The last couple of months have seen me finally achieve some sense of stability with pain management and general wellbeing. I’m able to exercise again, I’ve completed a round of psychosexual counselling and I’ve started a new chapter by beginning my masters in gender and sexuality studies at the LSE. But what do these changes mean for the #Periodically blogs? I’m not sure yet.
My challenges are by no means over, some of them I haven’t even considered addressing yet. But after having shared so much, I’ve been enjoying sharing a little less lately. Now I know what I’m like, I’ll write and post a blog saying I’m stepping back from #Periodically and a week later my oversharing side will kick back in, that’s what happened the last time I considered reigning things in.
Healthwise, I’m still facing new issues every month, but I’m finding it hard to tell whether things are connected or not or whether they’re just signs of life. And while I’m in considerably less pain, my acne is refusing to calm down and my body feels a bit like it’s beginning to override the pill (I have a horrible feeling about my next cycle, I hope I’m wrong!) I’ve reached the end of my journey with the urology department (I think) and it seems that despite my hunch, I’m all OK in that sense. Currently, I’m not in a frame of mind where I’m looking to open up another can of worms by investigating something else. This is a huge deal for me because it must mean that I’m doing something remarkable — I’m coping!
Despite being asked on the regs, I have no idea when I’m going to ‘get back out there’ romantically and sexually, but what I do know is that I have a lot to say about painful sex, vaginismus, female sexual dysfunction and sexuality in general, plus the effects all of these things have on your mental health and personal relationships. But I’m not quite ready to share them yet.
This is the bit of the story that I feel is missing from #Periodically at the moment, and it doesn’t really fit into the category #Periodically, does it? So I’m toying with the idea that when I’m ready (don’t hold your breath), these conversations will come under a new banner, or maybe in an entirely different format altogether.
So to repeat my earlier question, what’s next for #Periodically? I definitely want to cover a few more events and I would love to review a few more period products, but logistically I’m not menstruating regularly enough for that to work right now. (LOL, period logistics eh?!) I’ve been testing out the new release of Clue Plus and have some thoughts on that, so that’s to come, but most of all, I would really love to hear from #Periodically readers. You lovingly email and message me the nicest words of support, and now, if it’s not too much to ask, I would love to hear what blogs you’d like to read and what topics you’d like to see me cover. What’s more, if you want to write a guest blog for #Periodically, I am all ears! A) I want to broaden the experiences #Periodically covers and B) I have considerably less time for the blog at the moment, LSE is trying to suck all spare minutes out of my life…
BASICALLY, I’d like to hear from you, so if you have any blog ideas or a guest blog pitch for me, please get in touch, by Twitter, Instagram or email.
Fanfare alert: it’s been one whole year since I published the first #Periodically blog on Fictitiously Hilary. This marks my 27th blog about my menstrual, gynaecological and all together grossly overshared health. If truth be told, I can’t believe it’s only been a year, it’s been a bit of a mad one.
So much has happened in the last 12 months, and, as I mentioned last week, writing the #Periodically blogs has given some really awful situations a positive edge. Writing about this never-ending shit-storm has meant I’ve actually got something from the shit-storm. The year would have been a bit of a downer without it.
Health wise, the last twelve months have seen me hate the pill, have eliminating surgery, an infected bellybutton (nice!), cysts, cyst, no cysts, vaginismus (that was a curveball), counselling, stop running, start yoga, give up sex, several very painful pelvic exams, four very painful ultrasounds, anaemia (another curveball), one trip to the emergency gynae unit, going back on the pill, almost liking the pill, hating the pill again and going on pain eliminating antidepressants. It’s remarkable, but not all that surprising, that I have had so much medical intervention in the last 12 months without reaching a stable diagnosis or any reliable resolution. It’s also pretty distressing to think that things at this point are probably a little worse than they were a year ago. On the bright side, I’m incredibly fortunate that all this medical intervention, except prescriptions since leaving Wales, hasn’t directly cost me a penny! #SaveOurNHS
I say directly because my health has cost me financially. The increase in doctors appointments and pain last autumn undoubtedly influenced my decision to go freelance but I don’t regret that decision for a second. I graduated last July, spent four weeks in South America (including a struggle with altitude sickness that makes so much more sense now I know I was anaemic), before having the op and then deciding to go freelance.
Going freelance straight from university was an awful idea, I knew it was at the time, but #Periodically has been a huge part of my freelance “success” (as in I’m still alive). While I haven’t monetized the blog, #Periodically has opened up so many doors, from top-secret projects that are going to change the world, to helping me get accepted onto the masters course I’ll be starting in September. It’s also let me meet some amazing people, from Period Poverty activists like Mandu Reid and Gabby Edlin (who I met in a toilet of all places), to entrepreneurs and game-changers in female health.
In the first #Periodically I wrote, “I don’t want to write about it after the fact, because after the fact might not be for a long time. I want to write about it while it is happening,” and THANK GOD I had that mentality. Who knows when the end of this saga will come, but by sharing my experience, often in TMI detail, collaborating and campaigning I feel like I’ve got so much more from this year than just pain and frustrating doctors appointments. I hope the blogs can help make a few more people sit up and take female health, particularly menstrual health, even the tiniest bit more seriously.
Thank you so much for reading and sharing the #Periodically blogs, especially if you were only here for book-talk. I have no idea where me or #Periodically will be in another 12 months time, but I can say with some confidence that things are probably going to get weird.
Technically speaking, it’s been almost two months since I last shared a personal update on my tricky situation. Why the hiatus? I’m not sure. I guess my oversharing side took a backseat and I decided, for the first time in a year, to just dwell on things in private. When I write these blogs I poke fun at my situation and force myself end on a positive note. By not writing about it, I’ve had a lapse in perspective and lost my sense of humour about it all.
