Some Endometriosis Drama

After landing in the ER because my endometriosdis pain had gotten so out of control this past September I was unable to eat, drink or move, my doc and I decided it was time to eliminate my periods and regulate my hormones. She wanted to give me an IUD but after doing some research and talking to some women who had tried this I decided it wasn't for me. The chances of complications were too high and if anyone was going to have complications it was going to be me.

The simpler solution was to just go on the pill and take only the active pills. She recommended one specifically and wrote a script. I started taking it right away and after a few weeks of adjustment I found that my body was responding in a most ideal fashion. I wasn't having any breakthrough bleeding or a period and the intolerable pain was eliminated right along with it. Ideal. 

It was ideal for 3 months. Then when I refilled my prescription and started the new pack I started spotting. Every single day since then I've been spotting. It has been about 4 months now. I thought for certain it was a bad batch of pills because it started the exact day I started a new set of pills. 

I called my doctor's office first and her nurse, after speaking with the doc, told me it would be something I need to work out with the pharmacy. Since I'm dealing with the mail order pharmacy I had to first have a frustrating conversation with the careless customer service folks who answer the phones and then I finally got to talk to a pharmacist, somewhere in Kansas. I was given some complicated instructions and a bunch of hoops to jump through to test different batches from the same manufacturer and also different manufacturers. 

I did what I was told and the daily spotting continued through it all. 

Satisfied I was having a reaction to this medication and not that batch of pills I called my doctor again. This time the doctor actually called me back. That's a first. Even stranger she called me on a Sunday afternoon. She asked what I was taking and then recommended another drug. When I went to pick this one up I discovered it was actually the exact same drug just at a different dose and different packaging/brand name. sigh

I did a search for this drug and read through all the possible side effects and discovered that this daily spotting was listed under possible rare but serious side effects. How did both my doctor and the pharmacist miss that?!!? I had very frank discussions with them both about what was happening. And why would my doctor prescribe the exact same medication I was struggling with? Why aren't these people more careful? Why does every little thing have to be so damn hard? WAKE UP PEOPLE! PAY ATTENTION!!

So let's try this again and see if we can't get a new drug to try.