Bursting ovarian cyst
Oct. 22nd, 2012 01:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
vaginapaginaI spent about four hours tonight in Accident & Emergency at my local hospital and thought I might as well write up the experience :-)
I've got stage IV (severe) endometriosis, and have done for about 9 years at this point, though I've only been diagnosed for 3. When I'm suitably medicated, my background pain levels are typically a 1-2, with spikes up to 6-7: in functional terms, this means that if I'm walking, I often need to stop abruptly and sometimes need to sit down, or that I need to stop mid-sentence, and so on.
For the past few weeks I'd had a grumbly ache in my back, on my left side only - regularly hitting a 3-4, in spite of my standard daily load of painkillers. As my left ovary was adherent to my abdominal wall when I was opened up in 2010 (diagnostic laparoscopy), I'd been gently assuming that that was more-or-less what had happened again, especially as the ache was "endo flavoured" (I've got very good at telling endo-related abdominal pain from totally unrelated pain!).
And then tonight it pretty abruptly shot up to an 8-9: functionally, it got to the point where I decided that sitting at my computer was no longer an option, and making it the metre to my bed was not an option, so I slid ungracefully off my chair and went sideways on my floor. Tramadol wasn't really taking the edge off, and I'd become really light-headed (for reasons totally unrelated to the opiates): I was struggling to speak in sentences, moving or twisting my torso at all was a Really Bad Idea, and so on. That level of pain isn't actually wildly unusual for me - but what concerned me was that it was extremely localised and really very prolonged - normally my spikes to 8-9 last less than a minute, but this was still running steady at the half-an-hour point.
I talked to some friends, and to NHS direct, and was strongly encouraged to go see a doctor in person, and to call an ambulance if I didn't have any other way of getting places.
I'm really lucky: I don't live far from my local (amazing) hospital, and a couple of friends were able to take me down there.
Over the course of the next few hours, the pain... didn't exactly worsen, but did intensify, until I wasn't talking at all and I couldn't sit up even in my (supportive!) wheelchair.
... and then, about four hours in, it just... stopped. The light-headedness vanished, though I'd just taken 60mg of codeine on top of the 100mg of tramadol earlier in the evening. It didn't hurt to sit up, and in fact I wanted to. From having a massively dilated perception of time (I thought three hours had passed when only one had, at one point), I started getting bored during pretty short waits for the doctor to come back. My pain levels dropped back down to my normal 1-2, and the soreness in my back mostly vanished. I could move and twist, and I could think and talk fluently again, even about things other than the pain. And all the evidence that anything had ever happened was some really light spotting.
The reason we'd all agreed I should head to A&E was that we were concerned I might be experiencing ovarian torsion - cutting off the blood supply to the ovary, which can kill it off (not a great plan!). The main symptoms include sudden-onset severe one-sided abdominal pain (check), vomiting (which I have done once, ever, due to pain - I tend to pass out before vomiting!) and fever - and several of my standard painkillers (mefenamic acid, paracetamol) lower temperatures, and I tend to run pretty cold anyway.
I think the key thing I'll recognise this by next time it happens is that month(s)-long grumbling pain - in hindsight, I suspect that was the cyst growing, and tonight was it bursting.
Apologies for the slightly dry writing - it's 1.30a.m., but I thought I'd better write it down while I remembered it :-)
I've got stage IV (severe) endometriosis, and have done for about 9 years at this point, though I've only been diagnosed for 3. When I'm suitably medicated, my background pain levels are typically a 1-2, with spikes up to 6-7: in functional terms, this means that if I'm walking, I often need to stop abruptly and sometimes need to sit down, or that I need to stop mid-sentence, and so on.
For the past few weeks I'd had a grumbly ache in my back, on my left side only - regularly hitting a 3-4, in spite of my standard daily load of painkillers. As my left ovary was adherent to my abdominal wall when I was opened up in 2010 (diagnostic laparoscopy), I'd been gently assuming that that was more-or-less what had happened again, especially as the ache was "endo flavoured" (I've got very good at telling endo-related abdominal pain from totally unrelated pain!).
And then tonight it pretty abruptly shot up to an 8-9: functionally, it got to the point where I decided that sitting at my computer was no longer an option, and making it the metre to my bed was not an option, so I slid ungracefully off my chair and went sideways on my floor. Tramadol wasn't really taking the edge off, and I'd become really light-headed (for reasons totally unrelated to the opiates): I was struggling to speak in sentences, moving or twisting my torso at all was a Really Bad Idea, and so on. That level of pain isn't actually wildly unusual for me - but what concerned me was that it was extremely localised and really very prolonged - normally my spikes to 8-9 last less than a minute, but this was still running steady at the half-an-hour point.
I talked to some friends, and to NHS direct, and was strongly encouraged to go see a doctor in person, and to call an ambulance if I didn't have any other way of getting places.
I'm really lucky: I don't live far from my local (amazing) hospital, and a couple of friends were able to take me down there.
Over the course of the next few hours, the pain... didn't exactly worsen, but did intensify, until I wasn't talking at all and I couldn't sit up even in my (supportive!) wheelchair.
... and then, about four hours in, it just... stopped. The light-headedness vanished, though I'd just taken 60mg of codeine on top of the 100mg of tramadol earlier in the evening. It didn't hurt to sit up, and in fact I wanted to. From having a massively dilated perception of time (I thought three hours had passed when only one had, at one point), I started getting bored during pretty short waits for the doctor to come back. My pain levels dropped back down to my normal 1-2, and the soreness in my back mostly vanished. I could move and twist, and I could think and talk fluently again, even about things other than the pain. And all the evidence that anything had ever happened was some really light spotting.
The reason we'd all agreed I should head to A&E was that we were concerned I might be experiencing ovarian torsion - cutting off the blood supply to the ovary, which can kill it off (not a great plan!). The main symptoms include sudden-onset severe one-sided abdominal pain (check), vomiting (which I have done once, ever, due to pain - I tend to pass out before vomiting!) and fever - and several of my standard painkillers (mefenamic acid, paracetamol) lower temperatures, and I tend to run pretty cold anyway.
I think the key thing I'll recognise this by next time it happens is that month(s)-long grumbling pain - in hindsight, I suspect that was the cyst growing, and tonight was it bursting.
Apologies for the slightly dry writing - it's 1.30a.m., but I thought I'd better write it down while I remembered it :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-10-24 07:06 am (UTC)The key for me with going in to the ER was when Vicodin -- which I wasn't taking regularly at that point -- did nothing, even when I took a double dose. I had no tolerance for it then and it was basically my "ohshit, this is serious" call, since the pain was localized and in the area that appendicitis was a concern.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-24 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-01 12:25 am (UTC)I'm just thankful my ovary didn't burst along with my cyst. That happened to my mother, and it was horrible.