Also, the longer I left it the more there was to cover and now I’m not entirely sure where to start. With the good news, perhaps?
The Third Pill Pack
So I had a painless period. I don’t mean that to sound so nonchalant – it was a huge deal. I was scared to mention it in case I jinxed it. In fact, the painlessness continued for a couple of weeks after that. I was nervous to admit it. Had three months on the pill really fixed things so quickly and completely? No, was the answer.
A few days before my next cycle I started to get some of my old pain, mostly the stuff that’s localised to my right side and gets dramatically worse every time I use my right leg. My PMS has been considerably worse since I’ve been on the pill but I’ve also noticed a dramatic drop in my mood the moment I am in pain. This didn’t used to happen. While I wait to sort out psychosexual counselling I’ve just got a standard counsellor for now, and since she can’t help as much with the vaginismus stuff, she’s doing her best to help me counter pain-induced mood swings.
Around this time, my skin decided that a little acne on the pill would no longer do and broke out into the longest, most relentless bout of acne that I’ve had since puberty. Fab.
The Fourth Pill Pack
Old habits die hard, and the painful/grumpy premenstrual days foreshadowed a painful period. My periods are definitely less painful, lighter and generally better than they were before the pill and for the last few bleeds I’ve got away without painkillers, which is another huge victory. What was frustrating however, was that after my period ended, the pain didn’t. I wasn’t all that upset at first because I had a follow up scan a few days after and, as always, I applied the logic that if I was in pain then the scan might pick something up. I had built up to this particular scan more than normal because it was a big deal — if the internal ultrasound showed up clear then the chances were that my gynaecologist would declare that the pill had cured me and discharge me from his care. No pressure then, ovaries.
When I got to the hospital though, there was no one there. It was a bank holiday and the hospital was closed. I had raised my eyebrows when I got the appointment months ago, but I didn’t question it since it had been outsourced to a private healthcare provider. That was a mistake. I wanted the scan to be that week because if the pill has “fixed” me in the sense that I now grow a cyst in my pill-free week and then it gradually goes away over the three weeks on the pill, then it’s not a particularly thorough fix. Having the scan a few days after my period and being in pain was the best possible time to catch *something* in the act. There’s also the added complication that having vaginismus, even though mine is manageable, means that I have to psych myself up for a transvaginal scan.
The let down from not having the scan was pretty bad. I was upset. What didn’t help was that the bulging pain in my side continued to get worse and worse and was accompanied by some delightful bloating, only convincing me further that if I’d had the scan that day, they might’ve found something. Even though my scan was rescheduled for a week later, I knew my luck would mean it was a no-go. (I was right).
I’d been looking forward to this particular week (I had a free house, wahoo!) and was planning to cook and eat and write and exercise (more on that another time) but I was in so much pain, riddled with some of the worst acne I’ve ever had, miserable from the non-event scan and generally very lacklustre, so I ended up regressing seven years and lolling about on Sims 2. I didn’t even read. This was all coupled with a vague work crisis, so basically it was a nightmarish shit-storm of a week.
When I eventually had the scan it didn’t end up being an entirely negative experience. The sonographer and the chaperone were the two women who scanned me both times they found the cysts and were supportive in the fact that they knew that in cases like this, no news is not necessarily good news. Bizarrely, the sonographer, before inserting (is that any better than ‘penetrating?’ *cringe*) the device, gestured towards my vagina and asked, “are you alright with all that now?” and I WISH I had asked what she meant. Had she realised I had vaginismus way back when? I’ll never know.
I tried to write off *that week* as a bad week and to carry on after I’d had the scan but the pain was stubborn to shift. I just felt a bit like a sick person again, lying down after dog walks and needing to catch my breath after the simplest of tasks. Pain is knackering. I think chronic pain flare-ups are always harder to handle after getting an ‘all-clear.’
Pain Management
Bracing for the inevitable discharge letter from my gynae, I went to my new, new, new GP to discuss what my options were now. Five weeks or so ago I would’ve been happy with how things had improved on the pill but now I know my pain can still flare up just as much as it used to even though I’m on the pill. While the flare-ups are definitely rarer occurrences, I’m not really happy with this as an end point. There’s also the fact that the scan really hurt, penetration still hurts. It’s still intrusive and upsetting and I’d really just like to be done with it all now.
Because of this, my GP has finally convinced me to focus on pain management. I feel like I’m admitting defeat because I really want to know what is causing my pain, plus I’m scared that if I never find the cause then the underlying problem may never shift. But honestly, I’m exhausted. Even if it’s only for a little while, pain management seems like the right thing to do, especially with the way my mood is correlating with my pain. So for now, I’m on amitriptyline, a low dose antidepressant that *may,* over time stop me feeling pain. It sounds scary and the list of side effects is TERRIFYING (spontaneous lactation?!) but I’m on such a low dose of the stuff that I’m not too worried for the time being.
Since I’m going to be staying on the pill as part of this pain management programme, and it’s been long enough that my skin should’ve have calmed down or improved, I’m now on a new night-time gel for my acne. These two treatments combined have a load of risk factors that mean I should avoid sunlight and alcohol — fun summer 2018 for me then — but they’re not hard and fast rules. I’ve also been taking Evening Primrose Oil at my mum’s request since it used to help her PMS and acne. My PMS was particularly bad last week so I doubled my dose of EPO to no avail… worth a shot, eh?
Let’s hope these guys can work together!
I’ve definitely let things, pain and otherwise, get the better of me over the last few weeks, which is so frustrating because I have some really exciting things going on and coming up. I want to be able to enjoy it all, so pain management seems like the right way to go.
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