Four ways to decorate your uterine wall...

[GilaB]

You might want to track your ovulation via basal body temperatures (take your temperature absolutely first thing on waking, before getting up or talking; it rises in an obvious way after you ovulate). It’ll give you a much better sense of what’s going on - whether you spot around ovulation or at a predictable time related to it, whether you’re having anovulatory cycles, etc. PM me to discuss if you like

[Wile_E]

@ugly ripe tomato

…

So I go to that appointment and tell her about the bleeding episode and she blows it off with “Yeah, sometimes periods can be a little heavy.” :mad: A LITTLE heavy? Did you look at the bloodwork report where my hematocrit (normally 14 in women) was down to 9???

Do you mean hemoglobin? Because 14% hematocrit would be transfusion-needing anemic.

[Azeotrope]

@Wile_E

Do you mean hemoglobin? Because 14% hematocrit would be transfusion-needing anemic.

:smack: Yes, hemoglobin

[teela_brown]

@pohjonen

. . . endometrial biopsy. You know, that procedure where they grab onto your cervix with the needle nose pliars and go in and grab off some tissue from inside your uterus? That procedure that they say can be done in the office sans anesthesia or medication because it only causes “some discomfort”, meaning that only 20 or 30 percent of women who undergo it pass out or puke?

Someone on Giraffe posted nervously about this procedure, and I wanted to rant about it, but didn’t want to increase her apprehension.

Why in the name of all that’s holy does anyone think that ripping a piece of flesh off of you with a pliers doesn’t need a local anaesthetic?!? I swear to God if I ever have to have this done I’m going to pound my fists and demand some damned novocaine. What is the big freaking deal about not using any? What does it cost, a few poxy dollars? This is just unbelievable and unacceptable.

[Cat_Fight]

Sounds awful, my sympathies. It sometimes frightens me how much goes on inside women’s bodies that remains a mystery.

@ugly ripe tomato

y
That goes for the female doctors too; in my 20s I had an episode of such bad bleeding I thought I was hemmorhaging and got so weak I couldn’t walk 20 feet without stopping to rest. My GP ordered blood tests and stuff but basically said “he couldn’t do anything about that stuff” so I had to wait months for referral to female OB-GYN (thanks, sucky HMO).

In my late teens I went to the GP with a few small things that needed fixing (mild skin condition, possible tonsillitis) and as soon as I mentioned ‘down there’ his eyes bugged out and he stammered ‘Oh we don’t do that here!’ I got a referral from the nurse in the front, but for a doctor, he sure made me feel awkward and ashamed for even bringing it up.

[ENugent]

The GI doc I saw about my heartburn and difficulty swallowing told me that I was the only patient he had ever heard of that had heartburn associated with the menstrual cycle (with a side of “you’re obviously making this up” in his voice). I pointed out that I had two years worth of records showing the association. I also looked around online and found lots of women complaining about this. But ladybits are apparently not of interest to doctors who specialize in any other body parts.

(The converse is also true. I was hospitalized some years ago for a bad recurring fever and headache, a month after I had an IUD inserted. It took me a day and a half to convince them that perhaps it would be worth looking at other body parts besides my uterus and (lactating, therefore suspect) breasts for possible infection. The eventual diagnosis was viral meningitis.)