Many severe symptoms and 10 years for diagnosis

by Cynthia S
(USA)

I was diagnosed with severe endometriosis (stage 4) on November 2011. I am 30 years old and starting having symptoms since I was 19. When I was a teenager I was constantly getting sick right before my period. Dizziness (where I couldn’t get out of bed all day), pelvic pain, nausea, sometimes vomiting and feeling really weak, I even missed work several times. I went to with the doctor to see what was wrong but they could never tell me anything.

Then, a few days later I was getting my painful period. One of the biggest complaints during my periods was the bloating, severe pain and painful bowel movement. I always thought that these symptoms were normal. I got married at 22 and I began using birth control. Contraceptives were a really nightmare because I was getting sick all the time with nausea and vomiting. During the process of finding the right birth control, I started having a lot of yeast and bacterial infections, probably 3 or 4 times a year.

Then, I started getting a lot of UTI and blood in my urine. The doctors were checking me for diabetes and kidney stones. Finally, I found a good birth control that didn’t get me sick, The Nuva Ring was my saviour for several years. I was having minimal pain during my periods and feeling better. However, the doctors were still finding blood in my urine, so they kept prescribing medication to get rid of it. But it never went away.

I stopped using birth control at 28 years old. We wanted to make sure that we could get pregnant as soon as we started trying. After I turned 29, my body started experiencing new symptoms such as pelvic pain, cramps during and after my period, severe pelvicnpain, pelvic inflammation, and painful intercourse during or after, sex, more painful bowel movement during my period. My periods were getting even more severe painful, gaining weight and problems losing weight. I was visiting my doctor many times and he could not tell me what was wrong with me.

At one moment I thought that I was creating this pain in my head and I had nothing wrong. So, I was trying to ignore the pain. Yet, my body kept telling me that something was not right, especially when I and my husband really started trying to conceive. In the year of 2011, we started actively trying to conceive. Nine months later, nothing happened and my pain and cycle were getting worse and worse. My periods starting getting shorter than 28 days, pain, fatigue, lower back pain, and bloating were on my daily routine.

I was getting frustrated, so I started reading online about my symptoms and I found an article about endometriosis. All of the symptoms listed on each page, were pretty much my symptoms so I tried a different doctor who had many years of experience. My first visit was a success; he said to me that I read to him the book of endometriosis. He said that he was 90% sure that I had endometriosis. He also said that the only way to find out was through a laparoscopy. He did a pelvic exam to check me for tenderness and he said I was really tender.


When I left the doctor’s office I immediately called my husband and told him about the laparoscopy. He told me to go ahead and schedule it. I was so afraid to get this procedure, not because of the pain after the surgery but because I thought “What if they don’t find anything” I am spending a lot of money for this surgery and if they don’t find anything I am going to be emotionally frustrated and financially broke.

The day finally arrived and I was nervous but happy to find out if something was wrong with me. After the surgery, my husband came to me and I was still waking up from the anaesthetic and all I could hear was that they did find many problems and I had severe endometriosis. They found endometriosis in colon, my uterus was completely covered of endometriosis tissue and one of my fallopian tubes was wrapped around my uterus. I was so relief to hear that I they found something wrong. But I was also sad that they couldn’t remove everything.

They said that they were able to remove 60% of the endometriosis and I had to get on the Lupron for 3-6 months to get rid of the rest. After the surgery, I got a little depressed. I was happy one day and sad the next day. I thought that after the surgery I was going to be a normal person again, but that didn’t happen. I had to get on the Lupron because the pelvic pain. So here I am trying to find answers to alleviate my pain. I hope this can help other women who suffer from many symptoms and don’t know was wrong. It took me more than 10 years to find out what was wrong with me. So get checked and get a second opinion. I had an OBYN for 10 years and he couldn’t ever find out about my endometriosis, until I tried a new doctor with experience and he really went deeply to find out what was wrong.