no boys allowed in the room!!!!

does anyone in this piece experience super localized pain on both sides w/ ovulation?

Sometimes yeah.

Well at least Ive always assumed thats what it was from the timing.

ive just started getting that. i dont know why it waited til now. haw.

Yeah I (used to) get that every month starting around my mid/late-20s, on both sides but worse on one side. It's called "mittelschmerz" which is fun to say and not so fun to have.

Painkillers didn't have much effect and it was getting so bad I just wanted to spend 2 days a month curled up in a ball so I went on the pill to stop ovulation, which came with some exciting side-effects of its own. I've been off the pill for 2-3 months now and it hasn't been as bad as it used to be but I suspect it's building back up.

Yeah its a sharper more kick in the guts pain.

I get that too! Only since I've been off the pill though. It's a good reminder for me that I am about to board the rollercoaster, so it doesn't really bother me that much.

Huh, interesting. I think I might also get that? It's hard to tell between the cramps and the vagaries of my digestion at any given moment--I can have stomach pains at p much any time unless I've been super careful w diet.

I just didn't know what it was because it didn't make sense for it to hurt on both sides.

Ovaries are like abdominal drudge sirens.

I get those ovary pains, which seems odd because I don't ovulate (thanking u, pill).

Although I've been on the same pill for aaaaaaages, my PMS has been worse in the past several months. I've always had breakouts (controlled by spironolactone, thankfully), a hunger that isn't so much hunger as a compulsive need to be eating something all of the time, and one day where I prefer to be close to a bathroom (progesterone-induced diarrhea), lately I've had feelings of anxiety/depression/general grumpiness. These feeling suck worse than the other symptoms. Advice?

menstrual cycles are fucking shit, man. if i believed in god i might actually agree with fundies who think he hates women.

i'm interested to see if the AD i'm now on has any effect on the anxiety/depression/general grumpiness that precedes my period, since thinking about, it definitely got worse when everything else got worse months ago.

i get the compulsive hunger, too, quincie - and it really is compulsive.

I started getting premenstrual depression/anxiety a few years ago and it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. Part of me knew that it was hormonal and if I waited a couple of days, I'd be in the clear, but the fun part of depression/anxiety is that you can logically tell yourself whatever the hell you want and no matter how true it is, it won't mean shit.

yep

Ovaries are like abdominal drudge sirens.

Didn't want you to think I slept on this, I've had this image in my head all morning.

I used to know someone who had red and blue navigational stars tattooed under her hip bones, and now I can't stop seeing drudge sirens in the same place.

haha
your friend aimed a little low if she was aiming for ovary tattoos

I hear you, carl. I tell myself "OK don't freak out this is just hormonal thing and you will be fine in 2 days," but in truth I am thinking "holy shit I am losing it, will never feel OK again, wtf wtf wtf wtf is wrong with me HALP."

roxy i started getting that just in the last year!

!

I got tons of blood drawn today at the doc - they're trying to figure out which connective tissue disease I have. The nurse who took me back was like "this is a really cool test. You find out a lot about yourself from it."

my appt is tomorrow
really nervous but treating myself to a trip to the middle eastern place for lunch + record store to convince myself to not cancel
i will apparently submit to having my blood removed from my body in exchange for a spinach pie + falafel salad for dinner

no shame in that!

I am a big believer in Buying Yourself a Present when you have to undergo unpleasant things. I still owe myself for seven trips to the dentist in the past two months.

LOL now Im imagining drudgesirens lighting up and going WOOT WOOT in my belly and it is making me roffle much.

xp - i chose my dentist based on his proximity to my fave record store and book store

^^^smart lady!

and i did not give 1 (one) fuck that the right side of my mouth was swollen while paying for my records

I chose my dentist based on the same criteria! Sisterz.

the wonderful donut shop that made that corner the best shopping corner has since closed. it had chocolate chip donuts. ba "that girls only thread is brilliant" mcquern made a negative remark about the deliciousness of said donuts. THE NERVE!!

I used to have very obvious ovulation symptoms but now I am not ovulating thanks to good ol fuckin thyroid friend, so I can never really tell what's going on.

I am both looking forward to going off the pill (in about eight months) and am not looking forward to going off the pill. Will the PMS be better or worse? Will the period itself be more or less painful/messy (I has fibroids)? Will aspects of my libido which I miss (TMI) return? Am I perimenopausal or totally menopausal? Who knows?

I have pretty much zero regrets about being XX, except for the XX organs part. It might be different had I ever wanted to use said organs for procreative purposes, but that is not the case. So I'd be happy to donate my reproductive organs to science, except that the surgery creates its own goddamn problems.

So, not penis envy, but. . . not-having-these-parts envy.

why do people go on and off the pill (apart from babby-making)? i have never been on it.

I'd give anything to go back on the damn pill. It got rid of all my symptoms with no side fx. But im told as a smoker it is a Bad Idea.

Yes, I know I could quit smoking.

In my case, I've been on it for decades for birth-control and period-management purposes. Spouse (current) is totally fine with getting snipped, and would have done so earlier had I not been so hesitant about quitting the pill for period/PMS-management purposes.

