this is so long im so sorry.
i have insulin resistant/hormonal pcos, with no actual ovarian cysts. ive had both pelvic and transvaginal ultrasounds done twice now and all 4 came back normal. the last year or so ive been working to regulate my body and im finally at a point in my pcos where i am noticing differences, one of the biggest ones being my bloating/pcos potbelly going down (will be important for later). the thing is before this year i was having maybe one period a year, if that.
so the first thing any doctor that saw me did was try to force a period, and for maybe two months around august 24 that was through birth control until my neurologist stopped me from taking bc because of elevated stroke risk. but those two months were the WORST periods of my life. and granted it was shedding years of uterine lining like i get it why i bled so heavily, but the pain was unbearable. but the periods stopped again and the pain went away. now those painful periods weren’t something new to me they were just the worst id experienced. i grew up with really irregular but painful periods until they stopped coming and the pain stopped with them.
until i met my current partner later in 24. now i was experiencing pain after any kind of sexual activity even just from arousal. that is what led to the second round of ultrasounds actually. after those ultrasounds i kind of gave up on it being anything physical and just started to focus on my metabolic health. so we get to today, im down 20lbs and my hormones are at normal levels finally, and a gyno prescribed provera for 10 days to cause a withdrawal period. and i have been experiencing cramping since day 5 of the provera, but once the actual withdrawal started two days ago its been one non stop cramp. and then yesterday i woke up and felt like i had been doing sit ups all night. i have the weirdest upper/mid abdominal discomfort? pain? that is making me nauseas and i’m losing what little bit of an appetite i have left after all my meds (glp1 included).
then i press down on my stomach and it is so swollen and almost to the point i would say distended? and then my bowels start yelling at me like i had never heard my insides so loud before 😭 (actually as im writing this i am having a hard time lying on my side because it feels like its pulling my abdomen in a weird way) going back to my first paragraph, is how my stomach used to look and feel. for the longest time i lived with a swollen pregnancylike belly but at the time i was over eating with insulin resistance etcetc so i thought it was just that. the bloating used to go with the full stomach and gi discomfort but this bloating is literally just bloating and it feels so weird and is painful.
the abdominal pain? is less painful than the pelvic and back pain for sure, its more of a discomfort but it has its moments where it is painful. the actual pelvic and back pain has been debilitating. but this period has been abnormally light. especially considering how long it’s been since my last period and how bad my cramps are. like if im cramping so bad the least my body could do is shed everything and give me a normal flow. the last time i was in so much period pain was during the birthcontrol periods and those were heavy heavy periods so it made more sense ig? like the cramping pushed it all out. now its just pain and i expect to see a massacre in the toilet and my pee isnt even pink.
anyways, when the pain after sex started endometriosis was brought up in passing and its been a gnawing thought since then but my new gyno kind of dismissed it before i even brought it up. but i dont even know if it COULD be endo because i am genuinely only in pain during a period or after sex, or is this just pcos + my health anxiety. especially because my aunt has horrible endo and is in her 50s still trying to find relief, and she struggled so much trying to conceive. ive put so much effort into my health already with ttc being my ultimate goal in 1-2 years and now id rather deal with this now than have my heart broken in a few years when i cant get pregnant. especially bc i have insurance rn 😭 i guess more than anything i want to know if anyone has experienced anything similar before i go demanding things that are unnecessary.