Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Drastic-ish Measures

"So, at my last checkup, I mentioned maybe having to up the dosage of my pain pills for my periods.  It's actually gotten much worse since last year."

"Yeah, what's been going on?" Her kind OBGYN asked.

"It's so bad that I had to call into work last month.  I have to take the painkillers, drink a large amount of alcohol and take an edible just to not spend 2 full days on my bathroom floor."

The doctor agreed that it sounded like endometriosis.  She had a couple of different options to choose from; an operation to scrape it all out that would have to be done again in a couple of years, or get an IUD put in.

She was conflicted, as she didn't want to go to the extreme of another surgery.  But she thought about the depression she encountered when she was on birth control pills, and worried about the same with an IUD.

"I would give you the smallest IUD on the market, and eventually it gets to the point where you won't have your period at all, so no more intensely painful cramps.  Do you want to give it a shot?"

She decided to try the IUD first, and they scheduled an ultrasound and the IUD insertion for the same day a week into the new year.  The doctor said that the ultrasound would make sure there was nothing else strange going on before going forward.

She was scared about all the things that could happen, and decided she needed to keep track of her mood every day to make sure that depression didn't take hold again.  Cautiously optimistic, she looked forward to no more pain.