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azdesertroseThis is not good.
I've had a lot of problems with my female parts, so much so that I probably cannot have any more children. (I don't want another child right now, but I'm not too happy at the thought that I probably can't have another baby even if I should end up in a situation that I wanted another baby. I suppose I don't like having the option taken from me.)
My normal menstrual cycle is quite heavy; I hit menarche at 12 years and one month (February 1988), and from that point on, I bled for seven or eight days a month, heavily, until I got pregnant with my daughter.
Mercifully, my pregnancy was medically uneventful (though the months of it were quite the opposite in other areas) and my daughter was and is a healthy kid, who herself hit menarche last summer, a few months before her 13th birthday.
From my daughter's conception until she was 10 months old, I didn't menstruate at all, most likely because I breastfed her.
During my divorce from her father (I left him when she was about 16 months old, and the divorce was finalized when she was about two and a half years old), my periods got weird. It was a stressful time, and it's not unusual for a woman's cycles to go crazy when she's under a lot of stress. I went on birth control pills for the first time around age 19, because my cycles were still crazy, even though the divorce drama was calming down.
I went off birth control pills three years later when I got to be too old to be on my parents' medical insurance and lost my insurance coverage.
About a year after that, I had to drop a semester of college because I bled heavily for a month and a half for no discernible reason. An endometrial biopsy was performed but reflected no problem. (It hurt like the very devil, though.)
I've been up and down with my cycles ever since; I had a colposcopy in my mid-twenties due to a slightly abnormal Pap, which transpired to be nothing. I've had a couple of doctors prescribe hormonal birth control to try to keep me from menstruating as frequently. My current gynecologist (whom I really like) has me on the Yasmin pill, which seems to agree with my system pretty well. I had been taking them like you "normally" do, three weeks of active pills and then one week of inactive pills, but in May, my doctor told me to take three packs of active pills without taking the week off, to try to reduce the frequency of my cycles.
For the last two years, my period has meant at least a week (sometimes as much as two weeks) curled up in pain. Before my doctor prescribed the birth control pills for me, I was bleeding for 8-9 days, and for four of those days, I was bleeding through a super-plus tampon in 2 to 2.5 hours. It sucked. Big time.
Oh, yeah, and last September, when I first saw my doctor, my Pap smear was unusable because my cervix bled when she touched it with the instrument. So I had to have another colposcopy last October. (OW!!!!) That colposcopy also turned up nothing of any great note.
I had to have a repeat Pap done in March. It was somewhat abnormal, but my doctor did not want me to freak out; she told me we'd repeat again in September, when I'm due for my annual again.
What has made me say "Oh shit" is that the last two times Cliff and I have had sex, I have bled afterwards.
I've been spotting anyway, probably due to the not-having-periods-since-May thing; I sort of expected to spot through this extended hormone dose.
But after we've had sex, I start BLEEDING. Like the first day of my period bleeding.
Hence, the "oh shit."
And I really can't afford to go see my gynecologist until September; I have to see the new psychiatrist in August, and bills have to be paid.
But I'm mentally a little panicky about this.
I've had a lot of problems with my female parts, so much so that I probably cannot have any more children. (I don't want another child right now, but I'm not too happy at the thought that I probably can't have another baby even if I should end up in a situation that I wanted another baby. I suppose I don't like having the option taken from me.)
My normal menstrual cycle is quite heavy; I hit menarche at 12 years and one month (February 1988), and from that point on, I bled for seven or eight days a month, heavily, until I got pregnant with my daughter.
Mercifully, my pregnancy was medically uneventful (though the months of it were quite the opposite in other areas) and my daughter was and is a healthy kid, who herself hit menarche last summer, a few months before her 13th birthday.
From my daughter's conception until she was 10 months old, I didn't menstruate at all, most likely because I breastfed her.
During my divorce from her father (I left him when she was about 16 months old, and the divorce was finalized when she was about two and a half years old), my periods got weird. It was a stressful time, and it's not unusual for a woman's cycles to go crazy when she's under a lot of stress. I went on birth control pills for the first time around age 19, because my cycles were still crazy, even though the divorce drama was calming down.
I went off birth control pills three years later when I got to be too old to be on my parents' medical insurance and lost my insurance coverage.
About a year after that, I had to drop a semester of college because I bled heavily for a month and a half for no discernible reason. An endometrial biopsy was performed but reflected no problem. (It hurt like the very devil, though.)
I've been up and down with my cycles ever since; I had a colposcopy in my mid-twenties due to a slightly abnormal Pap, which transpired to be nothing. I've had a couple of doctors prescribe hormonal birth control to try to keep me from menstruating as frequently. My current gynecologist (whom I really like) has me on the Yasmin pill, which seems to agree with my system pretty well. I had been taking them like you "normally" do, three weeks of active pills and then one week of inactive pills, but in May, my doctor told me to take three packs of active pills without taking the week off, to try to reduce the frequency of my cycles.
For the last two years, my period has meant at least a week (sometimes as much as two weeks) curled up in pain. Before my doctor prescribed the birth control pills for me, I was bleeding for 8-9 days, and for four of those days, I was bleeding through a super-plus tampon in 2 to 2.5 hours. It sucked. Big time.
Oh, yeah, and last September, when I first saw my doctor, my Pap smear was unusable because my cervix bled when she touched it with the instrument. So I had to have another colposcopy last October. (OW!!!!) That colposcopy also turned up nothing of any great note.
I had to have a repeat Pap done in March. It was somewhat abnormal, but my doctor did not want me to freak out; she told me we'd repeat again in September, when I'm due for my annual again.
What has made me say "Oh shit" is that the last two times Cliff and I have had sex, I have bled afterwards.
I've been spotting anyway, probably due to the not-having-periods-since-May thing; I sort of expected to spot through this extended hormone dose.
But after we've had sex, I start BLEEDING. Like the first day of my period bleeding.
Hence, the "oh shit."
And I really can't afford to go see my gynecologist until September; I have to see the new psychiatrist in August, and bills have to be paid.
But I'm mentally a little panicky about this.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 03:12 pm (UTC)When you start bleeding after sex, does it continue like your normal period (I realize "normal" is a very relative word.)? Or do you bleed for a while and then stop? And has this only happened since your gyno told you to take the 3 months of Yasmin without taking the inert pills? If so, I was thinking that could be the reason. It seems like your body makes a lot of tissue during your cycle and it is very blood engorged. It would seem to me that your body wants/needs to discharge that tissue every month. I don't know what it is particularly about the act of sex that would make you bleed. If you start hemorraging (God, let's hope not.), then of course, go to the ER. If you want to go see a gyno for cheap, look in your city's phone book for a free clinic. The experience won't be as nice as seeing your regular gyno (fur sure), but at least you'll get some answers. And sometimes you do get a doc in those free clinics that is actually concerned about his/her patients and nice to them.
I'll be praying for you. *big hugs*
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 02:22 am (UTC)It acts like the first day or so of my period and then tapers back off to the spotting.
Actually, my regular gyno is one of the least expensive in the city; the free clinics here only do birth control and STD treatment. It sucks.
Thanks for the hugs and the prayers.