[amelillo13]

I head back for another doctor appoinment Thursday. I swear to everyhting holy that I am not leaving there until they check my hormone levels! I don't care if I have to throw a little baby fit- I am sooo fed up! Amelillo- WHY with your sisters history and the fact that acne is related to androgenic issues and excessive body hair relted to horomal dysfunction also-are they NOT checking your hormone levels???!! GEEEZ! One excellent word for me is FRUSTRATED- for all of us!

I don't think the doctors in the state I am currently in are fully competent, honestly. I am originally from New York and my sister saw a great endocrinologist up there. I actually had my first vaginal ultrasound done by an endocrinologist where I am currently living in another state down south, and he said that even if I DID have PCOS without the cysts like my sister, that being on birth control would fix it. I've talked with my sister about this and she immediately said that doctor knew nothing at all if that's what he told me because that is NOT how it is treated. Plus, I'm not even on the BCP anymore. They just completely disregard things unless you fit the typical mold to a T and since over the years my cycle has become regulated, they disregard the possibility. It's stupid. I mean, even if some sort of hormonal thing isn't what initially caused any of this, it could certainly have something to do with why it won't go away. I hope they finally listen to you, R3dh3ad, and just do it. I don't understand why a simple blood test is such a big deal. I mean, at this point, I don't give a if my insurance won't cover it. I want it checked, too, for my own peace of mind for not only this infection, but my over all health. And if nothing else is coming up in tests, WHY NOT do it? Process of elimination means nothing, I guess.

[Sarah001]

I went back to the vulvar specialist today and while she admitted she could see inflamed skin this time she still only wants to throw medication at the problem rather than check to make sure it isn't something else. So more zombie making medications are heading my way. Frankly the Amitriptyline hasn't touched the soreness at all so I'm suffering the side effects with not much in the way of results.

Another big issue for me right now is my partner, he's admitted he's fallen for someone else and is thinking of leaving. I wonder how much more of my life my health problems can rob me of before I have nothing left.

[ItsASecret]

And if nothing else is coming up in tests, WHY NOT do it? Process of elimination means nothing, I guess.

To be totally honest it is a process of elimination. They are told in medical school if x + x (or more) symptom does not appear they are told to move onto another diagnosis. Medicine is a practice of the process of elimination. Doctors do not want to throw more lab tests out that are not necessarily required if they do not fit the diagnosis method they were taught, this in turn backs up the lab which backs up test results which prolongs the possibility of infection because an answer takes so long to get. This is why medication are thrown at you. They can give a blood test, and find out that your levels are normal for everything being tested. This leaves both doctor and suffering patient in the exact same position as before.

If a symptom fits a diagnosis that they were taught it is much much easier if they practice prophylactic care in the form of treat it before you know even whats going on. This is extremely common in the treatment of infections, because in reality a lab can take upwards a month to properly identify whatever bacteria is causing the problem...this is because of the enzymatic tests, the long time it takes to grow bacteria on plates, the taxonomic identification and so on. It is a lengthy and stupid process...I have done it in my labs and it is not always quick.

[lafemelle]

Well, we're all just striking out. I'm on day 3 of 60 mg of prednisone (which, for LP, is supposed to relieve symptoms almost immediately), and I'm almost positive it's actually making my symptoms WORSE. I've only got about 1% hope left of every finding out what's wrong with me or, better yet, how to fix it.

Sarah, I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. I wish I could offer some words of encouragement, but speaking from experience there's not a lot anyone can say to make any aspect of any of this seem okay.

[lafemelle]

Well, the specialist I've been seeing has officially given up on me. She's called in a hormone test for me at the lab, but if that comes back normal she told me there's nothing else she can do for me. The steroids made my symptoms a hundred times worse. I haven't stopped crying since I talked to my doctor half an hour ago. I've never felt more hopeless in my life...

