Reassure me
Hi there. My situation is kind of complicated but I was hoping to find people with a similar experience.
The tl;dr is I think I am having painful cramps (period?) on mirena while also suffering from painful gas/constipation from iron supplements or other medication changes.
Here is the long version. Story time.
I'm almost 49 years old with ADHD which means I don't go to the doctor as much as I should.
I decided to do something about it since my mother had uterine cancer (caught on time) younger than I am now and I would hate to leave my son and partner due to something that could have been caught.
I started with the obgyn. They immediately noticed my BP was high. That seemed normal to me because I was very nervous. I have some past trauma that makes pap smears extremely difficult for me mentally. Turns out it was way higher than even I would expect. I guess it has been for a while. She said I should get off my regular hormonal birth control. I also knew this meant I would need to get off stimulant medication. We planned to put me on an hrt patch for peri symptoms and a mirena device for birth control. We didn't do it that day due to my issues and she prescribed lorazapam for the next appointment date.
Coincidentally I got a message I needed to due a controlled substance meds check with my primary. She happened to have a cancelation so I went right away to talk about my BP and meds.
Bla bla bla in the end she prescribed me strattera, BP meds, and told me to take iron supplements.
I had already had some stomach issues so I'm still trying different iron supplements to find the most gentle. The good news is without stimulant meds and with the iron supplements the gabapentin is much more effective at stopping my rls.
Anyway, got mirena the next week. The first ten days felt pretty awful. Then things were normal. Still having stomach issues and they became slightly worse with the iron. I switched to another iron supplement, stomach issues lessened but didn't go away. Fine, I can deal.
Suddenly this week things feel way worse. I thought it was stomach issues alone at first but then I started to notice that a lot of times the pain was possibly stemming from the uterus area and yesterday and today it did start to feel more like that first ten days, which was kind of like period cramps in the way it could stop me in my tracks but a little different in that I keep imagining I can feel the iud and that's where the pain starts. Also my hot flashes returned. The patch and lowering the BP chased them away.
Typically with my stomach issues either pooping or farting helps. Currently 1 out of every 3 or 4 times I am unable to poop or release gas.
I thought maybe when I switched my hormone patch I chose a worse placement and that's why the hot flashes are back, my hot flashes are usually accompanied by a need to poop. I didn't think placing the patch somewhere less effective would also affect my stomach, but I hoped that was all it was.
Basically wondering if this is just me on my period and this is what it will feel like for a while.
I am giving it a week then will make an appointment. So advice to go see my doctor is not currently needed.
Edit: Actually I just noticed some light bleeding, so my guess was probably correct. Leaving this up for folks having a similar experience.