Women's Health Issues

Lol! TK, I think you're okay. A lot of women experience a later growth spurt which can occur in the late teens/early 20s. You might actually become taller as well. Considering the trauma of your youth (and your subsequent release) I think this could be your body's way of saying it's okay to grow up now.

But check your breasts often. If you feel any hardness or abnormal growths (not soft, hard) or if you experience any itching or strange discoloration, see your gyno as soon as possible.

It's probably time for you to get regular gyno visits as well (much as I hate those things).

 

Birth control affects women differently. Before I went on them I looked into how other women were affected. Some women gain lots of weight, lose hair, and lose their sex drive. Some women grow larger breasts, their faces clear up and their sex drive is increased. So, you shouldn't be worried about breast growth. You should only worry if you end up getting your period for more than two weeks while you're on the pills.

When I went on them, none of those things happened--I just didn't get pregnant. Oh, I should add that my diet contains a lot of soy, and once again--no probs. But that's just my body.

Also, periods aren't icky. They're healthy!!

 

WHen I was 19 I was a nearly a cup with the smallest tities on the planet!! When I turned twenty I was suddenly a c cup! I miss my tiny titties!!

It happens!

This is the first time I have been on BC for 9 years...I had to get on it to stop my bleeding. It hasn't affected me in any way except that i don't bleed at all now I had the lightest and shortest period of my life on them a couple weeks ago and am still not sure weather to call it one or not...
The doc says I have to have my uterus clean of lining before I can go in for my HSG test...Im not sure I bled enough...Back story I have had endometriosis since i was a teen and now i have fibroids. The HSG is to see if they can save the uterus. I dont know if I have shed enough lining to have the test done properly. I dont want to start another round of steroids to start a period while the bc is working hard to stop them. I feel like my body is fighting a war of the medications. UGH so frustrating!

Im totally not saying that I want the bleeding back as bad as it was I mean I nearly had to have a transfusion, and now am so anemic i take 650 mg of iron a day and if I miss one Im so dizzy I can barely walk! I bled heavily (one pad in 20 mins) for about 8 days and bled regularly for about 10 days then bled lightly for 25 more days.

I should probably say I didnt go to the doctor because I had gone to the ER once for this problem and they dismissed me saying its just a bad period. I was really embarassed and was not ready to go to the doctor again whining about my periods. In hindsight, i should have gone after the 8 days of heavy bleeding. I was in so much pain I could hardly stand up straight. But sometimes memories speak to you louder then common sense.

Well that turned into a bit of a long story sorry

 

I had surgery for fibroids a few years back, Enty (some were the size of softballs...). I'm sorry you endured so much pain from it, though! Are you on better medication now?

 

I went on Depo Provera three years back. IT WAS A COMPLETE NIGHTMARE. Ugh I still don't want to talk about it. It basically fried my thyroid and it felt like I was going through menopause. My periods still aren't right and before I used to be SUPER regular. Stupid doctor's advice to me... "Have a baby!" Sigh. I'm only just now getting healthy again but I'm anemic and my thyroid is still funky.

 

Can't you go to planned parenthood? I think it's only fifteen bucks there.

 

A lot of BCs are covered under insurance. But be careful about Depo! I've heard it's an "easier" BC because you get a shot every few months. But like JN said...you don't want those side effects.

 

They havnt given me anything for the pain, the only thing they gave me was birth control and progesterone...I get to suffer through the pain. I have 4 one is small, two are larger about the size of baseballs ones on the back of the uterus and one on the right side. Another on the right side but about the size of a grape. They really make other bodily functions painful too! I cant wait to get this over with!

 

I'm sorry, Enty! It can't be fun. I've never had extreme pain...just uncomfortable bits of things around and in my uterus that weren't supposed to be there.

 

The Hell? My aunt get Vicodin for her periods and even I got a card for pot because of mine. From a legitimate doctor actually. I didn't want pain pills.

 

REALLY!! Just another reason I HATE UTAH! Doctors are ASS holes! UGH! i only got some vicodin for the damn HGC test...That is gonna be a blast too let me tell you! Anyone have one??

I get to have dye injected into my uterus then its filled up with water then they shove a camera up there! REALLY not looking forward to it! Im ready to tell them to yank it out anyway and to hell with saving my uterus! But alas Im only 28 a bit to young to loose it...It may come to that anyway!

