I have had constant issues from abdominal pain, mood swings, and much more for about four to five years now. I'm still not sure what's wrong with me, and I may never know.
About four years ago, I went to my first gynecologist since I had terrible period pain and some other abdominal pain throughout the month. She put me on birth control and sent me on my way.
Within the next year, I spent time and time again in the emergency room for abdominal pain from supposed ovarian cysts. They told me to continue taking my birth control, and send me on my way.
I was in severe pain to the point where I could not walk, so I went to the emergency room once more. After an ultrasound, I was told I had no cysts and was simply having some bad period pain. As usual, they told me to just keep on taking my birth control and maybe try a Midol every now and then.
I switched gynecologists, and she was supposedly the best in my area. I meet with her for the first time, and she ordered me to get a blood test to confirm her suspicions about polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) being the source of the problem. My results come back and my hormone levels are all out of wack. She diagnoses me with PCOS, revamps my birth control, gives me metformin to regulate the other hormones, and sends me on my way.
The metformin is an absolute travesty on my body, causing chest pains. I decide to stop them immediately and tell my doctor. She then prescribes Wellbutrin, which is an antidepressant, to maybe help regulate the hormones instead. Wellbutrin stops my period entirely. I tell her once again, and she says that is really the only options she has available for PCOS. She tells me to stay on birth control and sends me on my way.
Once I come to college, I decide to see a different gynecologist to see their perspective on my symptoms. After meeting with him twice, he failed to even discuss my medical history or symptoms, but instead wanted to know more about my hometown and give me information about classes and professors I should take. I was given new birth control and sent on my way.
Last month, I met with a new doctor who heard me out on my issues and suggested that maybe my problems went beyond birth control. She has challenged the diagnosis of PCOS, saying the other doctor seemed to ignore the fact that I had little other symptoms besides the hormonal irregularities. We are now testing and meeting to discuss what may actually be wrong and how we can treat it.
It has taken me five years to get to this point. Five years to get back to square one.
I still have a long journey ahead of me to figure out what's wrong. I may never know what is wrong with me simply because it hasn't even been discovered yet.
Women's health is a fairly young branch of medical research. The CDC tracks their contribution to women's health to the 1960s. According to the Department of Human Health Sciences, their Office of Women's Health has only been open since 1991, with funding on a steady decline since 2017. The FDA's Office of Women's Health has only been open since 1994. That means, at most, women's health has only been a factor in medical research for 59 years, and that was on a smaller scale. Wide-scale research and women's health-specific programs didn't become prioritized until the 1990s, only 30 years ago.
While that may seem like a long time, it is within one lifetime. That means thousands upon thousands of women faced issues before these last 60 years that were overlooked as just period pain.
A major shift towards women's health in the 1990s is a big accomplishment, but 30 years isn't long enough to make the major innovations and discovers to treat the majority of women who are dealing with issues. That is why they diagnosed me with PCOS without actually considering all of my symptoms because that is one of the limited medical discoveries they have made so far.
That is why they simply give me birth control because they haven't discovered any other treatment options yet.
Myself, along with hundreds of thousands of other women, may not ever know what is wrong with them, and that needs to change.