[amelillo13]

I'm sorry things haven't been working out, ladies. Breaks my heart to see others going through this too. I really just don't understand how something can last so long and not go away on its own after say, a year or two, when we're all taking the necessary precautions. I know it is super frustrating *hugs*

I'm about to whip out the natural remedy arsenal and hope I'm not allergic to anything/mess things up further. I have officially declared war on my vagina. It. Is. On.

[ItsASecret]

Technically speaking there could be a reason that no medication, no herbals, no 'grandma's special soup' remedies work on these infections. Simply put, we do not have the slightest clue how to kill those particular bacteria. In microbiology (one of my main education focuses) there is this thing called the great plate count anomaly. What this suggests is we can find bacteria anywhere...we can swab a table and see bacteria under a microscope doing its thing being a happy little bacterium with a bunch of other bacteria in the same sample. When a researcher wants to study lets say X bacteria from that group they realize they cannot get a pure culture of the flippin thing. What pure culture means is giving this bacteria the correct nutrients to grow on in a petri dish so that only one type, just the one specific species of bacteria, can grow on it. From there we can do more tests on it to see how it behaves on a biochemical level...thereby gaining information on just that one specific species. Obviously if we know how things work with that bacteria on a molecular biochemical level we can make drugs to attack it....but IF and only IF we know the information beforehand.

That is the problem. 99.9% of the bacteria we know of on the planet today we cannot make a pure culture of. Why? because we cannot figure out the exact and extremely specific environmental conditions to make each individual bacteria species grow into a pure culture. We have found out a bunch that we can make pure cultures of and that is what a huge amount of infections are based off of, but we are nowhere near knowing all of them. For the ones we do not have a huge amount of information on we cannot find out the exact temperature, the exact concentration of nitrogen + oxygen + phosphates it needs...or doesn't need for that matter. It is an absolutely massive trial and error process. So why do doctors prescribe an antibiotic if you present infection symptoms and the result is no cure? Because they know that researchers have found, and have pure cultures of known pathogenic bacteria (ones that cause infection/disease) so they prescribe the antibiotic that has been shown to kill that specific known bacteria. If it does not work there can be immune reasons, there can be drug resistance reasons (mutation in the bacteria that should have originally died off with the correct antibiotic), and there can be the reason of we have no idea what exact species is causing the problem and how to exactly get rid of it (aka no pure culture studies of it). The last reason is obviously a major problem in medicine...and why research is always always always going to continue. Do not give up ladies, one day more advances will be made and hopefully it is in the form of new treatments.

[amelillo13]

R3dhe3d, how'd your doctors appointment go? Any luck in getting them to do the hormone test or anything else?

[lafemelle]

Okay, so (TMI warning) post-steroids, my discharge has definitely changed, and it's gotten TONS worse. For the past three days it's been so heavy it's like I'm on my period at times, and it goes back and forth between being really sticky and really watery. And the irritation in the whole area has been awful! What on EARTH did that steroid do to me that would make it so much worse???

[amelillo13]

Okay, so (TMI warning) post-steroids, my discharge has definitely changed, and it's gotten TONS worse. For the past three days it's been so heavy it's like I'm on my period at times, and it goes back and forth between being really sticky and really watery. And the irritation in the whole area has been awful! What on EARTH did that steroid do to me that would make it so much worse???

>.< Are you on oral steroids or a cream? I was put on a cream, and much like you, it made my discharge ridiculously bad, which baffled the doc since it was 'supposed' to help. If it's a pill, the only thing I can think is that it has lowered your immune system (I'm unsure if the cream affects your entire system or just the vagina). I could be wrong, but that's my guess. I also think it's something like that because any time I am around people who smoke, my discharge is also 1000x worse, and if I'm ever sick, like recently I got over some sinus/ear infections and bronchitis, and my discharge was a lot worse. Mine has been really bad lately in general for some reason. I haven't been doing anything differently that I can think of. It's burning and feeling really irritated on the inside. So very annoying.