 

TK*, what a great idea for a thread. Vis-a-vis breast growth, listen to Arbygil; she seems to be an arbiter of sanity around these parts. I didn't need to wear a bra till I was 26, then eventually grew--albeit slowly--to a B cup.

BC: I only tried them once in my late teens to "regulate my periods" (I had only two or three annually). I think it was Depo Provera, but I'm not sure...that was a looong time ago. Anyway, it made me throw up every morning for ten days straight and later produced one of the most intense depressions I've ever experienced. Luckily I had a fairly decent doc who said anything that makes your body react that violently (the vomiting) probably isn't the right BC for you. In fact, he said, messing with my hormones, considering my mood lability, probably wasn't a good idea and he inserted an IUD--by that time I needed BC of some kind. Except for producing intense cramps during my infrequent periods, the IUD was great.

Then in my early 30s I developed hyperplasia, a pre-cancerous condition of the lining of the uterus precisely because I had so few periods and estrogen built up in the lining. So I had to have that scraped and a biopsy done every year instead of getting a PAP smear. And it HURT, especially because I didn't have insurance at the time and so it was done without anesthesia to save on the cost. Enty, I feel for you; I really do. What you're facing sounds a lot more painful. What is HCS, anyway? And Enty, if you can save your uterus, do so. I wanted to have a hysterectomy at 30 and my doc refused because I was so young, but now I'm glad. I loved pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding and being a mom is one of the most satisfacting things in my life even today when my sons are grown. Of course, everyone's different, but I was soooo sure at your age I would never want children...

When my second husband and I decided to start a family in my mid-thirties, I couldn't get pregnant. We underwent all sorts of complicated tests before switching docs and the new one took one look at my basil temperature chart and found the problem immediately: I didn't ovulate, probably never had--which is why my periods were so infrequent. What she figured out was that my body produces about six times the testosterone of most women and that while all my female hormones were there, the testosterone was overriding them. So I took the simplest infertility drug on the market and was pregnant three months later with my first son.

I loved pregnancy. Except for the first 16 weeks, which included a lot of nausea, I felt great during my second and third trimesters. My moods. unlike mny women with bipolar, actually stabilized, and remained stable throughout the 10 months my son breastfed. My doc had said I'd prpbably have to go through infertility treatment again to get pregnant, but two weeks after my first son weaned himself, I was pregnant again! Talk about priming the pump.

Okay, this is getting ridiculously long, but I'm probably the only one among you who's been through it all, just because of my age.

Menopause was a nightmare, though mostly because it exacerbated the bipolar to such a horific extent. I will never fotget my first "hot flash." I was up at night writing and I thought I was having a heart attack. I almost called 911! There followed my most destructive mania that lasted nine months and right on the heels of that I had a depression with hypersomnia, which meant I slept 16-20 hours a day. The psychiatrist I was seeing said my meds had just stopped working for some unknown reason and began switching me from drug to drug, all to no avail. He dismissed my suggestion that perimenopause might be having an effect on my moods. Finally I found a gyno who specialized in menopause and its effect on seizure and mood disorders. She put me on HRT and the depression lifted two weeks later. I was able to go back to my old standby lithium and I haven't had a period since. That was 10 or 11 years ago and I'm considered postmenopausal now. I no longer take HRT because of the risks. I have a lot of the attendant postmenopausal problems, namely, osteoporosis and so far I've fractured a hip, a shoulder and my right thumb. I've also had adverse reactions to three of the medications that are supposed to help with osteoporosis. But that's another story.

We as women are not our biology, but we're certainly affected by it more than most men I know.

Okay, that's my experience with the whole cycle from late puberty to postmenopause. It's been an adventure.

 

I was on The Nuva Ring for a while. I really liked it, I would recommend it.

 

I'm terrified of inanimate objects being inserted into my vagina and staying there for days or weeks or months at a time. I'd be freaking out when I got that thing in afraid it was going to work it's way into my fallopian tubes or something. I'd be walking all weird trying to avoid that.. and probably jamming a finger in there every now and then just to make sure it was where it's suposed to be.. Err.. Laugh if you like. But I am neurotic as hell.

 

can i watch when you jam your finger in?

 

LOL Leave it to Shai Gar to be the first man to post on this thread.

 

I set myself up for that. But sure.

 

I'd check that it was there at the beginning. But, where is it going to go (other than fall out)?