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Why does Google make everything worse?

14 replies

Kate8989 · 11/04/2018 05:01

Going for a lap in 2 weeks for suspected endo, have pain everyday...
Was feeling really optimistic about it, now Google has convinced me I have the most severe form that won’t get treated and I’ll be like this for ages- HELP

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Chrisinthemorning · 11/04/2018 05:07

I had a lap in 2010, I did have endo, lasered off. I had my son in 2012 and now take the pill continuously and my endo doesn’t really affect me.
Endo is a horrible thing though and worrying- so Flowers

Kate8989 · 11/04/2018 07:05

@Chrisinthemorning thank you! I’m just fed up of the pain. I know it’s not a life threatening disease but it has such an impact that it really gets me down. I keep thinking why me why me? I just want to get on with my life.... 15 days until the lap then hopefully I can try and move forward x

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KnitKitty · 11/04/2018 14:22

I hope your lap goes well. I've got endo. If you are diagnosed try to see it as a positive as it will be the answer to your pains and you can start to find solutions to it.

The tiniest amount of endo can cause a lot of pain for some women and is usually really easy to treat. Step away from Google. Wink

I used to have pains constantly and was taking codeine almost nightly. At one point I had a cyst on my ovary and had to have it and the ovary removed and I also had endo in my bowel and adhesions, and had 3 surgeries in total.

BUT, I haven't had any pains or complications from endo for nearly 10 years now, and don't even get painful periods anymore. Recently I started TTC. Amazingly I conceived in the second cycle after coming off the pill. (Though sadly lost the pregnancy, but that has nothing to do with the endo). So even if you have to have treatment for the endo, it's not a life-sentence of pain! You can get it under control.

I personally found my mood had a massive impact on my endo and it's worse when I'm stressed/low or not looking after myself properly. My biggest example of this was when I had a pocket of endo found in my bowel during a colonoscopy (I had been bleeding from my back passage). I decided I was going to try mind-over-matter and told myself regularly throughout the day that it was healing and I imagined things clearing up in there. A month later I had surgery and they were planning to laser the endo at the same time. It had totally disappeared. I don't know if it's a coincidence or if my efforts helped, but there you go, just a little success story for you to read, endo can clear itself up. Smile

The things I felt were most helpful with endo; dealing with my stress (mantras really helped), eating well (there is some research in to what foods to eat or avoid which may help if you read up on it), yoga (probably the post helpful thing I did to deal with daily pains), and reflexology.
I also tried acupuncture and herbal medicine but I personally didn't find that helpful.

It's a worrying time, but it will be fine.

Kate8989 · 11/04/2018 15:33

@KnitKitty- thank you so much for replying. They think my endo maybe in the pouch of Douglas and I’ve read some HORROR stories about that area on Google which is why I’m feeling the way I am.
I get horrible pains in my side, round to my backside it’s just awful- I hate it.
I also have depression at the moment so I am NOT looking after myself at all. I can feel myself all tensed up inside I’m also having frequent heart palpitations, which is making the pains worse (surprise surprise!) I’ve been really really low the last couple of weeks and also been feeling the most pain. I’ve convinced myself the endo is growing /spreading but I guess my mental health is not helping things which is why it feels more painful.
Your story is inspirational and talking to you lovely ladies on here makes me feel LOADS better than Dr Fricking Google xx

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KnitKitty · 11/04/2018 15:55

Depression seems to go hand-in-hand with chronic illness. I had depression for a long time and it's totally understandable in your situation. It's a vicious cycle with the pain and depression. Depression itself can cause physical aches and pains which doesn't help, does it? And you lose all motivation to try to get a bit more active or try new and different things to help improve everything.

I put post-it notes up everywhere with positive mantras on to help get some positive thoughts in my head as I was feeling so negative all the time. Reading Louise Hay helped me; especially "You can heal your life". Might be worth a look?

