For awhile at work a couple of years ago, I worked with a guy who dubbed me 'Dina Spazz' after as spazzed out once during a work crisis. After that, he forever called me that and I never minded as it was so true. I tend to be very peevish about things and spazz out when I'm irritated or, well... peeved. The thing that spazzes me out the most about having PCOS or being obese is inadequate medical care.
It's a terrible, sad, and shameful thing if a woman has to beg for proper care, keep switching doctors, or tell her own doctor what tests to have done. There is also still an ever pervasive movement in medicine to ignore female issues - unless you're trying to conceive and then they'll pump you full of all kinds of hormones unless they think you're not worthy, 'cos your fat. Yes, I said it. I am fortunate that I don't have this problem with my doctor. He's made it clear he would help me if I needed it but not all obese women with PCOS are so lucky. Many get things like this...
"Of course you can't get with child, you're too unhealthy to be a parent."
"There is nothing I can do because you can't stop eating."
"It's survival of the fittest and you're unfit."
Then there are the women who either don't have periods for months or even years or have the opposite where they bleed for weeks at a time. There are doctors who think there is nothing wrong with this and no reason to treat it. There are medications to help and not having periods is a risk for uterine cancer. It's completely irresponsible for doctors to ignore these women.
Here's what some of them hear...
"I don't have time to waste on someone that won't help themselves."
"You're just depressed, let me give you some Wellbutrin, Celexa, Prozac, (insert drug of choice.)"
"Here's 3 packs of free birth control pills called Yasmin (that will fuck you up royally.)"
"Well, PCOS is rare so it never dawned on me that you would have that."
PCOS affects 1 in 10 women and there are all sorts of women who aren't getting diagnosed because doctors aren't being taught to look for/diagnose this. It's also very profitable to some groups if we all end up getting HBP, High Cholesterol, Kidney Failure, Clogged Arteries, and Diabetes when we don't deserve it.
Also - birth control pills are actually really bad for PCOS as PCOS along with Endometriosis and Fibroids are caused by Estrogen Dominance. Our bodies make an improper amount of estrogen or respond to phyto-estrogens in our environment or diet and convert it to bad testosterone. By taking birth control pills, you introduce more estrogen. Yet they still help a few women with PCOS and so doctors regularly push this as a first response.
They say that something like 75% of women with PCOS are gluten intolerant yet most doctors never mention that gluten intolerance is even real so a lot of women struggle for years with PCOS before realizing there is something that can help - not cure - but help.
I've had my share of bad doctors in the past. I lost my gall bladder in 2006 after eight years of mystery pain. I wasn't anywhere near the size I am now, but I received the same response from several doctors. I saw two endocrinologists, two gastroenterologists, one gynecologist, and two internal medicine doctors as this pain became more severe. It started out as a spasmodic pain on my right side that would arise whenever I drank diet coke or slept on my right side for longer than 9 minutes. I quickly learned to avoid diet coke and I had to sleep elevated on my back so that the pain would not come. When I described this pain to doctors, I told them about the triggers and the spasms, the excruciating pain, and that it felt like I was sleeping on a "ball" of pain. I was told it was just "muscle pain" because I needed to exercise and stretch my muscles or that if it was after I had drank a diet coke at a movie, it was because I had been drinking the diet coke while siting for two hours or more. So they treated me like I was lazy and made assumptions about my activity level and over these years, my activity level decreased as I became more sedentary because if the pain came, I couldn't move much or the pain would take my breath away, I was afraid to go anywhere for fear I'd be struck and have to try to drive home with these spasms occurring. I went to London during this time with my sister and maybe slept four hours a night because apparently, when sleeping on my back, I snore and since I could never sleep on my right side, I was fucked. (It was still my favorite trip though, as I was with my baby sister.)
Finally, my regular doctor sold his practice and not knowing where to go when I got a sinus infection, I decided to just try the new guy. Whilst it's very difficult to get care for endocrine dysfunction, it's very easy to get antibiotics. So I went to see him and he visited with me for a while and said, "Is that all that's wrong, you don't seem right." By this time, I was having this pain every night without fail and it would start bothering me right after work and last me deep into the night. So I told this new doctor. Told him about how other doctors said it was muscle pain and as I started to describe it, I burst into tears and I told him how many years it had been and how it affected my life and that I didn't know what I was going to do. He said "well, did anyone ever do an ultrasound?" I cried "No."
So I got sent for an ultrasound and found out I had a gallstone the size of a golf ball. It was very quickly removed and I got my life back. I still can't and won't drink diet coke and as a result, broke any pop habit I ever had. I allow myself a regular pop once a week and try like the plague to avoid being tempted. Although, as bad as HFCS makes me, I don't have to avoid too hard most weeks. Something I've learned in the past couple of years is that losing your gall bladder is connected with gluten intolerance. Imagine if doctors looked for this when you first present with isssues? Could I have saved my gall bladder? Could I have been diagnosed with PCOS years sooner?
I wish I could go back and track how much weight I gained over these years that I could barely move without triggering pain and it was a heavy price to pay in order to learn to be your own health advocate.
The moral of the story: Find a good doctor! First do your own research. Figure out every test you need and go to your doctor's visit armed with this information and ask for it. If he/she is still useless, find another. There are websites out there that recommend people. Find someone else in one of the PCOS Support Groups that lives in your area and go to THAT doctor. Get copies of all test results, blood work, etc. and look it all up on the internet so you know what's what and can track what is happening with yourself.
Lastly, if that doesn't work - then go postal. A little drama never hurts. Think of the suffragettes going on food strikes or chaining themselves to fences outside the White House. Cry your bloody heart out!!! Shame them for their prejudice or ignorance. Infact... why don't you just
FUCKING SPAZZZZZZZ!!!!!
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