I Will Not Suffer In Silence

Of course it’s time for me to be in bed, and my brain is spinning.

All day today I could only think of a handful of questions to ask my surgeon. I’m not usually a prepared person, so I didn’t have the questionnaire written weeks ahead of time. I am really irked at myself for not having gone into massive detail about my pre-op appointment three years ago. Then again, it was my first surgery, and I went into it with too much trust, because I’d waited so long for someone to say yes to me.

Going back to yesterday, I was only able to nap for two hours, but it’s better than nothing. I laid around the house for most of the day yesterday and all of the day today.

Today was my heaviest day – I went through nearly all of my large fabric pads. It felt like every time I shifted in bed or sat up or got out of bed, I’d have to change a pad. It felt like I was on the toilet every five minutes.

Diet-wise, I am still humoured every month by my desire to be on a cereals diet during the bedridden time. Although I needed to make the cornish hen before it went bad, and I was up every five minutes to use the loo anyway, so adding a trip to the kitchen to baste a cooking hen wasn’t too much. I got to eat a nice dinner of protein and leftover Thanksgiving side dishes.

I got antsy again after dinner and decided it would be wise to do a load of laundry. Well actually I knew it would be a bad idea, but it was still something that needed to get done, so that I could look somewhat presentable for my pre-op appointment tomorrow morning. So because I am stubborn, I used up 7 of my 10 spoons. I got out of bed, sorted laundry, bent over and laboriously put on sandals, lifted and carried laundry basket out to back of house laundry room, put laundry in the wash, and shuffled painfully back into my home. For that I had to pop more Advil and half a Tylenol 3. I’ve started popping less Advil but more frequently; 400mg at a time instead of 600mg. I still try to stay around the 1,200mg total range each time I’m in moderate to severe pain, because I know the stuff damages the GI tract.

I shuffled back out there to transfer the clothes to the dryer, and then I was done for the evening. My husband graciously brought in the clothes when they were dry, and set them on the bed next to me so I could fold them. I haven’t napped at all today, even though I’ve been bedridden the entire time. I’ve been continuously antsy, so folding clothes was my tiny way of saying to the endometriosis,”HAH! YOU AIN’T GOT ME DOWN, DAMMIT!”

Added bonus that I wore my cat ears all day today. :)

Later, I preemptively took half a Tylenol 3 before a badly needed shower, because I had used up all my spoons and was really pushing my luck, and I knew the pain would increase. Unfortunately, after the shower, I got stabbing pains in the right ovary and through the vagina, so I had to take the other half Tylenol 3. The pain was worse than I expected it would be.

On the pain scale, I’ve been between a 6 and a 7 all day, ramping up to 8 after my shower. That’s pretty good – I’ve spent entire days at 8 or 9 on the scale, so comparatively, today wasn’t bad.

And that’s the report. Now I have to finish my questionnaire for my surgeon. Good night.

I wanted to say that after my last journal entry, I tried to go to bed but could not sleep. All kinds of work-related stress was rushing through my head, and I couldn’t make it stop. I really need more muscle relaxers. My body was clenched. Even when my husband came to bed and cuddled with me, my body was tense. I tried to melt into my husband but it was extremely difficult to just let my muscles relax. He fell asleep before I did! I finally got up around 2am and took 1.5mg Ativan and waited for it to kick in. It was another 45 minutes before I finally fell asleep, but I did not sleep well because of the tense muscles everywhere.

Of course, Ativan makes one groggy and forgetful, so when my alarm went off this morning, I turned it off instead of hitting snooze. And then when my husband’s alarm went off, I got up to turn my alarm off before realising it was his alarm.

His alarm going off meant that it was 7:30am. I have to leave for work at 8am. I got up, went to the bathroom (the spotting that had stopped after my shower hadn’t returned), ate some cereal, threw some clothes on, and told my husband I would take my homework in to work today instead of him doing it for me, since I was up and about, and there was no visual sign of george. Although I was cramping at about a 3 on the pain scale.

I got in at work to drop off the homework, and to my dismay, up on the board in the office, were the names of two other assistant teachers in my room. I whirled around and exclaimed to the secretary, “They’re out? But I’m not even supposed to be here today! That’s half the adults in the room out today!”

