Endometriosis has stopped my normal life

by Erin D.
(Florida)

I am 17 years old. Last October after my 10th grade homecoming, I began to have severe back and abdominal pain. My mother first thought that something was wrong with my back because the pain was over powering the abdominal pain.

I was taken to a chiropractor, only to discover it was making the pain. After that my mother was recommended to take me to an orthopedic doctor. I went and got an MRI and went to physical therapy once or twice. Only to find out that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my back.

My orthopedic doctor said we need to rule out other causes of this pain; he suggested an OB/GYN. We went into the GYN (at this time still having severe back and abdominal pain), I went and got all checked out.

I was told I could have PID, I was given an emergency shot (high dose of medicine that cures PID) and I felt better for about a week. After that finally back to my normal self week was over I became in severe pain yet again.

I went back to the doctor only to be given more medicine for PID. The medicine seemed to help for about a week yet again. At the time of me getting "diagnosed" PID i was seeing the nurse practitioner.

When I finally went back to the GYN yet again I saw saw the actually doctor. She was questioning me and asking me about my period history. Just so you know, I began my period in 4th grade at the age of 9, and was put on birth control at 12 years of age because I would miss school at least 3 days out of the month because of such severe period cramps and back pain.

After talking with the doctor she suggested that I had all the classic symptoms of endometriosis. The doctor has suggested a laparascopy but the deductible was very expensive and the doctor had said I would be put on lupron shots after the laparascopy...so why wait to have the shots done.

I have now gotten my 3rd lupron shot last Friday and I am now even worse than before. I am in severe pain everyday. I have missed most of my Junior year of high school because of the disabling pain.

At this point I cannot get out of bed every morning. It's sad to know that the only thing that keeps me out of pain is prescription narcotics, which i have been on for months.

I went to the hospital today and had a CT scan and even more blood work done. There is absolutely nothing wrong with anything else. Which makes me feel much better, but it is still discouraging at time.

Being in pain everyday of your life is tiring. I also am getting chronic UTI, which I'm not sure if that is because of the endometriosis or not? But the infections cause me to have even more pain than normally.

I finally have a consultation to have the laparascopy on Wednesday. This has been a 7 month ordeal and is continuing. It is very discouraging at times, absolutely nobody knows how I feel everyday of my life.

I want to go out and have a good time...but I just don't feel well enough too. My mother is very stressed out and sad because her daughter is sick.

I myself am very stressed out and end up taking anger out on people I don't need too. I am very scared of what the laparscopy may show, I still don't know if I am able to have kids. Yet, I know I can make it through this if I stay positive.

Finding this website has really opened my eyes, I believed I was the only girl who had something this severe and no one can understand. I'm in high school and girls are not educated enough on female health problems to even understand what I am talking about.

I now can see that I am not alone, I am not the only one in debilitating pain everyday of their life. I am very thankful to find some insight from others with this disease.