Posts
NOTE: My life doesn't suck and I'm basically a rather happy person. I just need to get this shit off my chest so I don't dwell on it any more and I can remain happy.
My menstrual cycle has been terribly inconsistent for many years. One of my periods lasted 9 weeks and the two bookend periods lasted 7 weeks. I consider myself lucky that they are down to 3 weeks. And, when I say period, I mean lots of blood. I don't have any reason for regular, medium or plus tampons. It's either super plus or 2X... and a pad. The time between periods can be as little as a week and as much as 5 weeks. So I go between being annoyed at 'this, again???' to 'I sure as shit better not be pregnant'. Good times.
Yes, I've talked to my general practitioner(s) and my gynecologist. Poking and prodding has been done ad nauseum. Nothing abnormal has been found. Though I have been warned to go immediately to the hospital if I bled completely through a large tampon in an hour for a few hours in a row. Since I never felt more than rather tired, no blood-pressure drop feeling, I haven't followed that. All they will do is stuff me full of cotton and monitor me till it's done. I'm not waiting around in an ER full of folks coughing up who knows what ebola and rising a staff infection for a goddamned period. I'm not.
Ablation has been discussed. The first time was when I was on blood thinners for a clot in my arm. I got this clot from a combination of things. I was on the pill to try to control my periods (not recommended for me due to blood clot risk but I was desperate. The other part was donating blood where the needle pain I felt should not have been ignored. My vein got pissed at me and a clot started. By the time I realized something was wrong, and received a mis-diagnosis from urgent care, then realized the misdiagnoses, the clot went from my armpit to my wrist. I remember lying in the ER after the sonogram, listening to the doctor tell me I might die due to pulmonary embolism, which I found out later was not as likely to happen as in the leg and actually not that likely anyway. I looked at my boyfriend and cried. I wasn't ready to die yet. I think I am now. I don't want to die or anything, I've just kinda made my peace since then. Back to the ablation discussion, since I was on blood thinners this was not a possibility until that was done. Oh, and think about how bad my periods got whilst on blood thinners. Color me NOT a happy camper.
I have to really complain here. Changing a double-absorbency tampon AND a full overnight pad every hour 3+ hours is literally debilitating. It takes me 10 minutes to clean myself up and get new ones in place at a minimum. There are times I'm changing underwear and cleaning my work chair, too. For even worse accidents, I go home to shower and change. How much can you concentrate on your job with interruptions like this?
So, after the blood clot was treated, I got back to regular exercise and this helped regulate my periods. Unfortunately, my exercise is about as regular as my periods, so during an exercise slump, the fun returned. I discussed ablation with my gyno again and we figured I should be soon menopausal and going through this type of procedure might not really be worth it. I'm having second thoughts about this after getting up every hour or so to change a 2X tampon and soaked overnight pad. How did I know when to change this stuff? The feeling of blood squirting from my nethers. Yes, squirting like an open artery.
Which brings me to my experiment. I am weighing the tampons. An unused 2X tampon is 4 grams. I weighed 5 of them from about 8 hours and they were: 21+24+20+19+23=107, then subtract the original weight (5x 4g=20 grams) for a total of 87 grams of vaginal secretions (it's not all blood). I looked around on the omniscient Intarwebs to find info on this. Seems that during an average menstrual cycle a woman secretes from 40 to 100 grams. A paper from Johns Hopkins says, "Bleeding amount was measured per day and per cycle for each woman in the study. Cycle blood flow was classified in tertiles as light (≤36.5 mL), medium (>36.5 and ≤72.5 mL), or heavy (>72.5 mL). Individual bleeding days were classified in tertiles as light (≤4 mL), medium (>4 and ≤14 mL), or heavy (>14 mL) blood flow." I had 87g in under a day and I didn't bother weighing the pads. Is there any wonder I'm fucking exhausted? Is there any wonder why I snap at folks that are annoying me?
I'm so close to menopause, but really, nobody knows when that is. It's different for everyone. I want the ablation, but I also don't want to take time off for any more health issues. Some days the thought of a cattle prod for cauterization would be welcome. Anyone got one I can borrow... well, keep?
References:
- Vaginal Secretions measurements: http://www.womhealth.org.au/conditions-and-treatments/understanding-your-menstrual-cycle-fact-sheet
- Johns Hopkins: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/02/20/aje.kwr356.full
No comments:
Post a Comment