I decided right there to sign myself in to work. I was ten minutes late but I knew I was needed so I didn’t care about being tardy.

My head teachers were relieved to see me! I told them I wasn’t supposed to actually stay, but upon seeing two teachers out, I promised to stay until the pain became unbearable. For the first 10 minutes, it had been two teachers with 22 children. Then I came in, and about five minutes after that, our newest assistant came in. Four adults is better than two!

I was able to retain enough focus to see a group of children through snack and work period, which lasted an hour and a half. I even helped a child who had a potty accident. I took the opportunity to use the bathroom myself, after cleaning up from the child’s accident. That’s when I discovered that today was the day actual flow had started. So I’m counting today, not yesterday, as officially Day 1 of george. The flow was thick, dark reddish brown, and contains debris. As the day goes on, the color is getting more brighter red.

I forgot to bring my water bottle to work, so I had nothing to take any medication with. I decided to see how bad the pain would get.

When the lights went out to signal cleanup time, that’s when the pain ramped up for me. I was suddenly doing a lot of bending over or kneeling down and getting up again to help children put their materials away, and my body said it wasn’t having any of that.
As soon as we got all of the children settled at group time, I turned to one of my head teachers and told her I’d need to go. She thanked me sincerely for the time I was able to be there today, and for helping get the class through work period.

I then set off to find the lunch supervisor to let her know I would not be there for the rest of the day. I could not find her – seems she was late to work – so I let the office staff, including the director know. I made sure to point out that the other two assistants in my room were also absent, so the lunch staff would be really short-staffed today. I apologised for me being part of that problem. I let the director know that the extended care supervisor said she would sub for me on Tuesday, and that one of our helper co-workers (not a full on Assistant Teacher) would be there on Wednesday for me (as that is my pre-op appointment).

I signed out and began my slow walk out the door and down the street to my car. Every step made me wince in pain. I knew I’d be home soon and could take my medication.
I drove home in the pain haze that comes over one’s eyes, and had to force myself to be alert enough not to drive over any curbs or worse.
I made it home just fine, got out of my car, locked the door, closed the door, walked away, and … realised I’d just locked my keys in the door. I searched all of my pockets. No keys. I peered inside the car. There were my keys, still in the ignition. *sigh*

I called my husband and a neighbor. No answer. I knocked on another neighbor’s door. Thankfully, he was home. Thankfully, he still had our spare house key from when he did catsitting for us!
I called road service and put in a request. Then I ate some yams and drank some blueberry juice so I could take my medication. With a heating pad on my abdomen, I waited for the road service guys to show up. It took about 35 minutes, and they got my keys out fast, with no damage.

I came back inside, finished my yams and juice, took .5mg Ativan, and now I will finally, after about an hour of saying I will sleep – now I will finally allow myself to sleep.

Here we are, once again, with the waiting game, and all the uncertainties of moment-to-moment planning.

I could blame it on all the sugar and alcohol (sake) I’ve consumed over the past four days. I could blame it on the blasted endometriomas on both ovaries. I could blame it on being stressed out by work, unfinished summer school homework, and my upcoming surgery. I could blame it on me being 39 years old. I could blame it on the overall illness itself: endometriosis.

But the fact remains that George was due on Saturday, and there’s still no flow, yet.

It’s the same thing I’ve ranted about, before:

I feel like I’m in limbo whenever my period is late. I go through each minute of each day knowing I should have been bedridden already. I’d already planned for the time off work. I’d already stocked up on groceries and tried to prep the house for my descent to the underworld. And then george is a no-show and I’m left biding my time, Waiting For It.
I’m in that special hell where I cannot exert myself too much because it causes pain…but I’m not in debilitating pain. And I’m super tired – I want to sleep all day and all night. And yet because there is no constant gnawing pain and/or bleeding going on, I feel like I’m expected to BE somewhere and DO something productive. But my body isn’t up for it. But my mind is restless. So the guilt sets in. I have video blogged about the guilt before, but it’s so hard to LEARN the lesson and just be okay with whatever my cycle is doing – just roll with it.

And now, the TMI part. It’s for science! It’s for education! It’s because there is no owner’s manual so I try to create it as I go!

