Do I have endometriosis?

[Patch2017]

I have always had very heavy periods and am on high strength iron tablets as my iron is so low.

In April and also last week I had the worst ever pain low down on my right hand side and towards the front. The pain was that bad I was unable to walk. I was taken to the emergency GP who examined me and told me the pain is in my appendix. He told me if the pain gets worse in 24 hours I need to have it out. If it goes off it's likely to be endometriotis. After several hours the pain went. The first time it happened I was on day 2 in my cycle this time I was on day 9. I had an internal scan last month. All looked normal apart from lining is to thick. What should I do now? Does it sound like endometriotis to you? Thank you if you read this

[emmab178]

Hi

I've had heavy periods for 16 years. Was given iron tablets as a teenager when the period would be so heavy it would soak through the largest towel.

About 5 years ago I started to get strange days where I would have horrendous diarrhoea, cramps and would need to take a day off here and there. This progressed to that plus simultaneous vomiting, sweating, the shakes, going hot and cold and couldn't sit myself on the toilet. This would last for 3 hours, I'd go to bed for an hour and be fine. Gp offered me the pill and ibruprofen!

Eventually I realised the episodes were happening on my first day of period. Gp Again offered the pill and ibuprofen and said its hard being a woman! I didn't bother the gp again with this and went on as usual for 5 years.

Then i started getting spotting inbetween periods. After 3 months of testing me for stds (I'm happily married and no chance anyone brought anything home) she finally sent me for a scan. I had a 7cm mass encompassing ovary and tube which ultimately meant me losing them both during a lap. I have endo on my kidney, and all up on the left. My right ovary is stuck to the uterscaral ligaments and the uterus is stuck to the bowel making it retroverted.

Moral of the story, gps know very little about endometriosis. You can have all of the symptoms or none. The only way to know for sure is by having a laparoscopy. Unfortunately these are done by general gynaes who do not have the skill and training to treat severe endo.

Scans don't tell much unless you have a big mass of endo (my scan picked up the mass but nothing else). Sometimes they use mri,s but again they can be inconclusive.

Have a research of endo on the various sites and see if any of the symptoms sound like yours. I regret my symptoms not being taken seriously and meaning the damage was getting worse x

[Patch2017 in reply to emmab178]

Thank you for your reply. That sounds horrendous poor you. I think mine could be a number of things. I'll keep researching x

[Patricia2015]

If the lining is too thick it sounds like adenomyosis. Please check out the medicine Esmya.

Keep strong

[Patch2017 in reply to Patricia2015]

Thank you