Lady Tired of Waiting

Hello fellow Hyster Sisters:

I lucked onto this site and feel so blessed to have found this community. Although so far I have not found anyone dealing with Poly Cystic Ovarian Disease. Is there anyone else? I am sure there is. I am sorry this is so long, bear with me. I want you to understand the history to this decision and maybe make others more aware of PCOD and the kind of behavior not to accept from your doctor.

I have made the decision to have a hysterectomy and am anxiously awaiting my surgery date. My hope is to move beyond this pain and being laid up for 7-10 days a month so I can have a better quality of life.

My period problems started from day one when I was 12 years old. I have ALWAYS had heavy periods and had my first emergency surgery when I was 17 to remove a cyst on my ovary where they also discovered extensive Endometriosis.

When I was 22, I had my second cyst removed.

I started gaining weight, lots of it and within a year was 50 pounds overweight. A couple of years ago I stopped having periods entirely and slowly started gaining more weight. I was actually kind of glad to not have the mess and pain, but was concerned that something major was going on because I was the type to have periods every three weeks, not skip them. I didn't want to ignore something serious just because it was convenient for me.

I went to my family doctor, she took one look at me and after testing me for a pituitary tumor said I needed to lose weight, I had just gotten too heavy for my body to have a period. I tried very hard to lose weight and then this last spring (04) I gained another 40 pounds in 3 months despite incredible stress with selling our house myself, packing, moving etc. that made me not want to eat (so dieting was actually easy) and still no periods.

(My gripe is that so many doctors look at an overweight person and blame the weight on the problem without looking to see if there is a serious matter going on. I know my body and I refuse to be brushed off like that again, she was playing with my health!!!) As I said, we were moving so I decided to wait till I got to my new community and find a new doctor.

My sister was put on bedrest with her last pregnancy, so she saw her doctor daily and got very close to her. She shared with her ob/gyn what was going on with me and the Dr. said I needed to be seen immediately.

We had just moved to a rural area that doesn't have a lot of specialists, 1 ob/gyn with a 6 mo waiting list. So, I opted to fly down and see my sisters doctor since she seemed willing to look past the "fat" and agreed that I am in tune with my body and something indeed was wrong.

I met with her and my hormone levels were off the chart, my fasting blood sugar was 35 (11 is normal) and I had major cysts on both ovaries as well as tons of small cysts too. My biggest cyst measured 45cm in diameter, not huge, but consistently uncomfortable. I am lucky I didn't have the intense pain all the time that is normally associated with this. She diagnosed me with Poly Cystic Ovarian Disease and we had a long talk about my treatment.

She told me if we didn't get this under control I would become a full blown diabetic because this disease causes insulin resistance (hence my blood sugar screw up, headaches) and that the reason I no longer had periods is my body is producing so much testosterone and very little estrogen(hence the overly healthy sex drive, nasty hair in weird places), my body thought it was a man's. Eew, so wouldn't want to be that.

She started me on Yasmine 28 and Glucophage to control my hormones and blood sugars. Within a month I had my periods back, but they are still so painful and messy. I am debilitated at least 10 days out of every month because of pain, or bleeding so hard that I have to use 2 tampons at a time and a night pad, or clots so big nothing contains them and they drop out whenever they feel like it.

I have lost 42 pounds since my October diagnosis by being aware of the carbs that I ingest, they were like poisen to me, and weight wise am feeling so much better. I met with her again in March to re-evaluate and we decided to do reconstructive surgery in June to fix all the problems childbirth caused for me and since she's already going to be in there my husband and I decided that the pain and periods are just to much to deal with all the time, let's take it out and do all the surgery at once.

I have to have everything removed, ovaries and cervix included otherwise the PCOD will still cause me problems. So I will be taking the Yasmine 28 as my HRT.

I am VERY nervous as to how this will affect me and my husband. He's not a real emotional person (shock, not many of them are), he's supportive of this but I don't know if he's going to be real good at meeting my needs that first week when I am going to need so much help. He gets a little resentful if it goes on for too long.

I know my kids are tired of mom being sick so often, so they think this will be great and I do hope so. I just hope that emotionally I'm ok after this. I think taking the HRT will help with that for me, but I worry that something will happen that prevents me from taking that and I will just turn into a witch towards my family again (I've heard the horror stories).

Because the surgery will be 400 miles away, I will be in the hospital for a day or two and then have to stay at my sisters for a week before I can go home. That's going to be tough because I'm just going to want to be at my house for the recovery. She has a 3 year old and 8 month old twins. Bless her for letting me stay there, but I am concerned about it to be very honest. She's never had surgery so, I don't know how to explain it to her without offending. My kids will be with Grandma, so at least I don' have to worry about them.

Okay, I'm sorry this is so long, but this is the stuff that's rolling around in my head when I can't sleep at night and hubby's at work so no one to talk to but you guys.

Support, ideas and recommendations please!!!

Hello!

I did not have the same problem, but I can relate to the monthly grossness.

This web site has saved me from backing out of what was necessary. There are thousands and thousands of women from all over the world who can share experiences and just be there for support. As for the men and family, there are threads for men and family. I think the one for the men is located up on the top of the page here. If he isn't squeamish, have him check out pelvicfloor.com. My husband did, and got a full understanding of what I was about to go through. It might not hurt to have Sis look into it, as well.

Now, as for yourself. Do not let the pain meds and your overall Do what the DR tells you. If you aren't supposed to pick up anything over 5 pounds, keep you hands off anything heavier. Thinking "Just this once" ain't gonna cut it. You can pull stitches, start bleeding and hurting. (Personally, I don't think that having a super clean house is worth that.)

Stay with this site. There are angels here that are willing to help listen and share.

Take care,
Janet