On Saturday, I experienced low back and pelvic pain throughout the day – I was at a 3.5 on the pain scale for much of the day. It was annoying pain, but not debilitating. My mid to upper back kept trying to seize up, though, and this got worse by 10pm, when my vaginal mucosa changed from clear to pinkish. I contemplated taking a Tylenol 3, but I’m running low on it, so I didn’t take any. I did however consume 1,200mg of ibuprofen that day.

This morning (Sunday) I began spotting – it is dark brown and sticky, which is why I’m blaming all the sugar and alcohol intake. The spotting never ramped up the entire day, but the pain has been like a yo-yo. I took a total of 1,200mg ibuprofen again, and ate half a Tylenol 3 during the afternoon, which surprisingly made me quite loopy when I ran some errands with my husband. Thankfully, he was the one driving!

I was hoping that since I’ve been in moderate pain for the past week that I could at least have had my period by now, but noooooooo. The spotting that was happening has since disappeared since my shower this evening.

I’m setting my alarm for the usual time tomorrow, because I have no idea if I’ll be in any shape to go in to work or not. Had everything happened on time yesterday, I’d have spent half of yesterday in bed, all of today in bed already, and would be on Day 3 by tomorrow already. But noooooo. I get to start off at Day 1, Take Two, tomorrow.
Maybe.

Twenty months ago, I tried out some pH strips to try to get my pH on a continual balance. It lasted a couple weeks at best before I ran out of strips and was too lazy to keep at it.

I had heard about pH balancing sometime in 2007 or 2008 by user utah31* over on DailyStrength.org – she said it was miraculous for her mother-in-law, so she tried it for endometriosis relief, and also found massive benefit.

Over a year later, I decided to give pH balancing a try, and well…I didn’t adhere to it.

Then on November 6, 2010, I bought a new pH strip kit. This one is one big roll that I tear off pieces of strip from and test my urine, as opposed to individual testing strips like I used last year.
To my dismay, each pH testing kit has a different colour code it seems. Being dark blue means I’m nice and balanced for this pH kit. However, when comparing it to my testing last year, I’m rating super alkaline on that colour coded scale. When comparing last year’s testing to the kit I bought this month, I’m rating on the acidic side of the healthy range.

Thankfully, I’ve never rated yellow or red on the strips from last year or this year, so I’m not suffering from acidosis or anything like that. I may be too alkaline at times I guess.

Today for example, I drank warm blueberry juice (high in antioxidants) with my breakfast of sweet yams and inflammatory food – ham. A couple of hours later, I tested my urine’s pH and it came out dark blue. On this year’s box, the colour code says I’m in the normal range. Comparing it to last year’s colour code, I’m at 9.5 or highly alkaline.

Clearly I need to do more reading on this so-called pH balancing science.

*(Special note – utah31 is no longer on that forum due to massive drama that seems to have hit the site in the past year and a half when a highly mentally unstable self-proclaimed wiccan chick began blasting hate-filled rants at everyone. Thankfully, by that time, I was no longer logging in regularly enough to be exposed to her bullshit. I’m saddened that she single-handedly seems to have destroyed the community that was there. Since that time, a whole new group of questioning people seems to have become active members on that site. I just don’t have time right now for all of these people’s need for education about endometriosis and treatment).

Thursday was a pain-free day! Yay!

On Friday, the pain returned. I had a lot of joint pain and back pain that day. By evening, my upper back was trying to seize up. By the time we left our friends’ house, my left upper arm was in constant spasm. As a matter of fact, it’s still in spasm.

Despite the low back and pelvic pain for much of the day (which was kicked up after being intimate, OF COURSE), I went walking all over town with my husband, and I refused to take pain medication in case I wanted to partake in any alcohol with friends (which I did later that evening).

I wondered if the resurgence in pain could be attributed to having been intimate with my husband, or if it was due to the impending rainfall, or if it was due to eating inflammatory foods, or all of the above. I felt guilty only for the inflammatory food ingestion, but only a little guilty. I have to LIVE my life, dammit.

When we got home last night, I thought I would need to go right to bed, because for some reason I was running a 99.9°F fever. I got all paranoid that someone I’d spent time with at two Thanksgiving gatherings the day before had gotten me sick. The flu is going around, and I’ve been trying to avoid the preschool crud for the past month as it is.

