Ultrasound

I went to get the pelvic ultrasound today, and man was that a pain in the ass! I had to drink five cups of water half an hour before I got there, and I wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom. When I got to the doctor's office, I had to sit in the waiting room for another half hour, and by the time I got called in, I was practically exploding from the need to pee.

As the doctor started the procedure and pressed the thing (I don't know what it's called) to my stomach, it got even worse. She was pressing me right where it hurt the most, and it almost seemed like she was trying to squeeze the pee out of me. I actually had to stop her halfway through the process to run to the bathroom across the hall. She told me to try not to relieve myself completely so that there would still be some water inside me, which I think I managed. But it was so horrible. I hate having to hold my urine. Grrrr.

Anyway, I felt a little funny getting an ultrasound done, because the only other reason I'd ever heard of women getting them done is to check on the growth of their babies when they're pregnant. I stared at the screen as the doctor moved her thingy across my stomach and my sides, feeling as though I should be seeing a tiny person moving around in the image. My friends would automatically assume I was pregnant if I told them I'd gone to the doctor to get an ultrasound. I hope I can manage to get copies of the photos at some point in the future so that I can play pranks of people.

Just for my personal knowledge: I got my period on Wednesday, April 14, 2010.


Today I went to a lab in order to get my hormone levels tested through blood. I have my period right now, so I hope this doesn't affect my results. When I went to the endocrinologist a few weeks ago, the way she was asking me what day of my cycle I'd done my saliva test on, she made it sound like menstruation was relevant to hormone testing. But today, all the physicians I asked said it made no difference.

Tomorrow I'm getting a pelvis ultrasound to see if there's anything wrong with my insides, since I expressed concern about the fact that my results showed I hadn't ovulated. The endocrinologist said that that could have been perfectly normal depending where I was in my cycle at the time, but she also said it might be the symptom of a more serious problem. Just to make sure, I'm going to get it checked out.

Updates

I went to an endocrinologist this morning, and I'm feeling a lot more relieved. The doctor told me that I shouldn't think too much of the results from my hormone test, because according to her, saliva tests aren't considered all that trustworthy by the medical community. She called it "nonsense." And even if they were trustworthy, she says that the numbers in the results don't signal anything major. She says that depending on what was going on with my cycle during that time, me not ovulating could be perfectly normal, as well as my progesterone level being lower than my estrogen level.

Nevertheless, in order for me to feel more sure about my hormone levels, she gave me an order to take blood tests to check more hormones. The list on the slip she handed to me says that I'm going to test my estradiol, progesterone, FSH, LH, prolactin, TSH, T3____ (I can't read what it says), cortisol, testosterone, DHEAS, and two others that are written too sloppily for me to read. I guess I'll have to find a lab to perform them, set up an appointment, and then wait for my results.

I'm feeling better about all this though, and I'm back to hoping that my hormones are balanced after all.