A couple of weeks ago I tried to get my IUD removed by the doctor who placed it. Due to the fact that the strings were far up inside, tucked under the IUD, he made (and I sustained) four valiant attempts to retrieve it before admitting failure.
Since then I've made a plan to have it removed with some assistance. But four days after the attempted removal, I woke up in the middle of the night with intense pain in my uterus, a kind of pain that I don't remember experiencing during the old days when I had regular cycles. I was also really nauseated. Thinking that I would go pee & throw up, then drive myself to the ER to get checked out for possible uterus infection, I got up to go to the bathroom and ended up passing out. Max revived me and, very alarmed, called the ambulance.
Having uterus-pain as your main complaint is a sure way to make medical personnel think that you're crazy. There is the fickle and mysterious nature of the uterus itself, but I suspect a lot of the medical establishment's attitude is due to plain ol' sexism-- most of the people I dealt with that night didn't have a uterus, and seemed flummoxed.
Even the (female) PA at the ER seemed to chalk my experience up to being a woman; and since she also had experience being a woman, this further negated any chance I had of being taken seriously.
I bumped my head when I fainted, and everyone was excited about this. Something that could be treated! I quickly got queued up for a CT scan, while four different people took a good hard look at the back of my head. But no one would go near my uterus. It was like it didn't really exist, like I was talking about a unicorn. It didn't help that my uterus pain had mostly gone away; had, in fact, gone away when I fainted.
Everyone kept referring to the pain as cramps. This is another easy way for the medical profession to write off the actual experience.
I did get an ultrasound, and the female tech was incredibly kind and caring. There was no news, as I suspected by that point, but at least they did it. And there was nothing wrong with my head. In the end it was another waste of time at the local ER, and I wished I'd just asked for some Ibuprofen and gone back to sleep that night.
On the bright side I have probably met my insurance deductible in January, so I'm set for the rest of the year.
