Edit to add my story:
I was a 19 year-old, new EMT that kind of sucked at the job. A male medic that I had a bit of a crush on took me under his wing. Late one Saturday night, we were sitting at an auxiliary post which was just a small room with a couple of recliners, in an empty office building. He forced himself on me. Two weeks later, the same thing happened.
This is my second stint on cabergoline for a moderately high prolactin level that is making it very tough for me to lose weight. I’m really struggling with the side effects! I’m taking 0.25 2x a week. For those that struggled on the cabergoline, what did you do? My PCP is admittedly a little inexperienced in this area and my endocrinologist completely disregarded me. I’m just looking for ideas to bring to my doctor as she’s very collaborative and generally open to ideas.
Options I’m thinking of:
- Bromocriptine. I’ve seen people say that if you don’t tolerate cab very well, then you might do well on this one. I haven’t seen any firsthand experiences with that though, so I would especially love to hear other people’s experiences.
- vitex. I took a dose before starting this and my prolactin was much lower but I don’t know if it was just natural fluctuation.
-cycling on and off the cab. I do respond well to it, so maybe 3 weeks on, 6-8 off and then restart it?
-lower dose. Either taking a sub-therapeutic dose 2x weekly or taking my current dose 1x weekly.
Also, because it makes me feel better to see what other people are experiencing, here are the side effects I’ve been having:
Insomnia, fatigue, hot/cold flashes, body aches, anhedonia, difficulty focusing, overwhelming sense of dread, inability to feel joy or happiness, nausea and my period this time has been incredibly painful and heavy.
My prolactin at the end of May was 71. I haven’t been able to lose any weight so I decided that I would try to lower it. I took one dose of vitex on 8/10. Went to my dr the next day to talk about whether the prolactin was affecting my weight. She said it probably was, order a repeat prolactin for that day, as well as the cabergoline. Turns out my prolactin was 44! Crazy bc it’s been steadily climbing. There’s no way that the single dose of vitex 24 hours prior could have caused that drop, right?
TLDR; my male massage therapist repeatedly went underneath my underwear and draped me weirdly.
I’ve gotten a lot of massages but the one I had last night has me questioning a few things. To preface this, I did tell him that my hips and shoulders were bothering me and he said he would work more on my shoulders and back then. Never said anything about my glutes. I’ve never mentioned hip pain to a MT so idk what’s normal for that.
By I was undressed down to my underwear and he kept going under them. Repeatedly. I was wearing small bikini-cut underwear so it wasn’t like my drawers were so big, he didn’t have a choice. This happened during the back part of my massage. Then he covered me with a sheet and started working on my glutes but it was unlike any glute massage I’ve ever experienced. I feel like it’s normally pretty intense and almost kind of painful. This felt like he was playing the whole time. Handful of this, handful of that. Like when your husband offers to give you a massage and all he does is play with your ass the whole time.
When I turned supine, he moved the thicker blanket off of me, so I was topless and only covered by the sheet. Considering the room was air conditioned and he was jostling me around and getting his face really close to my chest, this made me feel kind of exposed. All of this just to massage my arms and shoulders.
This was at Massage Envy. I should have spoken up because I was uncomfortable but then I started overthinking it and the idea of saying anything to this man I was alone with made me even more uncomfortable. Either way, I’ll stick to therapists of the same gender from now on.