- Aside from a few words that get me beer and food, I don’t know any German so I looked this post title up on Google Translate. According to a subsequent Google search, “Verdammt noch mal” means something in the vein of “Damn it!” “Damnation!” or “Dadgummit!” Close enough.
- This post contains TMI for most men, every coworker past and present, and all family members. No, seriously. Proceed with caution.
Still with me? Okay.
***
For those of you unfamiliar with ovarian activities, mittelschmerz is a lower-abdominal pain that occurs with ovulation. I’d never heard of it until I was 29, when I tossed out my birth control pills and let my body do its thing.
Since going off the pill, I’ve discovered that my hormones and lady parts are certifiably WHACK. My uterus tilts to the right. My BO changes almost daily, with breastfeeding and according to where I’m at in my cycle. Pregnancy hormones make me incredibly euphoric.
And, with a menstrual cycle sans synthetic hormones, I get mittelschmerz.
I’ve since met other ladies who get mittelschmerz too. I don’t know to what degree they feel the pain, but Holy Mother . . . For me, the pain is un-fucking-real.
It begins with a noticeable cramp in my uterus. This lasts for a day or two. Then, I start getting what feels like a stitch in my side, just under my ribs. Depending on which side I feel it, I can tell if I’ll be ovulating from my right or left ovary.
***
Are you still there? I know, I told you. TMI.
Moving on.
***
The stitch grows into an awful stabbing pain extending from my lowest rib to what I assume is my ovary. No exaggeration, it feels like a scorching knife being plunged at a diagonal angle into my side, 24/7. The pain is always there. This is the worst part. And, unfortunately, it lasts from two to four days.
It gets so intense that it hurts to walk, breathe and sit. So I’m pretty much screwed. Sometimes, I just have to curl up into a fetal position and moan.
On the one hand, mittelschmerz is super convenient for family planning. Who needs an ovulation predictor when you’re fucking INCAPACITATED on the couch because a microscopic ova is being released from a walnut-sized ovary?
On the other hand . . . Well, the “other hand” feels like having my reproductive organs sawed into with an electric turkey carver.
***
La-di-dah. You’re more than welcome to click away now if you’re freaking out.
***
It’s hard to get people to truly understand or even believe how serious this is. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Mega doses of ibuprofen, pain pills, rest, ice, heat — this stuff doesn’t even begin to touch the pain. I just have to suffer through it every month.
Between the breakouts, the BO, the ovary pain, the PMS-y mood swings, the weight gain and the actual Monthly Visitor, I feel like I’m constantly in one state of menstruation or another.
***
Hey, I warned you. Don’t bitch at me now.
Ugh.
I get this pain too! I am a bit luckier than you however because it is 9 million times worse on my left than my right– so its more of an every-other-month sorta thing. FTR, the twins were conceived from the left (note to self, do not reproduce on left ovulating months any more)– anyways, the only thing that sorta helps me is Biofreeze. It smells horrible and its probably giving me some kind of cancer, but who cares? I seriously go through a giant tube of it every time. http://www.biofreeze.com/
Hope it can help you!
More like mittleshit if you ask me. I get it too, ever since having the boys . Pain in the butt, I even get to enjoy some spotting with mine. I have however found something to ease the pain…it starts with a V and ends with ODKA