Despite the fever, I found I was restless. This is when the urge to CLEAN came over me again, as strongly as the urge had been on Wednesday night, when I was on my hands and knees wiping down baseboards in the kitchen and bathroom.

I was up til nearly 3am dusting furniture in the living room and rearranging toys and knick-knacks that we collect.

Part of the reason for this rearranging was that my husband has just purchased a new television and will be purchasing a new furniture stand for said television, so we needed to clear off the old entertainment center. I just had the energy in me to do it in the middle of the night last night, is all…

All the dust from the shelves had stirred up my allergies, so I took a full dose of Benadryl, hoping that it would serve to knock me out so I could finally get some rest.

Rest was not to be found! Though the good news is that my temperature went back down to normal.

I went to bed around 3am and still could not settle. And on top of it, I was freezing (thanks to premenstrual hormones). My entire body was tense, and my left arm was still in muscle spasm – not painful spasm mind you, but just a continual muscle twitch up near the shoulder.

Around 4am I could take it no longer, and I took my very last half pill of muscle relaxer I’d been saving. Finally, between the Benadryl and the muscle relaxer, I was able to get in a few hours of sleep. However, by 7:30am, my entire body was in full on clench mode again. I was sleeping with my fists balled up and my shoulders trying to touch. Even the heating pad didn’t dent the muscle tension.

I swear, at this point I prayed for horse tranquilizers.

Intermittently throughout the night, the pelvic pain also made itself known. It’s hard to know if the pain was solely because I’d been intimate with my husband the day before, or if it was solely because my period is due today, or if it’s the rainstorm that finally manifested overnight, or if it is a combination of all of the above.

Then there’s the fact that I’ve eaten nothing but inflammatory food and drink all weekend (pie, cookies, chocolate, nigori sweet sake, ham, steak, crab, butter, waffles with syrup, bacon, coffee with sugar and cream, cheetos!!).
Seriously, every last one of those items is on the inflammatory foods list and/or my forbidden foods list.

Today I will begin the round-the-clock Ibuprofen dosing. The pelvic pain is a low, droning ache. The low back pain is moderate, and is as a result kicking up some nausea. I’ve been doing slow stretches since last night for the pain.

My fever has not returned – so far so good! I really don’t like dealing with the endometriosis flareups while also being sick with a virus.

Outside, the rain is an on again, off again drizzle, with threatening-looking clouds. It’s a breezy 52°F (11°C).

And that’s the report – I was due today but so far nothing has started to flow, yet, aside from the pain of course.
I estimate I’m currently a 3.5 on the pain scale. And now it’s time to get up and move around…and take that ibuprofen.

I need your assistance! I’m having trouble finding innocuous words for my journal titles and entries.

I’ve been trying so hard not to write the words “premenstrual” or “PMS” in my journal titles, because not all the people who subscribe to my blog necessarily want to acknowledge that they are reading about pain in my girl bits.

I tried writing “pre-pain update” but the word “pre-pain” infers “before pain”, which is not the case. I am having pain before the menstrual cycle begins. It’s premenstrual pain. I was just trying to cut out the word “menstrual” so as not to alienate readers right off the bat. But I haven’t figured out how to word it in a less private-sounding manner.

Same thing when I talk about blood – I don’t like to put it in the first two to three paragraphs, because it’s a real turnoff. Some people come to my blog to check in on me because they know I’ve not been feeling well. To start reading immediately about all the gory details of my menstrual cycle as regards the pain – well – let’s just say that it makes people instantly uneasy, and they tune out.

People for example over on LiveJournal will see the first paragraph or so as an excerpt to my journal entries on this site. If one sees the words “premenstrual”, “PMS”, “cycle”, “bleeding”, etc., in the title or excerpt, they are not likely to click through to read the rest of the entry over on this site.

I want to start each journal entry off giving a concise update about my current pain conditions without putting people off immediately. If you have any advice on alternative words and phrases I can use, please let me know!

Thanks! :)

I had moderate to debilitating pain for two solid days this week – Monday and Tuesday November 22 and 23. Then by the 24th, the pain subsided, only picking back up again around 3pm when I did stretching exercises with my students. At that point, the pain stayed with me for the rest of the day. I needed half a Tylenol 3 around 8pm, and I took the other half around 11pm.

