Hey Listen Up Doc!

Hey Anonymous Queen!

The symptoms that cracked the case for me? Back pain and pee pain I didn’t know was… pee pain. 

I had some textbook endo symptoms, but not all. Doctors always asked, “does it hurt when you pee?” I would said no because I didn’t think it did.

Then one night, mid pillow-talk, I told my husband: “You know that little pinch after you pee - like when your bladder collapses back down? It has been hurting extra lately.” Staring at me like I just told him his goldfish died he said, “uh what pinch…?”

Cue existential crisis. Turns out the post-pee pinch wasn’t universal and even WORSE I had masked pain so much that I equated pain with everyday bodily functions. Love that journey for me!

But let’s be real - no one’s out here asking, “hey, walk me through what you feel when you pee.” How was I supposed to know what’s normal? My parents potty-trained me, health class covered UTIs and kidney infections and that was it. No one hands you a manual on how to pee like a normal person.

And then there was the back pain. It started as a dull ache in my upper left back. I figured I pulled a lat.

But then it flared up when I talked a lot at work (which, as a Director is… always). Singing made it worse. Stop you in your tracks pain after just a few songs.

The final straw? I was practicing songs for a wedding during a long drive and the pain got so bad I had to pull over, lay my seat flat and crank the seat warmer. Nothing helped. It was brutal.

My PCP thought gallbladder. Or maybe pleurisy. Referred me to GI. But that same week, during my GYN annual, I told her about it in addition to a scary period pain episode at work that nearly made me collapse.

She paused. “Has anyone talked to you about Endometriosis?”

We chatted about it and after reviewing my binder (yes I have a binder…) she scheduled me for a laparoscopy. Turns out the back pain was endo lesions on my diaphragm. The pee pain? Endo lesions fused to my ureter. Rare, btw. Bonus points, I guess?

The takeaway? Talk to each other. About pain. About periods. About what’s actually normal. I never thought to ask my mom what her periods felt like and when I finally did she said, “at most, it’s an inconvenience.” I responded, “well at most mine makes me almost faint.” If I would have known that earlier it might have helped me sooner.

And bring everything up with your doctors. Even if it feels random or unrelated. If I hadn’t casually mentioned my upper back pain to my GYN, just for funsies, she never would’ve connected the dots.

Your body is talking. Your gut is trying to help you. Let it. 

-@heylistenupdoc