February 11, 2015

Houston, We (Might) Have A Problem

It looks like I might have celebrated just a bit too soon on all the ovulation talk :(.  There may have been some problem with it, so maybe its a little premature to be calling it a success.

As of today, its been 19 days since my peak day, and AF has finally started this afternoon. My post-peak phase (also known as luteal phase) was around 8-9 days when I first started charting last year, which is on the short side, not a good thing.  Once I started post peak progesterone support, last July I think, it slowly lengthened a day or two a cycle until it made it to 13 days, where its stayed.  I figured this cycle might be different what with the "ovulation" and all, but I started to worry once I hit P+15. Although I have been PMSing since P+7, there was really no sign of AF, like the spotting or cramping I usually get, up until late yesterday, which was seriously stressing me out.  I even called my doctor yesterday to see if there was any possible explanation, or anything I could do, and I was just told to wait another week to see what happened.

At least one thing that gave me some amount of peace was knowing that pregnancy wasn't likely possible.  Like I mentioned before, our timing was pretty off, so I wasn't expecting anything.  Unfortunately, that didn't stop me from taking pregnancy tests just in case, which were all negative of course (getting negative tests, even when I'm expecting them, is never fun). I even went out and bought one of those fancy first response tests in case my cheapies that I bought in bulk three years ago had gone bad. Those things have gotten so expensive! Or maybe I just forgot what they cost 3 years ago.  $20 for 2 tests seemed insane to me!  I could've gotten some for cheaper I guess, but all the cheaper ones were blue dye tests, and I avoid those like the plague ever since I got a false positive on one :(.

Anyways, I digress.  According to the Creighton manual, a post-peak 17 days or longer can indicate a problem.  Possible cause of a long post-peak phase, besides pregnancy of course, is lutenized unruptured follicle syndrome (LUFS), multiple ovulation, and misidentification of peak day.  Considering the ultrasound only picked up one corpus luteum, I think that rules out multiple ovulation, and even if I misidentified the peak day, I don't think I couldn't have been off by enough to account for my period being five days late.  So, in my head, the most likely candidate is LUFS, which kind of scares me.

If it is the case, I've read that it can be caused by NSAIDs, which is kind of what I hope caused it, that was the problem.  I'll confess, even though I knew of the possibility, I went a little heavy on the NSAIDs at the beginning of the cycle. My last period was super painful, and I couldn't make it without pain meds.  I also started the LDN at the beginning of the cycle, and took Excedrin (NSAID) for the first week, what with all the headaches is gave me.  But at least that problem would be easily correctable by not taking NSAIDs this time around. The idea of having LUFS being my newest problem, not just cause by NSAIDs, is something really daunting to me, but I don't really want to even think about it yet.

Its also true that my surgery was still pretty recent, the doctor did say it could take a few months for things to work right.  Also, as the Hubs stated, its my body's first time (that we know of) ovulating, I need to give it a break, haha.  All that is basically, me trying to reassure myself that I don't now have another problem I need to worry about, ugh.

All that said, those extra few days were pretty rough.  I felt pretty defeated.  I was so happy things were working, just to feel like I had the rug pulled out from under me. Now all I can do is wait and see how the next cycle goes.  I'm just so happy its finally here.

3 comments:

  1. After my surgery I had a few longer post peak phases so it could be that. Praying the next few cycles will start to become normal!

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    1. I hope its that, I guess we'll see. Thank you for your prayers!

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