As Karsh would say: "Le sigh." The following post is filled with doctor's appointment stuff. All you testosterone flingers: read at your own risk.
To be perfectly honest, I would never had made an appointment to go see the gynecologist in the first place if it hadn't had been for my friend Olu. She had gotten some abnormal pap results recently and I thought to myself "You have no reason not to go. You have insurance now."
I went to lunch with Brian and Stuart at work and left straight from there to go to the doctor's office which is on the other side of Durham, near Southpoint Mall and closer to my house. I figured, "Let's make an afternoon of it--go get a few cells swabbed and then go to the mall for a new pair of black shoes."
I'll comment far enough ahead to state that after leaving the gyno, I wasn't in a shoe shopping mood.
I drove around Fayetteville Road in circles for a little while until I found the building the suite was in and then went in to fill out the usual clipboard full of forms and make a special effort to pee.
The receptionist kindly told me that my insurance copay is ridiculously high, which other people have told my coworkers in the past couple of weeks as well, and then told me that since my gyno is technically a specialist Blue Cross may try to charge me an additional $35 later on. Great.
The first part of the appointment involved a consultation in the doctor's office where she made notes about my sexual history and such things. When I got around to telling her about the unbearable discomfort I get during my period, she seemed surprised that no one had ever looked into it more than to tell me that I could take more ibruprofen if I needed to. She was concerned that the birth control pills I had been taken way back when hadn't helped at all, and had in fact increased my crampiness.
Secondly, looked sort of in disbelief at the fact that Scott and I have been doing the nookie dance without any sort of birth control for three years and I haven't gotten pregnant. Apparently, that's odd for people our age.
Moving along...during the pelvic exam she noticed something funny. Something requiring her to make a slide and look at it under the microscope. Bacterial vaginosis. A condition requiring a prescription that I can't drink alcohol with. Quite obviously, I won't be starting that prescription until tomorrow, heh.
I may have to go back for a second pap because of the vaginosis. As far as the endometriosis thing is concerned, we discussed a couple of options to try to rule it out before I do anything as invasive as a laparoscopy. Option one was to try a low dose birth control. I really really didn't want to persue the birth control option again because the Ortho TriCyclen I tried way back when made me sick as a dog and put ten pounds on me. The second option was a progesterone cream which I would start rubbing on at around day 15 in my cycle.
I went ahead and sucked it up and got the birth control prescription. I really didn't want to do it without having a discussion with Scott about it, but hey, when it comes down to it, it's me barfing my guts out every 28 days. She prescribed Microgestin FE, which is something I've never heard of before and Metronidazole for the vaginosis. The metronidazole tablets look like horse pills.
I went to CVS to fill my prescriptions (they spelled my name wrong, by the way.). While I was there, I toodled around a bit and got some toiletries and blah blah blah. On a positive note, I finally found a good lipstick color! Yay! Yay! Now, as I was saying....for whatever reason Blue Cross ended up eating shit and being charged for the cost of those two prescriptions. Good. They deserve it. I'll have to look up my plan and see just why they got charged...it'll probably come back to me later. In bill form.
The doc also recommended vitamins. They always recommend vitamins. I got a "womens' health" supplement and magnesium. I can't remember why she told me to get magnesium. But I did. So there.
I'm trying to remain rational until I really know what's going on. I've entertained the idea that I may have waited too long to get this checked out by someone qualified, but I'm not going to blame myself. I'm trying to find a grain of salt big enough to take with this.