Despite the pain, I was in “Let’s get shit done” mode, because it was the eve of Thanksgiving. I wiped down the baseboards in the kitchen and bathroom, made cranberry sauce, made two dozen gluten-free cookies, and made gluten-free pie crust before turning in for the night around 1am.

On Thursday, I experienced no pelvic pain at all!! I was therefore able to enjoy a full day of food overindulgence with friends.

Looking back at the past seven days, I can see that the debilitating pain I had was CLEARLY dyspareunia. I was intimate with my husband on Sunday, and the pain followed for two straight days afterward, before starting to clear up. And that is how it goes – that is the behaviour with dyspareunia.

We are heading into Friday, now. My period is due on Saturday. It may be on time or it may be late. Right now I am not experiencing any symptoms, thank [insert deity here].

We’ll see what the weekend holds for me!

The mid-cycle pain (mittelschmerz) started on November 16 and lasted through November 17.

On November 18, I was highly fatigued, and missed a friend’s concert. I was however able to get some teaching internship homework done that night, with my remaining spoons.

I got through work on November 19, and had to return to work on November 20 for the annual Fall Harvest Festival. Parents of the children who attend the school were put into groups and had a continent assigned to them. They all had to cook or bring foods found or popular to a particular continent. Each class did songs and dances relating to the continent/country they are studying. My class has been studying the Philippines in Asia, and so they counted from one to ten in Tagalog, sang Sampung mga daliri (see another cute rendition here), attempted a traditional dance, and sang I Am But A Small Voice (which went so well that they got wild applause).

After the Fall Harvest Festival, I needed downtime. I’d used up all my spoons, but I still wanted to go out dancing that night. I was pretty upset with my body for being so tired and achey. I was mad at my mind for being so moody and premenstrual.
I ended up staying home and joining a party of friends 2,500 miles away in my home state. They were having a party and so I joined them on Skype. They were all super drunk and having a fun time, so my husband and I decided to have elderflower fizz – it is elderflower liquor with champagne.

Well, the champagne hated me worse than I expected. I know I’m not supposed to have anything with yeast or sulfites, but this particular champagne must have been loaded with them. My stomach hadn’t hurt that bad or been that upset in a long time. What a shitty day overall it had turned out to be, health-wise and emotionally for me.

On Sunday, November 21, I went to a matinee with my husband and two of our friends – we saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. When I got home, I spent the rest of the evening once again catching up on teaching internship homework, and practicing my presentation for Monday.

Despite the weekend’s ups and downs, my husband and I were able to enjoy each other intimately. I note this because with endometriosis, it is often difficult to be intimate without grave pain. Twice a month is the norm – anything more than that and we’re jumping for joy. Such as it was this month – a veritable jumping for joy.

On Monday, November 22, I began to experience gnawing uterine cramps, and I knew this was the result of having been intimate with my husband over the weekend, because I am diagnosed with dyspareunia. Same thing happened which set off the mittelschmerz last week.
So on Monday, I had sharp stabbing pain on the right, then on the left, then radiating through the rectum as day/night progressed. That day, I took half a Tylenol 3 + 400mg Ibuprofen at lunchtime at work. Later, I ingested half a Tylenol 3 + 400mg Ibuprofen at dinner time, and then another half Tylenol 3 after dinner while at a friend’s house catching up on The Walking Dead.

When I got home, I experienced a painful bowel movement, which set off some nausea and shakes, and reminded me what I’ve known for years – that I have rectal involvement with endometriosis. I went to bed with a heating pad on my abdomen and lower back all night.

This morning, I woke nearly two hours before my alarm clock went off, and could not get back to sleep. I had only had five hours of sleep. Despite that, the pain level was very low, so I went to work. I did not bicycle to work because the pain has been too unpredictable, and it has also been raining.
While walking from my car to the workplace, I was so shaky that I thought I might collapse. I couldn’t tell if the shakiness was from nerves or from my body becoming so weak from fatigue and recent pain, but I forced myself to keep walking.
I got through the morning in a moderately agitated state, with frequent bouts of ‘warm flashes’ because my hormones are doing acrobatics inside of me.

