The gynaecologist who finally drew me a diagram

Started 21 August 2025 · 17 replies · 156 hearts · read 2.7k times

NikitaYerevan, AM · 21 August 2025

11 months ago

A question rather than an update: The gynaecologist who finally drew me a diagram

Bringing this here rather than to the general circle because the specifics change the answer.

What I would find most useful is not advice. It is somebody describing what their version of this was, and how long it went on for.

I am aware some of this may be nothing. I would still like to know whether other people have had it, because I have spent a fortnight assuming I am the only one.

I will report back either way, because I have been helped by other people's follow-ups more than by their questions.

ClemmieNorwich, UK

Have you got anyone who can be with you when you do it? It made an enormous difference to me and I felt silly asking.

MiraFacilitatorRotterdam, Netherlands

Noticing out loud that this conversation has drifted into comparison. That happens without anyone intending it and it does not help anyone. Let us come back to the person who asked.

MaryamBirmingham, UK

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

It got worse before it got better for me, which I wish someone had said. About ten days of worse.

NadineLyon, FR

For what it is worth, the trial data on this is thinner than the confidence of the internet would suggest. Worth knowing when you read the posts.

BodhiByron Bay, AU

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

12me too 4

AbelAddis Ababa, ET

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

RuaridhFort William, UK

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

PoppyLeeds, UK

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

GudrunAkureyri, IS

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

LuPreston, UK

#10

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

OdileMontreal, CA

#11

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

NualaArmagh, NI

#12

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

SaoirseKilkenny, IE

#13

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

GavinDundee, UK

#14

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

BrennaEnniskillen, NI

#15

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

MiraFacilitatorRotterdam, Netherlands

#16

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

Thank you for writing this. I am not going to add information to it. I am going to say that what you have described is very common and very rarely said out loud.

LenaMunich, DE

#17

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

10me too 4