Displaying items by tag: women's health

When I tell you I am about to be vulnerable, I’m about to be vulnerable with a capital V. We’re talking Vagina vulnerable. And if you are wondering WHY on earth I would be talking about my vagina so publicly, I would tell you it is because I want to help as many others who have suffered the most horrible pain you can possibly imagine on a multitude of levels when it comes to the “down there” parts of our bodies, which affect the up-here parts of our mentality and the everywhere else parts of our soul. 

I’ve always told people I’m a delicate flower. Since I was 18 I’ve had so many random, “what is that on my body,” or “where did that rash come from,” or “what did I just eat that is giving me a pounding headache,” types of experiences. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, has ever come close to what I have been dealing with these last 6 months. 

I KNOW like I KNOW like I KNOW that this information is going to help at least one person out there who is suffering from something that doctors can’t seem to figure out or identify the cause, but have given a prescription to mask the symptoms. While it is all done in kindness to provide us some sort of relief, we are still sent on our merry way to continue to suffer, and be exposed to whatever it is that is causing us this unimaginable, and debilitating at times, sort of nightmare. 

So if it is you, the reader that I help, then all of this mortifying and embarrassing vagina talk will be worth it.

I can remember attending a workshop at Omega in Rhinebeck, NY, just weeks after my ex and I broke up last September, barely able to walk because it hurt so badly. Was it a yeast infection? Was it a bladder infection? God forbid was it an STD? I knew he sailed from our relationship straight to his next one, but did he cheat on me? This felt worse than anything I had ever experienced before. What the hell was wrong with me and why was this happening AGAIN?

The excruciating itch and extremely painful burn made me call my doctor on my way home from that retreat, because I was SURE it had to be a yeast infection. While I was relieved to get the prescription for Diflucan, I was disappointed when it didn’t help all that much. The symptoms had slightly faded but didn’t completely go away.

My life was becoming a daily cry-fest before leaving my room, or the house, or my car to go into anywhere. And then I would do what we all do when we are suffering, I pretended I was okay. I couldn’t let people know what was wrong because, well… it was about my vagina, and I was raised that it wasn’t proper to talk freely about that part of my body, but I’m SO FUCKING OVER the shame and the silent suffering. 

I had unfortunately been through this whole scenario the year before and been to doctor after doctor after doctor, only to be told, “You’re perfectly healthy Angela, we can’t find anything wrong, but try this prescription,” or, “there is this exploratory thing we can do with a camera where we would insert it into your – .” I would stop them with a hard fast “NO THANK YOU,” while waving my hands furiously back and forth. My previous experience has been that exploratory-anything hurts my sensitive-everything, and I didn’t want to deal with one more prolonged repercussion from something that was “exploratory.”

Any time doctors would offer me a prescription I would wince, telling them how sensitive my body was and how terrified I was to put something foreign and unnatural on or in it for fear of exacerbating my symptoms. Even though I had that little voice inside of my head saying “don’t do it don’t do it,” the same voice was also playing on repeat like a skipped broken record the “doctors know best” track.

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge believer in Western Medicine and understand it's place in this world, and in my own life.  There are many situations and circumstances, where prescriptions are helpful and even necessary.  However, I was finding that Western Medicine didn't always have the answers I was seeking, and that was frustrating. But as a result of not having answers, and continuing to be in pain, it became my mission to figure things out.