Now that my period is kind of a pain in the ass/ovary/brain even WITH the pill, I figure it is time to investigate off-pill life. I was also recently deemed pre-hypertensive; going off the pill may fix that with no other action on my part. Also, I may or may not be past fertility--hard to know, really, so may not need the birth control aspect.

So, I dunno. Gonna get off and deal. Hopefully it will be totally easy sailing! That would be awesome.

i would go off it occasionally just to double check what my 'normal' flow is like etc, to see if it's more or less painful etc so that I have something to measure against if anything goes weird. but that's just me

i went on and off it because of varying levels of tolerance of side effects over time. it made me a weird emotionless zombie. sometimes the tradeoff was worth it, sometimes it wasnt

I went on it because of ovulation pain and the contraception was a bonus, stayed on it for years but changed brands a whole lot of times because of unpleasant side-effects, now I'm single and not needing the contraception so I thought I'd come off it to See What It Was Like

(i.e. not have the one remaining side-effect of migraines on the off week, also suspected it wasn't good for my mood problems - but my mood doesn't seem much better and apparently I still get hormonal migraines even now I'm not on it. but my periods are a whole lot lighter, which I wasn't really expecting)

Surprised so many other people have ovulation pain! When I told my doc I was sent for a scan to check for cysts/fibroids, so that might be something to be aware of. Didn't find any conclusive evidence, which is good but at the time I was just noticing I had most of the symptoms of PCOS so in a way it was like, well, cyst symptoms and no cysts, now what?

I have a lot to say abt this but gotta wait til after class. Basically roxy otm re zombie but it depends on how emotional your baseline is. Will explain later!

I went on the pill for birth control and off when I wasn't in an LTR that would lead to comdomless sex, then off again for good a few years ago bc I had been on for so long I wondered what life/me/my period would be like without it plus planning to try to have a baby.

Off bcp, my period was much heavier and my libido was much more present. My face broke out more. Maybe more PMS but it's hard to say what is coming off the pill and what is getting older, not to mention the years of fertility nonsense which is basically dump trucks full of hormones.

I'm not sure what my post-baby plan will be. I don't want to go back on the pill. I don't want more children. Sometimes I wish I could have a twofer c-section and hysterectomy bc I would love to be done with my period, too, but only in fantasy land where such a contingency wouldn't arise bc of a major issue (or make recovery more difficult).

i have a few min before i have to leave so why not

Will the PMS be better or worse? Will the period itself be more or less painful/messy (I has fibroids)? Will aspects of my libido which I miss (TMI) return?
**all answers IME**
worse (but the drudge sirens genuinely help as a warning and the crying doesn't really bother me much)
more (i don't have fibroids, but definitely + painful, + messy)
yes (feel like my old self again!)

In sum, the transition off was a nightmare, but there were other things going on at the time so I blame the confluence of events more than anything. Overall, glad I stopped (after many years on hormonal bc) because I feel like my old self again in a number of positive ways.

Thank you, LL! It is helpful to hear that yeah, some stuff may be worse, but that there can still be an overall benefit. Honestly if the fibroids make it too hard for me to be off BCP, then it is probably time to do something about them directly.

I was thinking the other day that were money no object, I would manage my PMS by checking into a nice hotel for two nights all by myself, drink wine, eat cheese and room service, watch bad TV, cry in the shower, have a massage. Maybe I will just try to re-create this environment at home as much as possible.

I have long argued that a woman directed modern Red Tent set up would not go amiss.

I've been on it for about a decade and thinking of taking a break from it, but yeah, kind of interested yet worried to see what'll happen. It's made most things way better.

I was a wreck on the pill. Gained a lot of weight, craved greasy food, sex drive disappeared, made me moody. And the side effects from stopping taking it were not pleasant. Massive hair loss, depression, horrific acne. I'd never go on it again.

it's funny how varied the side effects are. i had so much better control of my emotions and better skin! i feel kind of neutral about going back on it though. or i just don't want to go to the dr to get it.

Next month I shall be having an Rx-free Mexican BCP experience; will report back. Wonder if I can get Nuvaring OTC here? Maybe that would be a good transition from BCP to no hormonal contraceptives?

I did that and the transition was still tough, but as I mentioned there were other factors involved. Ultimately it wasn't that big of a deal, just kinda uncomf/ shitty for a while.

Gah I have a big yellow bruise on one boob from being walked into by Young People who were taking up the entire sidewalk walking 4 abreast (do you see) and there was nowhere else to go plus I was walking briskly towards a bus, and it hurts, and also kind of itches cz I guess it's a bit swollen and bra seams are digging into it. These appendages are so inconvenient amirite

I don't know why I'm telling the internet this, no. I felt like venting and who else could I tell this to? Sorry, thread.

No apologies needed on this thread! Yesterday I went snorkeling and the spouse mentioned afterward that "we should get you a BCD" (buoyancy control device) and I'm all "I'VE GOT YOUR BCDS RIGHT HERE BUDDY" *grabs boobs* *lols at self*