Dear all, i cried when i found this site at the weekend. Ive got to the stage where i feel i cant keep bothering my wonderful family and friends with my woes anymore so speaking to others who understand and want to listen will be my saviour for now:)) I cried because I thought I was being ridiculous,consuming my every waking hour thinking about this cruel disease, going barmy, i thought, but low and behold..Im not alone after all, its real and it does play mind games, you will understand that!!! Hello people, this is my story.....
Im 43 years old now and growing up,getting married having children was easy. Periods were nothing unusual i was able to conceive within a month of trying for both my children. I had taken the contreceptive pill for years,then things started to change. Hubby had a snip after no.2 child came along. I no longer required the pill so why put things into my body when not needed. My son was born by C-section and this, i believe has been the start of my endometriosis story. I cant remember when they started to get worse i think it was gradual but crickey i knew it when the perods had become intolerable.The PMT was frightening i didnt recognise myself and the anger that flew out of my mouth was awful. It was uncontrollable and the pain of the menstration was crippling as you know. I continued for a while, then one night i went to the loo and fainted. This scared me as i had never fainted before so went to see Gp. Explained my symptoms but no mention of Endo. Unfortunately it wasnt my own GP, had i waited another day my story may have been different. Anyway i asked i f i could try the Mirena Coil for the periods, he said wouldnt be a bad idea so i went straight to Family Planning 2 days later and as i was menstrating at the time the did it there and then. For me this was my saviour well for a year anyway. After months of very slight bleeding whilst it settled down i was period free and have to say 4 years on still am. No painful monthlys and the PMT gone. Brilliant. A year later i began having pain on intercourse. Hmmm better go and see Doc. Saw my own GP who straight away felt a mass on an ovary. Had a scan which confirmed this. I was now 40 years old. Got referred to Gynea and then admitted to hospital for surgery Feb 14th 2010. Great valentines!! So i had a laparotomy. Left ovary and fallopian removed had a 7cmx5cm endo cyst on it . Endo scattered everywhere and another 1cm cyst found in POD . my bowel had been stuck to the larger mass. After this I was relieved and thought that would be the end. The rectal pain started. I had a colonoscopy which was negative. I had 3 months of Zoladex which i found helped. This was used as a prossess of illimination. Then that stopped and the niggly clawing rectal pain returns. Have an MRI and it shows an endo mass on my rectum probably fromthe original one that was in the POD. After a couple of Gynea visits and other endo symptoms that were beginning to arise another op has taken place. This was on nov 26th 2012. My Gynea and bowel surgeon were planning on removing the mass but this didnt arise. Not only did i have scar tissue endo scattered around the place they found my ureters have got encased into the mass aswell and felt this job was for the endometriosis specialists. Stents have been put in the tubes to keep them open and to aid the surgeon in finding them. These have been giving me so much grief in my urethra. I have had 4 utis since and it constantly feels like i have something stabbing me all the time. Having a wee is like having knives twisting but i ve since bought some high concentrated cranberry tabs that have helped. Anyway last week had an appt. with specialists and will be having a full hysterectomy aswell as removing mass and any endo present. this is likely to go ahead in April. My latest concern is i have a stabbing pain in the top left side of abdomen. Im going crazy thinking its something worse but GP cant feel anythiing and feels it could be lesions. Has anybody else suffered in this area? Thankyou so much for taking time to read my history. My heart goes out to all of you and especially those that have suffered for so many years my story is nothing in comparison, but what i do know is this disease is a B....xxx