The gnawing uterine cramps started up again at lunch hour. I experienced intermittent sharp stabbing pain on the right ovary. I took 600mg Ibuprofen at lunchtime at work, but the pain radiated to my rectum, which left me debilitated, shaky and nauseous. Right before I was to end my lunch break, my bowels went into a painful tizzy, and I spent many minutes on end at the toilet, trying not to vomit from the recto-vaginal pain as a painful bowel movement tried to happen. When I finally did defecate, there was blood in the stool. My anus did not hurt, so I wondered if it was from hemorrhoids or from endometriosis perforating my bowels. Either way, I was feeling really ill.

I can handle a certain amount of uterine pain more than I can handle the ovarian pain, but I cannot handle the recto-vaginal pain at all. May as well beat me senseless, it’s all the same.

When I got home from work today, I applied a heating pad to my bottom, half a muscle relaxer (Soma), .5mg Ativan, and a nap. I slept from around 3pm til nearly 8pm. I woke to urinate, then had cereal for dinner, which caused a new round of painful defecation – loose this time, with some more blood, and nausea. I took my temperature – it’s 99.4°F. But then it’s been 99 point something more often than not for months, if not over a year, now.

I began to wonder if I have an intestinal virus. I’d spent the better part of last week fighting off an upper respiratory tract infection. Preschoolers – they’ll kill ya.

Now I’m back in bed, journaling all of this before returning to sleep for the night.

Good night.

The last time I blogged was on November 9. The pain abated by November 11, and so I decided again to try bicycing to work. I seemed to be okay, so I pedaled to work again on November 12, despite the trapped nerve resurfacing overnight once again from all the stress I’m under. Speaking of stress, I began taking Ativan again – on November 11. :(

On November 13, I participated in my friend’s wedding. It was beautiful. :)

The grooms

The cake cutting!

My husband

Me

The only thing though, we all drank for about 12 hours that day. I had a total of 3 glasses of wine and two and a third hard alcoholic drinks in the course of those 12 hours. Not bad, but then again I shouldn’t be drinking at all with autoimmune disease. Hell, I got more drunk the night before, at the rehearsal dinner, heh. I think I drank 2/3 a bottle of wine that night…

During the wee hours of Sunday morning, a virus within me had activated and let loose on my maxillary sinuses. It felt like my runny nose coated my pillow. Ugh. I’ve been sneezing and blowing my nose ever since.

I tried resuming bicycling to work Monday and Tuesday this week, but with the virus making me excruciatingly tired (like, wanting to be in bed by 8pm), I decided to not bicycle to work today.

Because of the virus, I have renewed heightened sensitivity to dust, mold, perfumes and chemicals in general. This of course did not stop me from getting super PMS-tastic last night and using Tilex diluted in hot water to scrub moldy window sills – without a mask. WTF!!

Also, the biggest WTF right now is Mittelschmerz. It hit like clockwork on Day 8 of the new cycle – yesterday the 16th. And ever since yesterday, I’ve been trying to eat all the chocolate on the planet. Tonight, I wanted alcohol, and I’ve been imbibing on liquor in the house. The boozing is in part to the stress I’m under at work, and in part due to nightmares I’ve had for two nights straight.

This upper respiratory tract infection is not helping with my stress level. I know I shouldn’t be drinking, especially with a virus going on, and yet I have no control over my cravings and wants right now.

I’m experiencing mid-cycle pain, PMSing, and my period is already due by next Saturday, even though just last week, I was just coming off my period. This so-called 25 day cycle is for the birds.

So I just wanted to let you know where it’s at – I’m PMSing, chocolate-gorging, stressed out, drug-addled on Ativan and Benadryl, and totally having a pity party over the Blue Moon Menstrual Cycle this month.

Yeah, pity me. Wah. Boo hoo.

This has officially entered into NOT OKAY territory.

I continued to have pelvic pain throughout the day and evening on Sunday. I forgot how much Advil I ingested, but I know I took half a Tylenol 3 Sunday night before going to a friend’s house to hang out.

Yesterday was my first day back to work after missing two and a half days late last week. I bicycled to work, because I was excited to no longer be bedridden, and the cramps and bleeding had gone away. Or so I thought. :(

I experienced intermittent, sharp pain in the low uterus and on the right ovary throughout the day. The pain got really bad when I pedaled hard from work to my psychology appointment (ONE MILE), then pedaled hard to get home (HALF a mile!) so I could make it to my naturopathy appointment in time.

