Friday, July 4, 2008

Hormones, hormones, hormones

So, I go see the dr. and I tell him that it's time to do something else. I'm still not getting a period after the surgery and obviously I'm still not pregnant. So he starts me on 2 things. The first one is progesterone, that one is to "induce" a period. The second one is Clomid, that one is to make me ovulate. So I'm supposed to take Progesterone for 7 days, then 2-3 days later I get my period and I start Clomid for 5 days. I start Clomid at a dose of 50mg and I am to increase it by 50mg each month that I don't get pregnant until I reach 200mg. Oh, and I am supposed to do an ovulation predictor kit (OPK) during days 9-16 of my cycle to see when I ovulate. We are also supposed to have sex during that week since I'm supposed to be ovulating then. We call it sexfest week. Then, if I don't get a period by day 30, I'm to take a pregnancy test.

Well, the first month, all my OPK's were negative and on day 30 I still didn't have a period so I took a test and it was negative. I figured, that's ok, it's just the first time with drugs, I should let my body do a couple of cycles and then maybe it'll work.

Well, 4 months later, i'm still not pregnant and according to the OPK's, I'm still not ovulating. So I decide to go see a different Dr., one who is more specialized in infertility. I also work with this Dr. S and he is very good at what he does and is very nice. I talked to him at work about what I'm going through and he tells me to come and see him. Usually, it takes a long time to be able to see him because he is a very popular Dr, but I got an appointment 2 weeks later.

I went in to see Dr.S, told him my story again and he said that obviously, the problem lies with me. I don't ovulate. He looks over my records that he got from my previous Dr. (they are in the same group) and he says that he thinks I have polycystic ovarian syndrome. That's what I've been telling Drs since I was 18!!! He says that my labs are all fine but that I have a lot of the other symptoms. That extra tissue that was found in my uterus during the hysteroscopy is a huge sign of PCOS. The weight gain, facial hair (I wax and pluck a lot!) and negative OPK's are other signs of PCOS. He doesn't know why my previous Dr. didn't diagnose me with it. So he starts me on a whole new regime of meds. He wants my to take glucophage. It is a diabetic medication so that totally confuses me. I looked it up and if you have PCOS, your insulin levels are out of wack and that keeps your ovaries from releasing eggs thus you don't ovulate. I had no idea the 2 were related like that. I came home that day completely frustrated with my last doc, feeling like I wasted a whole year. Like I said before, I'm not getting any younger and I don't have any time to waste. I read up a lot on PCOS and I definitely have so many of the signs and symptoms that I just don't understand why the other docs wouldn't diagnose me with it. It also said in my readings that OPKs are pretty much useless when you have PCOS, so that was a lot of wasted money.

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