Hey ya'll. I'll explain. A few weeks ago, I starting having an unimaginable pain in my pelvic-abdomen area. It hurt when I sat down, stood up, or anything. I hadn't started my period, which I usually do by the first few days of the month. So, I finally went to the emergency room. They couldn't figure it out, but ruled out a lot of stuff. They figure it's either fibroids or endomitriosis. I've studied up on endomitriosis, and have learned that if I ever wanted to have children again, that's out of the question. It pretty much ends that. So, while I'm not really looking to ever have children again, if my mind changed for some reason, I might be bummed. Anyway, they wanted to me to have an ultrasound, and now I have to make an appt with the doctor to find out the results of that.
JoJo -- did they check for ovarian cysts? These are quite common, and frequently resolve themselves, but can cause a lot of pain in the meantime. (I'm guessing that they already looked for that.)
My oldest daughter is prone to cysts, and several years ago had a very strange thing develop that had given her pain for a couple of months. When it became worse, we took her to the hospital, and it was finally determined that she had something called a dermoid. It's a very bizarre thing, but is essentially an unfertilized egg that decides all by itself that it wants to be a baby. Because it's an unfertilized egg, it can't fully develop into a human being, of course, so it develops only half the characteristics of a human.
These things can often be removed quite easily, if they're small enough, but in our daughter's case she unfortunately lost her right ovary. Usually dermoids have human hair on the inside of the cyst, and some even have teeth, and partial bones. In fact, our daughter's doctor said that dermoids can develop any organ of the human body, with one exception: the heart. The human heart has never been found inside a dermoid...
Dermoids are fairly rare, and aren't dangerous until the grow too large. That can cause the ovary to torque, and then becomes an emergency. Our daughter was about to return to college, as a senior, when this happened to her, and we decided to go ahead with the surgery while she was still at home, and not have her wait until she was out of town with the specter of an emergency hanging over her head!
Normal ovarian cysts are usually fluid filled, and are very common. Hopefully (if your doctors haven't already ruled this out), your pain will turn out to be caused by a simple cyst.
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
JoJo -- I was always plagued with fibroids, and since your doctor thinks that you feel a bit swollen, maybe this is the answer.
Thanks for asking about my daughter's surgery. It was fairly straightforward. Of course, the removal of her ovary caused it to be a bit more complicated than they would have liked, but they weren't going to be able to make the decision until they were in there. As the dermoid grows, it tends to swallow the ovary. If it's still on the outside, the surgeon can kind-of peel it off, but if it has already surrounded the ovary, there's not much they can do.
Ironically, this daughter has never been much interested in having children (my other daughter wants a gazillion). However, after she lost the ovary, she became very protective of the other one! While she's still not ready for kids yet, she realizes that she may still change her mind one day, and she wants to be able to have that choice should the time ever come.
She recovered nicely; had a couple of days of discomfort, but bounced back fairly quickly! This all happened within TEN DAYS of her having to return to North Carolina so it's lucky that youth was on her side.
Oh -- I wanted to add... when my daughter was first checked for ovarian cysts in the ER, they didn't feel anything. It turns out that the dermoid was in a position that couldn't be easily felt. It was the CT scan that showed what was really going on, and an ultra sound will usually show these things too. My daughter had a follow-up ultra sound the day before her surgery so they could try to determine the extent of her dermoid issue.
I'm not saying that this is what's going on with you!!! I'm just giving you our experience, and it never hurts to ask... However, if they've scheduled you for an ultra sound, I'm sure that it will find whatever needs to be found.
-- Edited by Moore ideas at 13:55, 2008-03-02
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
Thank you so much for that, Moore. You've armed me with information to take to my doctor. I'm sorry your daughter had to go through that, and I'm glad you shared it with me.
Now, I'm really anxious to find out what my ultrasound had to say!
