Life Update

As those upon whom I've inflicted my health travails know, I've been dealing with feminine related health issues for over two years and have semi-actively tried to resolve them. I've gotten a bit more aggressive about it again, since the symptoms that caused me to meet with a doctor in the first place are getting worse...which is not ok. 

So, I've got good news and bad-ish news. 

Good news first. 

The middle of last month I met with my doctor to discuss how the new progesterone supplement* was working and about the worsening symptoms. Fortunately the progesterone continues to help with a couple issues, including eliminating the migraines and decreasing my blood pressure.** However, some of the others remain, are worsening and need to be addressed. A couple possible diagnosis were I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) or Endometriosis. We decided to start with testing for PCOS, because it's easier.*** Since I'd been fasting, we did a blood draw for a glucose and insulin intolerance test (since there's a correlation between the insulin intolerance and PCOS) and scheduled an ultrasound. Thankfully the ultrasound came back clear (no organ issues...yay!), though the glucose test came back a bit high. Today I went in for a 2 hour glucose test, which tests your body's response to sugar. They took a pinprick blood sample, gave me flavored sugar water to drink (which apparently had the sugar content of two Mountain Dews 😳), and then tested it again two hours later. That also came back within fairly normal levels...technically it was a smidge high, but since I'd literally just drank a glass of sugar, it was well within the range of reasonable. Since I got favorable answers for both the ultrasound and glucose test, it means no PCOS. 

Which leads to the bad-ish news  - that I still don't know what's up. I've got to talk to my doctor again, but I think the next step is for her to refer me to a surgeon (Dr. Teresa Hilgers at the St. Paul VI Institute in Omaha) to consult about Endo being the possible cause. And while I'd dearly prefer not to have Endometriosis, I'm a little anxious because I won't know what to do if I don't. I've done a lot (A LOT) of research through all this and I haven't come across other medical diagnoses that really fit my symptoms. 

The really frustrating thing is "we just don't know/can't find a reason" is a genuine possibility. I've already gotten that answer for one of the symptoms (grrrr). I'm a big proponent of dealing with the cause and not just the symptoms, but if I can't figure out the cause... 😬

In other news, I officially shut down Feedburner, so if this post is emailed out to my extensive subscriber list (snicker 😆) this evening, it means I set up Mailchimp correctly! 😎

 

UPDATE 5/6/2021: I just heard from my doctor's office. While confirming that I am not diabetic (woo hoo!), they also informed me that I'm "VERY insulin resistant," which is less fun to find out. That's not something I'm super familiar with, so I'm planning to meet with the doctor again here soon. Let the obsessive researching commence! 😁😕 

~ Katie Q. 🐧

* At some point my body decided producing progesterone was for suckers and started making an insufficient amount. When I first met with the doctor, our assumption was this lack of production was at least partially responsible for my worsening mensural symptoms. Sadly it appears this was not the case and we still need to find the culprit. 

** Fun fact: for some women, lack of progesterone can cause an increase in blood pressure. This is because it's a vasodilator, which means it opens or dilates blood vessels and allows blood to flow more easily through them. It's not uncommon for pregnant women to see their blood pressure decrease, which now makes sense since (normally) your progesterone skyrockets when you're pregnant. 

*** The most accurate way to diagnose Endometriosis is by laparoscopy, a minimally invasive diagnostic surgery.