I think taking control of your situation helps (well, it helped me), because you can feel so out-of-control with going through the process of being diagnosed with something like endo and also struggling with depression which seems to take over and have its own agenda. Whenever you have the energy or feel able to, maybe sit and brain storm ways of how you can take some control back (little by little... don't overwhelm yourself) and make some positive changes to help you physically and mentally. I forced myself to a yoga class once a week for a few months during one of my worst bouts of pain, and I really got a huge amount of benefit from it. Maybe write up a healthy eating plan to start with? Or get ideas from someone who's already done the work for you... I have a book called The Endometriosis Health and Diet Plan, it has some good information and ideas in it.

Every time you catch yourself worrying about the endo growing or spreading try to visualise it shrinking and disappearing. And if you find yourself feeling tense, bring your mind to each part of your body and physically let go and relax and take a few long slow breaths.

Replace researching Google about endometriosis with researching ideas on improving your health (mental and physical) and see if it helps at all.

Sorry, I don't want to sound intense, I just know exactly how you feel and I'm keen for you to feel better because I know it is possible! Hang in there!

Kate8989 · 11/04/2018 16:30

@KnitKitty the problem is I’m not a very optimistic person when it comes to myself. I’m good at giving others advice and helping them see but not so great at that with myself.
I’m at the “why me” “why me” stage. Why did I lose my baby? Why am I in daily pain!? Blah blah blah....
It takes ALOT for me to go out the house now and I have let the pain dictate my life if I’m honest. If I get a wave of pain, rather than push through I go into panick mode and freeze almost as I don’t know how long it is going to last or when it may come back etc... see my pain moves around and some areas are more bearable than others.
You don’t sound intense at all, you sound amazing and I really appreciate you helping me. A lot of the endo stories I’ve read online the women say they can’t function and it takes over their life and I have been gullible in believing that’s what it should do to my life. I’m struggling to find and positives as the Inet is full of scaremongering. How did you control your thoughts when you had pain? That would help me immensely to stop panic panic panic xx

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Kate8989 · 11/04/2018 16:33

Just to add.. my depression has been that bad it’s been suicide thoughts. That’s how low I am xx

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Melamine · 11/04/2018 18:30

Kate, I’m so so sorry you’re going through this. Please try to organise some counselling as soon as possible. Both to help you through the past trauma and to help you see the future doesn’t need to be awful, even if your diagnosis isn’t great, which is only a possibility - not a definite. Are you on medication for your depression? I’d say stop googling but I’ve been doing it constantly during this miscarriage so not exactly practicing what I preach. X

Kate8989 · 11/04/2018 18:54

I’ll try, need positive thoughts that my diagnosis won’t be bad. I’m in a lot of pain so that’s making me fear the worst xx

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KnitKitty · 11/04/2018 22:29

I'm so sorry your depression has been so bad Kate.

I wasn't suicidal but I did think at least twice a day that it would be better if I were dead, but I knew I would never do anything about it, I hope you haven't seriously considered anything that drastic.

Like Melamine said, counselling is probably a good idea. Is your GP aware of your depression and helping you deal with it? If they haven't offered to refer you for counselling please push for it. Take someone with you to your appointment if you need to as well because I know when I was very low I had next to zero self confidence and found it hard to push for things I needed and to make myself heard. Sometimes I'd just write down what I wanted to say beforehand and hand them the note rather than speaking.

I lived in the "why me, why me" stage for quite a while. The problem is there's no answer to that. Bad things happen to good people. Life isn't always fair. There's nothing you have done to deserve it, and there's nothing you could have done for it not to happen to you; it's just the way things worked out. You just have to find coping strategies until life starts giving you some better experiences again; and it will, because life isn't all bad, in fact it's mostly good, but the bad experiences you've had are big ones and it's just harder to see the good things when you're in such a dark place. Maybe before bed write down one or two positive things that have happened that day. You might feel you have to really search for them at first, but it's good practice to train your brain to search for the positives in life again.

