Hello!
Welcome to the Bad Periods Treatment Guide.
Disclaimer: I am not a medical provider, just a woman who had Bad Periods for 31 years before getting diagnosed. Do not stop any medical treatment you are currently on. If you are having a medical emergency go to the ER or call 911. See full legal disclaimer below.
Use this guide and this site as a guide to tracking your symptoms. This guide will be updated frequently as new information and feedback comes in. Please feel free to email me with any suggestions.
Tracking your symptoms for your doctor is crucial because doctors respond to DATA. Coming to them and being able to say, I have this level of pain this many days a month, and where the pain is, being able to give them information about physical symptoms is crucial to getting treated. Use a tracking app like AskTia to track your symptoms DAILY, or just write them down on a paper calendar, no matter how insignificant or seemingly unrelated they are. This is your key to getting diagnosis and treatment that works for you.
Download the full treatment guide, click here>> Bad Periods Treatment Guide – 6-22-17
A clinical breakdown of why excision surgery is best for endo, click here>> Ablation versus excision
List of Excision Surgeons, click here>> Excision Specialists 6-22-17
List of questions to ask an excision surgeon, click here >>Excision Surgeon Questions 6-22-17
List of questions to ask a fibroid surgeon, click here>> Fibroid Specialist Questions 6-22-17
Here’s the pain mapping diagram. Print it out and draw on it to show where you have pain to your doctor. Take a picture of it for yourself as well.
This is the McGill Pain Questionnaire. Clinically recognized in most settings. Print it out and fill it out before your doctor visit.
Pain vocabulary. Sometimes when you have been feeling pain for so long it’s difficult to put words to it. It all seems like PAIN. Here is a vocabulary list to help you characterize the pain.
Other symptoms to track:
Fatigue – rate it on scale of one to ten with ten being asleep
Blood sugar issues – fainting, hypoglycemia, ravenous appetite
Food cravings – craving ice can be a sign of anemia!, other specific food cravings
Bloating – how much bloating? can you measure it in pounds by getting on the scale or inches by measuring around your waist and pelvis? Track which days you are bloated and how much
Bleeding – Read this to determine your bleeding levels and below:
- Distinguish between regular and maxi tampons or pads, as maxi can usually absorb twice more than regular (each maxi tampon or pad should be counted as two regulars).
- Check how soaked your tampon or pad is. Is it fully soaked with blood, or just half? (For half soaked, divide the number of half soaked pads by two.)
- Count blood clots; they contain blood too.
- For a menstrual cup, check the volume capacity and measure how full the cup is (e.g. if it is a 10 mL cup and it is ¾ full, the amount of the blood your menstrual cup contains is 7.5mL).
- If the number of soaked tampons or pads is sixteen or more for the entire duration of your period (or eight fully soaked maxi tampons or pads), then your flow is heavy.
- If you note 80mL or more blood with your menstrual cup for one entire cycle, your flow is heavy.
Here are some more guidelines to determine if what you are experiencing is heavy:
- Your menstrual period lasts longer than seven days.
- Your flow soaks through tampons or pads every hour for a few hours in a row.
- You need to change pads or tampons during the night.
- You have multiple grape-sized (or larger) blood clots.
- Your heavy menstrual flow keeps you from doing things you would normally do.
- You are tired, have a lack of energy or are short of breath.
- You feel heavy pain in your abdomen and lower back.
Depression – It is hard not to be depressed when you have conditions doctors don’t recognize and you have been suffering for years and have to battle daily and monthly hormonal fluctuations. Here’s a good test to check out if you are depressed from a clinical perspective. Try to track when you feel the lowest as you track symptoms, times of day, etc
Anxiety – Pretty much anyone with chronic fibroid and endo pain has anxiety, because chronic pain changes your physiology and your brain over time. Try to track when your anxiety spikes, what helps it if anything, etc.
Mood swings – Track feelings during day, see how they correspond to internal states, to pain, fatigue, etc
Pain with pooping – Rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10
Pain with peeing – Rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10
Pain when bladder is full – Rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10
Pain after sex – Where is it painful? Rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10
Pain during sex – Where is it painful and at what point? Rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10
Pain during ob/gyn exam – Every exam? Pain on outer folds of labia or internally during pap smear and exam? Rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10
Constipation – Describe how bad, when it happens
Pelvis feeling “full” – this can feel like someone injected a bunch of water in your pelvis and like things are pressing up against organs in your pelvis. This is called “bulk symptoms” to a doctor
Distended pelvis, stomach, lower stomach – When and how much
Migraines – These are very common with hormonal imbalance. Track when you get them where they start, how long they last, etc.
Leg pain – Where, how much, when
Lower back pain – Where, how much, when
Any other symptoms – even if it seems unrelated
Legal disclaimer:
I am not a doctor. I do not claim to cure any cause, condition or disease. I do not claim to be a doctor or dietitian. This guide and the website bad-periods.com are the opinion of a layperson individual. I do not claim to have any formal medical background. I am not liable, either expressly or in an implied manner, nor claim any responsibility for any emotional or physical problems that may occur directly or indirectly from using this material or the material on www.bad-periods.com
All information is intended only to help you cooperate with your doctor, in partnership and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. In addition to regular check ups and medical supervision, from your doctor, before starting any new healthcare regime, you should consult with your personal physician.
All information here is generalized, presented for informational purposes only, not medical advice, and presented “as is” without warranty or guarantee of any kind. Readers are cautioned not to rely on this information as medical advice.
This information is not intended to “diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”
Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this Website.
If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor, go to the emergency department, or call 911 immediately.
The information presented herein is not presented with the intention of diagnosing or treating any disease or condition. This information is for educational purposes only. No responsibility is assumed by the myself or bad-periods.com for the use of this information and no guarantees of any kind are made for the performance or effectiveness of the recommendations provided.
This information has been based solely on the experience and research of one individual layperson.
My blog posts and comments do not constitute medical advice, or the establishment of a doctor-patient relationship.
You must not rely on the information on this website as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you have any specific questions about any medical matter you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you think you may be suffering from any serious medical condition you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this website.
Readers are advised to do their own research and make decisions in partnership with their health care provider.