Hey! So Glad You're Here.

I have suffered from chronic pelvic pain since I was 16 years old. I never understood why my periods were so debilitating and I started developing chronic pain in other areas of my body. After seeing several doctors I was ruled out as a hypochondriac and I gave up. About a year later I had my first ruptured cyst and found myself in the hospital. They couldn't tell me what had happened or why but gave me pain killers and sent me on my way.

 

I tried reaching out to different OBGYN's to receive a second opinion and see if someone could tell me why I kept ending up in the ER with excruciating abdominal pain that no one could explain. Unfortunately insurance prevented me from being seen by anyone. 3 hospital visits later I FINALLY had an ER doctor refer me to a personal contact that was willing to work with me despite the lack of insurance. 

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I had exploratory surgery 2 months from meeting my doctor and discovered that I had stage 4 endometriosis. My doctor is not an endometriosis specialist but he did everything to the best of his knowledge to help me and continues to do so. Unfortunately I ended up on Lupron which is a hormonal injection typically used in prostate cancer patients to slow the replication of cells. This injection destroyed me. I experienced mood swings, weight gain, extreme fatigue, hot flashes, changes in appetite, nausea, hair loss and more with NO improvement.

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Jump to my second surgery for excision & ablation surgery. This means they remove as much tissue as they can and burn the rest (ouch). During this surgery they found out that not only did I have an extremely rare case of endometriosis but I also had interstitial cystitis and PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome). Ok what? So now I have three illnesses to worry about. Knowing what I know now I would have never done the surgery because it only made things exponentially worse.

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My pain never improved and I was getting ready to have my third, thats right THIRD, surgery when COVID hit. So now I'm creating this page to raise awareness for people with chronic illness's that feel invisible due to a poor health care system. Your pain is real and there are faster ways to get diagnosed and treated! Hopefully we can change the narrative and include more illness's in the insurance system!