hello everyone. I’m 20 years old, and I’m struggling deeply. I have been bleeding for over a month, and I started my period as of January 2nd. the last time I went to the GYNO, the same thing was happening. I feel sore, I’m passing blood clots every time I use the restroom, and my blood is between bright right and dark brown. I take birth control pills that are supposed to help, but it feels like nothing is working. all my uterine lining is just thickening it’s not thinning, and I can physically feel how heavy it is down there. I just want some relief. I just need help finding what to do and where to go from here.
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Keep going to the gyno, take notes of how you feel so you can refer back to it. If you have a portal consider sending messages directly to your doctor so they can see what’s going on too. Even if it’s the 1-3 business day response it helps to have records of how you feel. Keep in your contacts or notes the doctor’s number on call for out of office hours if you’re concerned like pain that won’t go away or feel like you might need to be seen. And have the during business hours number saved too so you don’t get frustrated finding it through google and then the operator phone tree when you need it most. You never know if you have a cyst don’t want it to rupture and pass out because you were trying to tough it out. But also recognize going to the emergency department can take up to 12 hours to be seen and discharged sometimes. Bring comfy things, sanitizers, tissues, headphones, non perishable small snacks and drinks and portable chargers if you can. And take notes in appt to help bridge the gap if you aren’t able to answer the questions they give. Try to keep track of your days I was always bad at that so I don’t think doctors understood just how irregular I meant by saying it felt not like I feel like other girls have their period. Great job describing here! Keep going with that and practice self compassion as you reflect!
I.e. i wish I kept track of my uti history vs yeast infection vs bv vs just burning or symptoms with negative tests from the doctor because that’s been hard to piece together now at 25 looking back. I’ve been having these problems since 14 and while I went to schools doctors throughout 2 high schools and college, cvs drs, urgent cares in whatever city I lived in at the time, doctors somewhere random if I was on vacation with my family and had a sudden infection from my being in wet clothes too long, or when I interned different states over different summers, the information gets separated and it can feel like work going back through it. Try to keep a timeline because I think your history can help with diagnosis and urgency because I don’t think they believed me at first when I said it felt like I was getting infections or whatever symptom like heaviness all the time but seeing it in a calendar helps support your self reporting or advocacy in your care and keeping track for one minute as it happens and saving that somewhere saves time later for yourself.
You might be candidate for Mirena iud it helped me the first time I got it, but I still ended up needing hormonal bc pills on top of that after 2 years when my pain got bad again. I’m still figuring it out. My doctor thinks I might just need to replace it every 3 years for me to have it work best against my symptoms. Even though most ppl are 5-7 years. I just got it replaced we’ll see how it goes.
I feel bad for the stories I’ve read where it hasn’t gone well for ppl so I’m sorry to hear that for those cases, but those I’ve known personally have had good experiences with the Mirena IUD (mom, sister, me).
You’re doing the right thing going to the doctor and noticing these things like color heaviness frequency and your self concern and advocacy! Try to practice self care inbetween and keep with support systems if you can