Wednesday 10 September 2014

Chronic Pain And Not Knowing Why

Today was a pretty miserable day for me in some ways. While things went okay at my job, today was again one of those days when my body decides to rebel against me. I could feel it over a week ago already with some feelings of discomfort, but only this week did it evolve into an all too familiar, constant pain and sensitivity in my hips and knees, followed by an uncomfortable, sometimes painful sensation in my lower abdomen. Today the usual other symptoms returned as well.

These symptoms make it very unpleasant to be sitting, as it'll itch and burn. I'm also very grumpy and unable to deal emotionally with matters as well as I usually can. Today this made for a fun time where sitting at my desk was uncomfortable (and still is as I'm writing this), with the burning sensation and the searing pain in my hips. While walking around my hips hurt, my lower back and abdomen as well, not to mention a constant feeling of numbness in my right leg as stabbing pains in my lower abdomen that would bring tears to my eyes. Finally occasionally a sensation of a sudden pulse of electricity coursing down the inside of my legs.

This is what I'm dealing with every single month, always around the beginning/end of the month, and the symptoms over time are become more pronounced and severe. Three years ago it'd be just stabbing pains occasionally, the other symptoms came later. I also don't know what causes it.

Due to the lack of medical help over the past decade and the many conflicting medical conclusions one can roughly sort the options as follows: a) it's a period like a regular woman would have, b) it's something similar, c) it's never lupus.

That it's a monthly thing is curious, but roughly half of the physicians who have claimed to know something about me have said that I do not have female organs, so without a womb, ovaries, uterus and vagina, how could I possibly have a period?

In the process of excluding options one starts off with a list of possibilities, discarding them as symptoms fail to match up. I'm however not aware of anything else like this which would only occur on a monthly basis. It also seems to occur regardless of my emotional state at that point, though it seems to have some effect on the severity.

My gynaecologist recommended that I should stop taking the progesterone pills I was taking - because it helped with the severity of the symptoms - a number of months ago, and it really has only become worse since then. At this point I feel frustrated having this issue and not knowing what it could be or could mean to me in the future.

If it's just a period then I probably have ovarian and maybe other tissue types responsible for these symptoms. It should be examined and ensured that it's not anything which could become life-threatening or otherwise requiring medical intervention. Among hermaphrodites cancer tends to occur relatively more often, especially of the reproductive organs due to the often unusual physiology.

Otherwise, if we assume that it's not a period, then one just has to draw a complete blank. Both on what it is and what it could mean. It could be benign other than the agonizing pain every month, or mean my death within a year's time. It's impossible to draw any conclusions, or figure out how to examine it without having at least some clue what to examine exactly.

Today I have begun taking progesterone again in the hopes that it'll at least lessen the pain somewhat. By next month I should know whether it has any effect. As for seeing a physician about it, tried it, didn't work, being a quite unique case sucks. Taking strong painkillers every month for a week or so is the less frustrating alternative, and possibly slightly healthier.


Maya

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