October 15, 2015

Endo flare-up and Random bruising

sylvia Uncategorized activism, advocacy, awareness, emotions, endo, endoactive, endometriosis, flare up, hormones, medication, pain, random bruisins, symptoms, Visanne 8 Comments

Hey gang. So right now what’s happening is that I’ve had 3 or 4 days of Endo pain in the past 2 weeks and I’ve noticed a whole bunch of reasonably gnarly bruises that seem to randomly appear in various places on my body without previous injury. That’s been happening for about 3 or 4 weeks. I’m not linking these 2 things together. But it’s not unusual for my body to fall apart in multiple places from seemingly unrelated things simultaneously.

I know I haven’t written much lately – truth is things have been much the same! I’ve been feeling amazing for ages – better than I have in years. I’ve always had trouble with getting to sleep but it hasn’t been too bad for the past month. And my energy levels have been through the roof. My allergies have improved about 80% or more since starting to use Omnaris nasal spray daily a couple of months ago. For the past 2 months I’ve been exercising 4-6 times a week and feeling focused & fit as a fiddle. (Taken it easier the past week.) My diet has been near perfect I’ve gotta say and that always help me feel my best. I have slackened on the acupuncture only because I’ve reached my threshold for the Medicare rebate for this year. I also stopped taking my turmeric, glutathione, multivitamin and other supplements about 3 weeks ago (kept up with daily fish oil and probiotics) just because I had a lot of money going out and not much coming in. I don’t know if this has anything to do with my flare up… So given how amazing I’ve been feeling for months and still being on Visanne you can understand my surprise when I was away up the Central Coast for the long weekend and all of a sudden had a flare-up.

Here’s what’s happened in the past 2 weeks.

October 3rd
On the Saturday night I started to get some pretty gnarly back, neck, thigh, glute and hip pain. But I put it down to the fact that I’d been lifting the Esky and luggage into the car and traipsing around the library at Sydney Uni in 38 degree heat all day with a heavy bag of books and a laptop on my back. I drove up the coast – as in I literally was the one in the driver’s seat driving the car – alternating with the hot water bottle on my back and on my hips and wheat bags draped around my neck and shoulders. People with Endo should get heated car seats installed for free as compensation! I wonder if our Health Minister Sussan Ley would be down with that. Probs not. Anyways it got pretty bad but I figured I’d be sweet after a good night’s sleep and getting off my feet.

October 4th
When I woke up on Sunday morning, things were no better. Then the familiar period-pain started. The heaviness. The dragging. The cramping. The nausea. The aching, pulsating vag bones. What even is that? Aching vagina bones… Or is that just me? That feeling like someone has drilled through your vagina bones, inserted some very heavy dynamite, lit the dynamite then re-sealed your bones so the burning and aching and heaviness can’t escape your pelvis and just sits there pulsing away while you press on your bones in an attempt to counter-act the pressure weighing on your . Anyone else get that?  I knew it was happening but I was kind of in denial just because I’ve gotten used to not having the random pain. So used to it in fact that I neglected to bring any strong emergency pain relief in my toiletries other than Nurofen – which as we all know unfortunately tends not to touch the sides when you have Endo. By the afternoon when things were no better I went to the pharmacy and got the strongest OTC pain relief I could – ‘extra strong codeine X paracetamol’ which did actually work after 2 of them plus a magnesium tablet. The pain eased and then disappeared within an hour or 2 and was never above a 4 ish.

October 8th
Went to see my GP about the random bruising and showed him some photos I’d taken. He ordered me to go get a whole bunch of blood tests and a urine test. Waiting on results. Thinking that perhaps this could be a side effect of Visanne, I found the insert that comes in the box online and read all 14 pages of it. Blood thinning and bruising or anything of that nature has not been noted as a side effect. If you’d like to read the leaflet too then click here. I’m not on any other prescription medications or taking any regular pain killers that thin the blood like aspirin etc. I eat meat – although not a lot of red meat but my diet has been the same for a long time and the last time my iron was checked a year ago before egg freezing it was all normal. My GP was unsure of what may be causing the bruising given all of those things.

October 12th
Woke up with Endo pain again. I did drink quite a bit of champagne at a BBQ the afternoon/night before but overall I wouldn’t say that alcohol is something that has triggered a flare-up for me and I haven’t stopped drinking alcohol at any point this year. I mostly tend to limit it to weekends but haven’t had any reason to stop drinking because it hasn’t triggered my pain at all and like I’ve said I’ve mostly felt wonderful all year. Today was not so bad – really just the dull ache. I took 2 of the extra strong painkillers plus 2 nurofen and before I knew it the pain was gone. It wasn’t there for long – only a few hours of the afternoon and stayed at about a level 2 or 3.

October 14
Again today I woke up with pretty bad pain. Last night I had been up pretty late drinking a decent amount of wine & champagne with one of my best girlfriends and we got a little carried away. But I was feeling ridiculously happy as I’d just completed 4 assignments in just over a week and had a huge sense of relief. So this time and the last time I’ve experienced pain have come after drinking a fair amount of alcohol. The time before that came out of the blue and I hadn’t had any alcohol for about 5 days. Connection? Coincidence? I’m not sure. My drinking habits haven’t really changed this year. There’s been times where I’ve been drinking a bit less frequently. I guess it’s become a bit more regular since the weather’s warmed up. I just don’t know what the cause is. It’s hard to say. Anyway this time the pain really did get on top of me and for a few hours I was in agony. After I’d taken all the pain relief I could take and had the hotties and all of that, I was a little better but still in no shape to go to uni. I stayed in bed all day and night with my hottie but by the time the sun went down I was feeling heaps better. The pain was there but back down to a 2 and no cramping.

October 15

That’s today. Today I’ve mostly felt fine but just a little tender in the back and lower abdomen. I rested in the morning but was still doing uni work and I was fine to go to class and get everything done. Just a tiny bit achey.

Tomorrow I go back to see my gynaecologist to chat about everything. She will hopefully also have my test results so we can go over the whole lot.

It’s hard to know whether to feel deflated and upset that now the pain has come up out of the blue several times and could this mean something bad or be a re-curring thing? Or whether to just be grateful that I’ve had an amazing run of health – not just good health in fact but feeling literally incredible – and to just hope that this is a minor hiccup and that soon I’ll be back to feeling amazing. I’ve got mixed feelings. I do feel so lucky. This time last year I was bed and couch-ridden all the time. I was in agony more often than not. This year I’ve barely had to deal with that and have been free to plan things ahead without the worry of whether or not I’ll have to cancel at the last minute or call in sick. It’s felt so wonderful and so freeing. The thoughts are already creeping back into my head – should I commit to anything right now given that I’ve been so up and down lately? I hate thinking like that. It sucks.

Anyway I’m trying to stay positive and keep thinking of ways I can make sure I stay healthy. Let you know how tomorrow goes. Have a great weekend everyone and hope you’re all doing ok.

Syl x x