After I posted my last blog, on day 1, I suffered excruciating pain that started from my uterus and pelvic area, radiating through my groin and thighs to both knees and lower back. The pain was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. When I was 21, I had a kidney stone removed, so I know what 10/10 pain feels like, but this pain was nothing like normal period cramps, though it was slightly less intense than kidney stones (I’d say 9/10, 1 being a paper cut and 10 being amputation/kidney stones). I couldn’t lie down; it was better when standing up or in child’s pose, or I had to curl up my body like baby though I’m not sure if that helped at all. I thought my last cycle‘s period pain was the worst, but that was only 3/10. I started to get scared—what if every period becomes like this, or worse?
I used to have little to no period cramps, just a little tummy ache followed by diarrhea on day 1, that was it. What sudden changes made me suffer like this? Staying home girlfriend’s life is already hard enough.
Not only that unexpected demonic period pain on steroid(it went away as time passed.), These changes bothered me even more because they never went away; they stayed throughout the cycle. 1) I had a unbelievably bloated lower belly no matter what I ate, and 2) my boobs got so much bigger. I used to have 2 cumquats, but now they are the size of grapefruits. Usually, it goes away when I start bleeding, but for the last few months, I’ve had humongous boobs, and I hated it. Speaking of the lower belly, it’s between the belly button and the pubic area, where I assume my large intestine and womb/ovaries are. I don’t drink water, and I’m chronically constipated, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.
[Fig.1] Documenting body temperature and vaginal mucus for pregnancy purposes: I most likely lay my egg on either day 8 or 10, which is nowhere close to Flo™’s expected date—day 14.
After realizing that my egg day is on day 8 or possibly even day 10, I felt sorry for my body. Poor me, I have to weather and storm the luteal phase(feeling shit and looking ugly phase) for at least 18 days, which is 4-6 days more than the average fertile woman. Why are my ovaries overly excited and impatient, as if they have a vendetta against me, making me suffer like this? Is this why my boobs are constantly gigantic, and my lower tummy looks like it’s already 3 months pregnant?
On day 13-14, origin unknown pelvic pain annoyed me again, and I couldn’t sleep but Google. Endometriosis is a disease where womb tissue grows outside of the womb. Why? No one knows. Think about what would happen inside the uterus: as my hormones shift, it thickens ready for the baby, then fails to conceive, breaks down and bleeds with each cycle, but it grows somewhere it doesn’t belong, so it stays inside my body somewhere random and often becomes a cyst or forms scar tissue, and gets inflamed for fun. If you like gore/horror, look up some photos; it’s free material. Sometimes it covers organs or sticks a few different organs together like super glue. Common symptoms include:
- Painful sex: Thinking back over the last few months, we couldn’t have sex after day 20-ish because I felt uncomfortable down there (like a swollen and fulfilled sensation), but we thought it was from excessive sex, the force of friction tearing up my vaginal canal, but it fits the symptoms of endometriosis.
- Fatigue: I literally did nothing, no more than vacuuming and cooking, but I was constantly exhausted and napped so much. L couldn’t believe how unfit I was. We went for a run a few times, and every time I said I had no energy, I felt like I could do better but I was not able to. I had no muscle aches; my legs and lungs were fine, but I couldn’t fathom how I had such low energy.
- Nausea and bloating: These tricked me badly because I thought I was pregnant, but I was not.
But after all those minor (but not really) symptoms, my biggest concern is the pain—period and pelvic pain. I don’t like it at all. Why all of a sudden, though? I wasn’t like this before. Maybe I was, but even if I had hidden cysts here and there before, they were not so upset until very recently. Why so angry now? I listened to several podcasts and, of course, researched on TikTok. Many endo survivors claim that they reversed (that’s how they call it; I think it’s because endo is not curable? Idk) endo by not consuming any animal products. In short, they say to go full vegan. Are you kidding me? I can’t do that.
