Persistence pays off. I didn't have another surgery, I opted not to. I kept up with my diet. I was strict with it, to the point of being hell bent & crazy. I continued with my Progessence plus oil, I started taking a more wide array of herbs and supplements to heal my gut and to support the reproductive system. I went in for a check up and the doctor confirmed my ovaries were normal size. THEY SHRUNK! I occasionally have painful period days. I'm at 1 painful day per period now, which is completely tolerable compared to the hell I went through before. I stuck with it through hell and high water, even when I felt like nothing was working. After a long road, I am now in a place every doctor I saw swore I wouldn't/couldn't ever get to. I am now feeling like myself again and I am so eternally grateful for the guidance and support I got along the way. I am also so grateful for the knowledge I received from so many wise people. If it wasn't for my stubborn attitude I fear I would've gone down the rabbit hole of ineffective and shit treatments and I would be in the same place I was before. It's not typical to question our western doctors, I urge women with Endo to do just that. Sometimes we have to grab the bull by the horns and take control of our fate. I didn't accept infertility as an answer and I wouldn't allow anyone to tell me what my future held. It's going to be a lifelong change but I'm so glad to be where I am now.
0 Comments
It's been over a year now since I began my herbal supplement regimen to try to support my body in the fight to cure myself of endometriosis. I recently dumped my first surgeon. I found a new surgeon who uses more advanced practices and is supportive of my decisions to go the natural route in treatment and who also isn't pushing lupron on me (although he still prescribes it...).
I had my first ultrasound since before my last surgery. I will be having surgery on October 5th to try to remove the endometriosis which has once again enlarged my ovaries. I was pretty surprised seeing the ultrasound and hearing the technician say "that's a really big ovary" after I had been so fucking diligent in using oils and supplements. It's a bit of a let down, I really believed I was going to overcome this without western medicine. I was mostly wrong. Can your body rid itself of endometriosis? I don't know. I want to believe that we are powerful beings and our bodies can fight itself out of disease. Part of the reason I think I've had such a massive regrowth so quickly is my first surgeons inability to clean out the endometriosis completely. My body must not have been able to clean it up on its own as he thought it would, so it was quick to spread again. I would like to think that the skill of this doctor will allow me a few more years to ponder having a child. At the very least though, I hope to be in a little less pain.
These are my morning supplements. I take approximately 60 supplements throughout each day
What causes endometriosis to get worse? What are the things that help to reduce endometriosis?
I have no fucking clue. I run through these questions all of the time. I wonder what I am doing that is making this worse, what can I do to make it not so bad? So, I've tried supplements, the endo diet, removing all bleached tampons and pads from my life, I have been reducing the chemicals in my beauty regiment (shampoos, conditioners, soaps, face washes, make ups). I've tried acupuncture too, which was quite nice and now I'm starting with essential oils. The supplements changed my moods drastically, from being so incredibly moody (to the point that I couldn't even stand me) to being a much more tolerable human being. I believe my mood got to such an awful place from having my ovaries spliced open and all of the damage that had been done to them to cause my hormones to be completely out of control (my naturopath agrees). The supplements also have seriously improved my digestion. I could sometimes go for weeks without going #2. Now i'm basically an everyday kinda gal. Since being on the supplements my periods have gone from being 30 days long to about 4-7 days. But here I am, waking up to pain in my ovaries once again. Not being able to hold my pee very long and feeling pretty "full". So what gives? I dumped my specialist after he was persistently pushing me to take the lupron injection and for also being semi creepy and really negative about the outlook for my reproductive parts. He was ready and willing to take out my uterus and ovaries. Now i'm searching for someone new, who may be able to offer me different treatment options. I suppose this is the frustration of having endometriosis. It's a process of figuring out what works. I have been thinking a lot about the word disease and know it to be "dis ease". Part of my next treatment plan is going to involve therapy. Perhaps there's something buried deep within my subconscious mind that is causing my endometriosis to be so persistent. I urge you to read these articles about dioxins and also to watch this news investigation into the use of lupron. The things I know for a fact through all of the other uncertainties related to endo is that lupron is not a treatment option, and dioxins just ain't no good. http://www.endometriosisassn.org/pdfs/Endo-and-Dioxins.pdf Endometriosis affects over 175 million women worldwide, approximately 1 in 10 women have been diagnosed with endometriosis. That is a HUGE problem. Life changes swiftly sometimes. I made it from Michigan, out of my cold and dreary state. My mind was as gloomy as the weather and life had become just as cold and stagnant. My day to day routine consisting of talking myself out of bed and taking so many herbal supplements I began thinking I would turn into a circular Symplex f pill if I didn't do something new. Brad had left a few weeks before, eventually winding up on a sailmakers sailboat in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I was making moves to follow but things were dragging along. Things came up one after another. My moms house caught fire and things didn't seem to be moving in the direction of new surroundings. I sold some of my things and found a cheap ticket. Now I am here in the Virgin Islands with Brad. We work daily with Manfred, a nearly 80 year old sailmaker who has lived in the Islands since 1963. We sleep on a sailboat he owns and Brad is learning to weld. Hassel Island is like a mixture of India and Costa rica. A cast of hermit crabs roam the sidewalks by day, accompanied by an ostentation of peacocks and the occasional wild chicken. By night the rats, roaches and spiders scurry around. We've been helping Manfred with all sorts of projects, from sail repairs to sail bag creation, painting buildings, repairing canvas ceilings and the notorious awning "fuck-up". So far I've made it through a strange episode of bum-wee, a swollen eye due to a mysterious bite and staph. Brad has maintained good health and has avoided spider bites, built like a tank that one. It's hard to say what is going on with my Endometriosis without being examined by a doctor, although my menstruation has become a bit more even keel I have begun to feel full as I did before being diagnosed. I have been militant with my herbal supplement regimen and things have been about the same. I figure if I'm gonna have health shit, I would rather endure in the sunshine. I went to sleep in 2014 and woke up in 2015. The past year has been such a roller coaster ride. It began with an emergency flight to Florida when my Nonno (grandfather) fell and broke his neck. I spent months in Florida facing the raw emotion my family and I were experiencing and eventually the loss of one of my favorite people. After that point it was a whirlwind; traveling from country to country, meeting people from all over the world, extravagant hotels and parties, establishing a relationship, my health taking a serious decline, managing the farmers market and adopting twin kittens. To finish off 2014 I took a lot of time for myself. I took a break from my social life to evaluate my physical health and have put all of my time and energy into healing. I've been learning to take better care of myself emotionally as well. These days I have started acupuncture, I've been keeping up on my herbal regimen, I even started eating meat again (Ahhhh) and things have slowly but surely been moving in the right direction. I can feel a huge improvement from the place I started from. I could go through explaining all that happened in 2014 in depth but video is a lot more entertaining. |
WARNING:
Usage of tasteful profanity which you might not consider tasteful. Some stories are vulgar. Colorful language and descriptions included. Reading these stories may cause you to become offended, appalled and uneasy. You have been warned. Read with caution. Categories
All
Archives
September 2017
|