterus. She suspected that I had adenomyosis, which is confirmed definitely via a pathology report.
Bladder issues, back pain, bowel issues were additional issues that got worse through the last 2 yr period. I was told that the bladder issues were from weak bladder muscles. I disagreed. After the surgery, the doc said that she thought I was right. The pathology report confirmed the adenomyosis.

I am still having bladder issues, but they are getting better. I think that the bladder needs more time to recover. The doc thinks that we need to give it a couple of months, and see if something else needs done.

I wish you the best!! I have no regrets!!

i am posting my experience so if someone reads it they might take what can seem minor seriously.

went thru menopause about 9 years ago - had gone from regular, relatively easy periods to heavy, painful and irregular and was done with the whole 9 yards at about 46 which was young. did have a vag us about 2 years later for some spotting but all was normal. fast forward to february of this year. annual gyn and mammo and i asked him at what point we get concerned about spotting. it was nothing regular or heavy just every few months there would be a small amount of blood on the toilet tissue - the kind you know is vaginal. he gave me the "when you are post menopausal the tissues are dry and fragile and bleed easily" and then did the exam - his (pretty exact) words were "it's not all dried up and post-menopausal". as the last spotting episode had been the month before he decided to order a vag us. which showed that the uterus was enlarged and there was a grapefruit sized cyst on my right ovary. while he said it did not look like a funky (again his words) type cyst we couldn't tell without removing it and as these were body parts that should not be doing anything and were he recommended removal of all. sent me to a onc gyn who agreed with the recommendation and as her specialty was the da vinci that was who i went with.

results - cyst was negative (thank you again God) and the uterus had precancerous cells. if we had not taken it out when we did i would have been back in 3-4 years with Ca- those were the surgeon's words, not mine. (yes i thanked Him again and again and again)

so like i said at the beginning - do not think if you do not have pain and heavy bleeding there cannot be anything wrong - get good advice, second and even third opinions if you are unsure and then make your decisions.