An adventure in Cushing's and stroke

Despite this entire website essentially being about my body and the medical interestingness it presents, I haven’t divulged everything. I have tended to write about stuff after it has happened and after it has been resolved. To write about something as it happens feel a bit strange. But as yesterday marked another anniversary, this seems fitting.

Also, if you happen to be male and/or squeamish: sorry.

I have never had regular periods without the help of drugs. They started when I was ten and a half, and up until the age of twenty-two, they were a constant in my life. As in, they were there every single day, without a break. When I was twenty-two, a gynaecologist (different to the one I see now) diagnosed me with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), told me I needed to lose weight, and put me on the contraceptive pill to regulate the periods. This was towards the end of 2007. When I saw him a few months later for a follow-up consultation, he asked me why I hadn’t lost weight like he told me to, but in fact gained weight. (I was about 56kg when I first saw him, about 58kg at the follow-up.)

I didn’t go back to that gyno, and the Pill seemed to do the work it was supposed to. And then in December 2008 I had a stroke, and will never be on the pill again. There are two hormones in the pill that I was taking, and one of them was one of the contributing factors for the stroke.

After the stroke, my periods stopped for a few months. Then they began again, and it was just like they used to be. Oh, I should also mention that my endo said I didn’t have PCOS and that it was Cushing’s that was messing up my periods. During one consultation with my endo, this exchange occurred:

Me: Remember how I just went through hell to get my body fixed?
Endo: Yes?
Me: It’s not fixed.

My endo did more blood tests and in the end said to me that it was beyond his level of expertise and he referred me to a gynaecologist (the one I currently see). The new gyno scanned, probed, prodded and tested, and couldn’t work out the problem. His solution was to put in the Mirena, a little plastic device that is placed directly into the uterus and releases a little bit of a hormone (not the blood-clotting one) every day. It’s a method of birth control and it is also a way to regulate periods. In about 70% of women, after they have the Mirena in for a year, the periods stop completely (if I recall correctly).

I had one put in on the 27th of November, 2009 (which coincidentally was one year since the Cushing’s surgery). And as is typical of my body, irregular bleeding continued in the months following.

By the time I went to my gyno in October last year, the bleeding had stopped. I had an endo appointment the following day (my gyno and endo are friends), and my gyno told me to tell him that everything’s been fixed. At my endo appointment, this exchange occurred:

Me: Oh, George told me to tell you he’s fixed the bleeding. The Mirena’s working.
Endo: He hasn’t fixed it! He’s just shut down the system!

Which is a completely valid point, but I’m not complaining! The Mirena can stay in for up to five years, and my current one has been in for one year, six months, and a day. Updates to come in three and a half years.