Specialist blues

I am apologising in advance for any snarky or sarcastic comments I make in my post. I am a little upset and scared about the outcomes of our appointment and it turns out that sarcasm is my go to dealing mechanism 🙂

Friday we went back to the fertility specialist, it was not fun and parts of it I got annoyed with. He wasn’t impressed that I stopped taking Eutroxsig instead of doing his suggestion of seeing a hair loss specialist. I explained that within 2 days of ceasing the medication my hair had stopped falling out and I had stopped sweating rivers and that by trying it this way I had saved myself over $350 that would have been spent needlessly because the hair loss was not because I am fat (which is basically he told me before). He still wasn’t impressed and told me he would give me a different medication to see how that goes, but that I really, really need to be on thyroid medication and that not taking could affect my fertility (apparently freaking everything I do or do not do affects it – who knew my reproductive system could be so finnicky).

He asked me how much weight I had lost and I said, “another 5kgs so 10kgs in total”. He said he wouldn’t count from before he started seeing me so I still needed to lose another 6-10kgs before IVF would be approved for me. WTF? That kinda made me feel like how hard I had worked to lose those 10kgs didn’t matter at all! He just wove them off like they were never there. Rude skinny man, he obviously has no idea the torture of trying to be healthy and lose weight when you have PCOS, Insulin Resistance and thyroid problems, how insensitive and douchy! Before we got married (pre-diagnosis) I went to the gym at least 3 days a week for cardio and weights, Zumba 2 days a week, pilates 1-2 days a week, I ate EXTREMELY well and as the due date got closer I actually ended up going to a shake diet because I just was not losing any more weight… in the end I could only just dip below the 100kgs mark… with all of that work I still couldn’t get smaller than that. That is seriously de-motivating. Meanwhile in the couple of months since we had seen him Hubby had ONE piece of homework… to go and get a blood test done and he never did it. The damn Doctor didn’t even mention it. I brought up whether there was more we could do to help his sperm and Doc says, “oh he has 3% normal, so that should be okay”.

Then comes the fun part, he wants me to have laparoscopic ovarian drilling, he seems to think that I have endometriosis even though we have found no trace of it on scans and I don’t have symptoms. He seems to believe that it could be significant basically because he has no other excuse for why we are not pregnant after over 3 years of trying. I asked about checking for tube blockages and he said they can do that at the same time because then I will be knocked out for it – which to be honest is kinda nice because I wasn’t looking forward to that test.

The problem isn’t ovulation because I am ovulating which is why I was confused at first because he just said, “we are going to move forward with ovarian drilling” and I was like, well hang in there buddy, why are we drilling for oil when it’s coming out of the ground of its own accord? But apparently he suspects endo and feels that even though I am ovulating perhaps the endo is creating a hostile environment for fertilisation or some crap. I have done a bit of reading on the process since and a bunch of the stuff (even the pamphlets he gave me) all say it is to start ovulation in women with PCOS who do not respond to medications. If I have endo and it gets rid of it I suppose I have to do it right?

The only time I have been admitted to hospital was to have my wisdom teeth removed and I had a panic attack just before being wheeled in. You guys I am totally freaking out. Hubby and Mum are all, it’s nothing, just keyhole surgery, we both had out appendix and gall bladders removed and we are fine. I get this and I know that there is a very low risk, but Jesus, they are going to be burning off parts of my freaking ovaries… thems the baby egg makers.

If any of you have been through this surgery I could really use some positive stories that have come from it.

I also have to still lose that weight so I am thinking I will have to get super strict and serious, I might have to develop my own challenge around this so I can make it work. I got the other medication last night too and started taking it this morning, early days, but I will let you know if I need to raise wig money 🙂

I could totally rock this look right? I loves me some purple!

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A fabulous bald woman who is all about earrings

* DISCLAIMER: I’m probably going to swear guys, fair warning 🙂 I am a sad panda today.

This morning after a return call from my specialist I was frustrated to the point of almost having a cry, but you can’t do that at work right? So I didn’t. I did that stupid tip your head back so the tears go back in move that you know doesn’t work, but you do it anyways. I am on so many drugs for PCOS & Insulin resistance as well as other crap. Currently I am supposed to be taking the following: Metformin, I-Folate, Vitamin D, Eutroxsig, fish oil. I think that is it, but who knows these days. Now this post is not about the amount of money I spend on medication, it is not about timing my day around said medication… in the paraphrased words of Elle Woods, this is about something that is much more important… my hair!

