As I type this…I am in agony with tears rolling down my face. I am going on 3 solid months of livng with pain that will not subside and my life, my job, and my kids are suffering because of it. A year and a half ago I went to my OB to request a tubal ligation. Instead, I was handed pamplets on Essure. He told me that nobody really did tubals anymore now that there were less invasive procedures such as this. I told him I didn’t feel comfortable putting metal coils inside my body, but he told me if it were his daugther or wife, that this is what he would do for them. I took the literature home to think about it. I decided to trust him as I had been going to him for nearly 15 years and he had done my c-section and had removed a fibroid from my uterus a decade before. I trusted him.
The day of the surgery, I woke up from the procedure to be told that the surgery was not successful and that certain pieces would not stay in place, and on top of that, he was unable to remove all of the coils but assured me that they would not cause me any problems at all.
Needless to say, after recovery, I had to have the tubal ligation anyway.
Over the course of a year, I started getting such severe, stabbing pains in both sides, that would hit, last for about 45 seconds, and then go away. I chalked it up to having really bad ovulation pain, or maybe just pain from old scar tissue. But this past summer, I started presenting other symptoms. My belly swelled right up so that I looked 5 months pregnant. And it has stayed like that ever since. I am a 120 pound women. The very distending belly was blantantly obvious. Then the stabbing pains started coming more frequently, until this August, they stopped going away. The pain was unbearable, stabbing, and would not subside.
I made an appointment to go back to my OB. A sono was scheduled that didn’t really show him anything out of the ordinary. So he scheduled a CT and also referred me to my general practioner, just in case it was not gynecological. I then started getting lower back pain along with everything else that felt like I was in back labor. Again, unsubsiding and unbearable. At this point, I do a lot of crying and curled up in a ball in crazy pain. I am told to take Motrin for the pain…which doesn’t even touch it. My periods become very heavy, and I have horrible vertigo all the time. The whole world feels like it is swimming and I feel like I am going to vomit just walking a short distance.
I am referred to a urologist. Another sonogram. My kidneys are fine. No kidney stones.
BAck to my OB. I am told that the CT doesn’t show any problems with the fallopian tubes. His next plan is to due exploratory surgery by means of laparoscopy and hysteroscapy.
Last week, the one hour exploratory surgery turned into 4 hours, and the OB removing much of my fallopian tubes where the coils were and assured me when I woke up that he believes he got all of it.
It has been a week since the surgery, and the pain in my left side is still there, and my tears right now are because this still distended belly feels like it is going to explode. I am hormonal. I am emotional. I am angry. And I am sick of being in pain. I feel like I am going to have a nervous breakdown from not getting any relief. from pain that is taking over my life.
What was supposed to be a ‘non invasive’ procedure has turned out to be the worst decision I have ever made regarding my body.
Melissa