Alrighty, time for overly personal thank-god-nobody-I-know-IRL-reads-these daylog time!
I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.
(Hahaha, how many people have left the page just then?)
I was diagnosed when I was sixteen or seventeen. I went to the doc's because I never had a period, and they told me, "well, you're pretty fuckin' fat. And that's tied to this. Also your hormones are jacked, too. Not she-man levels of jacked, but enough that you're not going to be spouting out any babies if this keeps up." The best way to deal with PCOS is for the plump ladies to lose weight. Something about PCOS causing weight gain (or making it really easy to gain weight) and at the same time being exacerbated by weight gain. They gave me a little bottle of pills (I think it was progesterone) and sent me on my way with the warning that if I missed three months of periods in a row, I ought to come back because if I don't get the red river flushed out at least once every three months, I run the risk of uterine cancer.
Since then, I've lost 25 pounds and have had irregular periods, but have never missed the three month mark. Until now.
Yesterday I bit the bullet and got a phone appointment with the doctor, hoping that they'd just be able to issue a prescription of the pills without me actually having to go in. Because I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really dislike hospitals, gynecologists especially. No such luck, I've got an appointment to go in next week. Apparently, since the last time I went to a hospital for this was when I was still a minor, the docs who dealt with me were all from pediatrics and this new doc hasn't gotten a chance to look over my file yet. They don't know anything about me and the first thing they said when I told them, "I missed my period for three months" was "are you pregnant?"
Ha ha ha ha ha- no.
But, and this is the good part, he mentioned that the most common thing to take care of this is to prescribe birth control. Not because, you know, babies, but because it'll straighten out my hormones.
And it'll get rid of my acne.
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD it will get rid of my acne.
Thanks to the grand anonymity of the interwebs and the fact that I can control what pictures of me do and do not make it to the net, here's something you're probably not aware of: I have really bad, near constant, acne. Every time I think my face is starting to clear, I suddenly break out into horrible, rashing, oozing, scarring, terrible, icky, hateful acne that goes all around the edges of my face, along my jaw line, on my forehead, and on my neck and chest. And it's been happening continually ever since I was twelve. And I hate my skin for it. I really really hate my face.
Even now I regularly stab my face and chest with sewing needles to get rid of the acne (which of course never helps but I do so anyways because I can't stop). In the past, I've tried to cut them off with knifes and scissors, I've tried to burn them off, I've trued cleansers and medications and bleach and salt. I've scraped and torn and done all kinds of unhealthy, damaging things to my face that by all rights should have left me nothing but a chunk of scar tissue with eyes. And now they're finally letting me know that, "yeah, that's totally related to your period thing and it is completely treatable."
Okay, yeah, it sounds really really stupid and shallow when I type it all out like that. It's just acne, right? It's just skin.
It's just my face.
But oh man, I really hope it works. Fuck the period thing, I'll take the heightened cancer risk if it means I can finally look at myself in a mirror without the urge to get a knife and gouge chunks of my face out.
Aaaand I hope you've enjoyed your dose of TMI! Stay tuned for the next episode while I talk about more smelly feminine things and what, exactly, women do in the ladies restroom!