These are short distances I pedaled, on level ground. To be in a lot of pain like that threw me for a loop, but it’s not the first time. It happened to me back on September 20, while bicycling to my psychology appointment after work. I experienced pulling, stabbing pain in my right ovary. The pain lasted for several minutes after I climbed the two flights of stairs to my shrink’s office. Same thing again yesterday, but it was both the low uterus and the right ovary.

I have had the usual “OMG I’M SO TIRED” post-menstrual cycle thing going on, only it’s exacerbated by the fact that we just observed Daylight Saving Time this past weekend. So this fatigue thing will last through the next cycle for me, at least. :(

Last night we hung out at another friend’s house, so we could watch the second episode of The Walking Dead (it’s awesome, btw). Once again, I needed Advil (400mg) and Tylenol 3 (half a pill) to get through the evening. It was much worse to be standing or walking. The pain was likely a 5.5 on the pain scale when it struck throughout the day, spiking to 7 when I was riding my bike. The pain dropped to a 3 on the scale when I was sitting, though every muscle in my body was tense again, steeling against pain.

I got home from the shrink last night and then hopped in my car and drove over to the dispensary to attend my first Naturopathy class. Like most things, I’ll try it once and see how it goes. The naturopathic doctor I saw knows what endometriosis is, and seems confident she can help alleviate some of my pain. She is realistic and knows that the condition is currently without a cure, and very tricky to control. For that, I am retaining her. I like smart doctors who aren’t arrogant or cocky, or who promise me a cure *coughchoke*doctorkateo’hanlan*cough*

This brings us up to today. The pelvic pain is STILL with me. I had intermittent pain throughout the day again, and it got to stabbing level, spiking to a 7, when I ran half a block from my car to my home to catch the FedEx person in time. Once again, standing is worse than sitting. I’m about to head out with my husband for some groceries and supplies based upon my visit to the Naturopath last night, so we’ll see how bad the pain gets. :(

Going back to the Naturopath for a moment – she has several things for women with endometriosis to try. I am sharing these things here for women who do not have a Prop 215 card and/or who cannot afford to see a Naturopath:

• Drink half your body weight in ounces each day to facilitate elimination.
• Use castor oil packs over the abdomen and pelvic region every day for 20 minutes (see instructions below).
• Buy the Anti-Inflammation Diet and Recipe Book, by Jessica Black, ND
• Take 20,000iu of Vitamin A in palmitate oil daily (DO NOT TAKE THIS AMOUNT IF YOU ARE TRYING TO BECOME PREGNANT, AS IT CAN CAUSE BIRTH DEFECTS)
• 1oz vitex agnus-castus (chasteberry) twice daily via dropper or mixed into food
• 15 drops of seroyal chelidonium plex twice daily
• Seed cycle: From Day 1 of menses to Day 15, take 1tbsp daily of ground flax and ground pumpkin seed. From Day 16 back to Day 1 again, take 1tbsp daily of ground sesame and ground sunflower seed.

To create the castor oil pack, you will need:

• unbleached, non-dyed cotton, wool or flannel cloth, about 15″ – 20″ in size
• plastic wrap (or wax paper)
• glass dish with lid
• small bath towel
• hot water bottle or heating pad
• 6oz castor oil

Directions for the castor oil pack:

• Pour enough castor oil onto the fabric to saturate the cloth.
• Lie down and place the oil-saturated cloth directly on skin over treatment area.
• Castor oil stains! You may wish to cover the saturated fabric with a piece of plastic wrap or wax paper.
• Place the bath towel over the plastic wrap. If using heat, apply it now (medium warmth).
• Rest. :) You can rest for 20 mins or leave the pack on overnight.
• When you are done, store the oil-saturated fabric in a glass container with a lid. The fabric and oil can be used for months this way. Add more castor oil as needed. If you take a break in treatment days, just store the container w/ fabric in the refrigerator.
• To remove the castor oil from your skin, wash with a solution of 3tbsp baking soda per quart of water. You can use the same solution for washing castor oil out of linens and fabrics. Keep in mind that castor oil WILL stain cloth!

It seems like a lot, but I’ve done a lot more for other regimens, elimination diets, and detoxes/flushes.

It’s one more thing I have to say, “Hey, I tried it.”