The specialist prescribed me Eutroxsig in December, he never discussed any possible risks or side effects of the drug with me – which it seems is pretty par for the course these days. So I have been taking it since the end of December. Over the past month I have lost between 30 & 40% of my hair and it’s still falling guys. I used to do my bathroom floors once a week, but since my tiles now resemble shag pile carpet I am having to do it more often. It is bad guys. It was only that the Pharmacist discussed possible side effects of the drug with me that I twigged that it must be that. So I called my specialist and said I wanted to stop taking it, I was told that he felt it was a side effect of the condition and not the drug. I explained that I had had the same condition for many years and this had never happened before. I just got a call back this morning and was told that he still felt it wasn’t the drug, he has asked me to go and get my thyroid re-tested (YAY more money) to see if there is any change and then ask my GP for a referral to a hair loss specialist. A hair loss specialist? What the fuck?! Why do I need to go see yet another doctor for something that wasn’t a problem before I started taking what this guy told me to? Are they trying to send me to a hair loss clinic like Advance Hair or something? I don’t need Shane Warne’s buddies, I just need my hair back. So with this anger/frustration rolling around in my body I decided to put my Research Librarian skills to good use and look up the other possible side effects of the drug. Holy shit you guys, holy shit! There are 70 of them! Granted some are listed as really rare, but still, OMG! Then I realised that I have been having some of the side effects that are listed, I just didn’t pay attention or assumed they were linked to PCOS or IR. Here are some of the things that have been happening:

• Extreme fatigue – I had fatigue already due to PCOS/IR, but over the past two months there are days where I feel capable of nothing.
• Irritability – Only when I am awake. My patience has never been so low. I try very hard to not snap at people, very hard.
• Sweating – Ha, sweating. That’s putting it mildly; I have been creating rivers that no person ever wants to visit.
• Blurred or double vision – this isn’t too bad, but it does explain the random fits of blurriness I seem to get every now and then.
• Headaches – yup they are pretty regular.
• Crying – I feel like crying a lot. A real lot! And not just a delicate single tear rolling down my cheek, I am talking red faced ugly crying here people!
• Hair loss – I feel like I have lost more hair than some people have. Thank god I had uber thick hair to start with or else by now I would be one of those fabulous bald women who is all about her earrings.
• Feeling not well or unhappy (who writes this crap) – this is pretty regular. Over the past two months I am not able to deal with day to day things as easily and effortlessly as I used to. I thought it was my depression rearing its ugly head, which it could be – it certainly feels like the same thing. But it could be this too. I have also been rather paranoid lately, this can be a symptom of depression, but one of the other side effects is ‘Suspicion or distrust’. So who knows.
• Rapidly changing moods – Oh. My. God. YES. All the time! I change moods quicker than I change radio stations when Bieber comes on! It’s bad guys, way worse than normal PMS.

Here’s one that P’d me off good…

• Trouble getting pregnant – Uhhh excuse me? What did you say? My fertility specialist put me on medication whose side effects include ‘trouble getting pregnant’? What the fuck?!

Here’s a couple of the weirder side effects:

• False or unusual sense of well-being – Umm… how would you know if it was false? The only way to test that would be to put yourself in a dangerous situation and see how you felt about it. Jump in a tank of hungry sharks with a bleeding finger and feel as though it is the same as enjoying your morning coffee? Well then… you might have a problem.
• Feeling things are not real – Is this real life??

On top of all this we found out that the debilitating pain my Hubby is getting in his upper back is due to bone spurs growing inwards on his C6 & C7 vertebrae which are then affecting the nerve. Joy. So I don’t know whether the symptoms I have been having over the past couple of months are because of stress or the meds. I don’t know, but I do know I am over it. I have had enough. I just want to crawl into a little me cave for a while. I know I am not someone who usually feels sorry for herself, but right now I am facing a bald, childless existence and I am kinda pissed about it.

Absolutely pissed about it in fact. Side note: pretty sure this post demonstrates that I am not suffering from a ‘false or unusual sense of wellbeing’.