I was also house-bound at one point and couldn't even answer the telephone. I found counselling and psychotherapy really helpful with that. I had 6 sessions with a psychotherapist and they taught me the Tapping technique for anxiety which I found helpful for uncomfortable situations like leaving the house. You just have to keep pushing yourself, as hard as it is. Don't let the monster of depression win. Fight back. That animal can be caged - I'm living proof.

Yes, almost all of the forums and things you read on endometriosis are negative and scaremongering. I used to belong to some forums and help groups and I gave them all up completely because of all the negativity. The truth of the matter is, there are plenty of women with endometriosis coping just fine and living normal lives, it's just we don't tend to talk about our experiences online.

I think panicking about pain is partly because it's the unknown. I actually think it will be helpful for you to get a proper diagnosis of what's going on in there. That way when you get pains you know what it is. It's not too long now until your lap, so I really hope they find some answers for you. Do you know if they plan to laser the endo then and there if they find any, or is it purely investigative?
I used to get different aches and pains all of the time. I kept a pain journal, wrote exactly what sensation I was experiencing and whereabouts, and how intense it was on a scale of 1 to 10. It helped me feel more in control of what my body was doing, and if it was a new pain I hadn't had before, it allowed me to monitor it so I could discuss it with my doctor if needed. I was under a gynae for the endo at the time so I would discuss the pain diary with them each time I went (I think it was about every 6 months). My pains were usually worse at night so I didn't get much sleep. I tried not to take painkillers unless it was really bad because I was in pain so often that being on medication all the time didn't seem like a good idea. I used hot water bottles and wheatbags a lot and when I was out and about or at work (yes, I managed to get a job once I'd dealt with the depression) I used heat pads and always had pain killers handy. I found foot massage and reflexology really helped the pains too.

Kate8989 · 12/04/2018 07:28

@KnitKitty I’ve woken up this morning think oh f* another day of pain what is the point? I’ve had really bad back pain this past week and that’s really affecting my mobility and that’s getting me down as I don’t want to move.
He said if he can remove what he finds then he will. So it’s a diagnostic/opeartive.
I know nobody is good with the “unknown” but I think that’s what’s my biggest problem with all of this. If I knew my pain would be gone in 2 weeks after my lap I know I would be a lot happier and be able to manage. But because I’ve convinced myself I have the worse form of endo going. I’m depressed at the thought of having numerous Intense surgeries and I’m just not strong enough for all that. I mean I’m scared and nervous about the one I have in 14 days and that’s quite a minor procedure.
Because I’m having back pain I’ve convinced myself my muscles and nerves are obliterated with endo and I’m ultimately going to be a vegetable. I keep getting nasty pains in my backside but that could be a number of things, ie me being on the brink of destruction and on edge all the fricking time. My pains a lot better when I don’t move, so that makes me think I’m going to be a vegetable.
As you can see I’m so low, it’s going to be hard for me to take positivie steps at this point in my life x

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KnitKitty · 12/04/2018 18:28

Sorry you're feeling so bad today. Hugs!

I hope you have a better day tomorrow.

Back pain is the worst. Head pads are great for that.

Keep trudging on, and try to do something nice for yourself this evening. (Hot bath/watch a nice film/eat a treat)

Kate8989 · 14/04/2018 12:45

@KnitKitty- I’m scared. Did really welll and went to work yesterday but had the worst pain last night.
Not coping well today with suicidal thoughts and convincing myself I have the worse endometriosis going because of the pain. Got back into the cycle of reading negative stories online, scared myself stupid and almost condemned myself. HELP

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KnitKitty · 14/04/2018 18:20

Oh dear.

All I can say is, the amount of pain endometriosis causes has absolutely nothing to do with how bad the endo is, so it's really not an indicator to go by. You can have the tiniest amount and be in tonnes of pain.

My pains were always worse at night too. Make sure you have a hot-water-bottle handy and some painkillers next to your bed.

Make sure you talk to someone when you're feeling suicidal so they know how you are.

Keep taking it one day at a time and again, try to take little positive steps to help make you feel better.

Well done for going to work! That's great! :)

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