My journey with root canals began in childhood, but I didn’t realize that until I was in my thirties. i woke up one day when i was 8 years old with very swollen ankles. the doctors couldn’t figure out why and I learned to live with it. then my periods start at age 11 and i was miserable from the start. sometimes I would skip school, curl up in a fetal position, etc. i tried the pill, but it didn’t help my pain and it made me cranky.
my periods are still terrible and finally at 26 i started using nuvaring. It was exciting! I was finally one of those women who say “I only have my period for two days and I barely notice it.” I thought, “is this how other women live all the time? It’s not fair, but now I’m one of you!”
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but then I caught a cold four months later. not a big deal, i was working as a medical assistant, of course i got very sick. but then i tried to sleep and couldn’t breathe when i lay down. I knew it was probably a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs). I went to the ER and long story short, a nurse saved my life when the ER doctor wanted to say she had pneumonia and send me home. I recovered well, but the saddest part for me was that I could no longer take estrogen and enjoy wonderfully short and painless periods!
so I’m still dealing with misery for a few more years. i went to yale in connecticut for nursing school. I met my husband while I was there. he and i moved back to california (where i am from) when i graduated and started working as a nurse practitioner in a women’s health setting. I didn’t learn about endometriosis in nursing school, and none of my mentors at the women’s health office said anything about it.
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I didn’t find out until I went to work at a gynecology practice. one of the diseases they treated was endometriosis and as I learned more about it, I thought; “could i have endo?” she was 33 years old.
then I started having pain at times other than my periods. I called it my “right ovarian pain” even though it was too high to be my ovary. sometimes I had to stop walking, bend over and breathe through the pain.
Insidiously, over the course of the next two years, the pain became a daily beast. I never knew how bad it would be. I could wake up feeling fine and then be in agony 30 minutes later. I spend all my time when I’m not at work curled up on the couch with a heating pad and absolutely no power. I had many supportive healthcare providers including my OB/GYN who said she didn’t know much about endometriosis but she was willing to help me in any way she could. I tried everything we could think of and still felt miserable, so my husband and I started talking to endometriosis specialists.
We had to change insurance, so I needed a new primary care doctor. I chose it from a website and it couldn’t have been more fortuitous. she was kind enough to share that she also had endometriosis. she gave me so much hope; she said that life is better after surgery and she gave me many names of surgeons to interview.
I determined that flare was not right for me; wanted excision surgery. I met with several doctors in california; most wanted me to have a hysterectomy and remove my ovaries. no, thanks! one told me that she was a nurse practitioner and that she should go home and read her book; He didn’t answer a single question he had! I was a healthcare provider who knew more about endodontics than the average doctor, but I was not treated like a patient. you don’t get answers to your particular case from a book. i was so frustrated. women with root canals are routinely dismissed and here I was being ignored by one of the doctors who claimed they listened and cared.
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I left the office very upset, feeling very disrespected. I tried to convince myself to have surgery with him because at least he was a local expert”. Ultimately, I didn’t dare do it. I started reading more about dr. seducing he is a well known endodontic expert and i got the feeling he really wanted to help women. I felt comfortable with him immediately during our phone consultation and couldn’t wait to meet him in person.
I scheduled my surgery for May 2016. Your staff was very helpful in making the arrangements. I had a contact at our insurance company who helped me with those preparations, which were arduous. I made my pre-op appointments and my husband, mother and I went to New York.
I remember dr. seckin saying during my exam “well you got the heating pad sign”. my endo sisters might know this; Her belly begins to show all kinds of veins from prolonged use of heating pads. It turned out that I needed to see some specialists because of my medical history. dr. seckin was wonderful; he took his cell phone and was switching between calls with the two of them to get me appointments for the next day. we were afraid that the surgery would not take place, but when i met with dr. After the specialists gave me the go-ahead, he told me: “okay, I’ll see you on Friday”. I breathed a big sigh of relief and counted down the hours until surgery.
When I woke up after surgery, I finally knew what they meant about root canals being so bad that you feel better after major surgery than before. my ovaries were temporarily suspended to keep them out of the surgical field. I will not lie; that was very painful but once it was over i met dr. seckin had found the bad things and had taken them out. I felt no endo pain for the first time in years! I had a fibroid and a polyp removed from my uterus, I had sixteen endometriosis sites removed from my pelvic peritoneum, and my appendix was removed because it was covered in adhesions. that would explain my ‘right ovarian pain’! it was so much fun watching dr. seckin walk in my hospital room the next day. I gave him an enthusiastic two thumbs up, told him that he had done an amazing job and that he was grinning broadly. he gave us all hugs and there were many happy tears (my mom and I) in that room.
I’m writing this just six weeks after surgery. postoperative pain has been nothing compared to the pain of endometriosis and adhesions. it will take time to figure out what my new normal is and there is no guarantee that i will be 100% pain free. however, I am delighted to finally have the energy again to do the things I love and be more present for my family. i have high hopes that it will continue to be a huge improvement over how life was before surgery and i have dr. seckin to thank for that. I already told you that he can never retire because there are too many women who need his help.
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