I’ve carried two humans to term and I’m so thankful for that. After a close call with death during my second delivery, I can no longer have children. My last pregnancy was hard on my body and tipped the first domino of sickness. One of these dominos is Pelvic Congestion Syndrome.
I’d been having pelvic pain for a while. I thought it had something to do with the fact that I had to heal as if I birthed one baby two ways. Or perhaps I needed a chiropractic adjustment. I do have a history of Endometriosis. It was a pain I pushed past until one day my period felt like my first c-section all over again. Sharp, shooting pain traveled across my pelvis and down my leg as I curled up into a ball and cried. Each day of the month was a poco a poco crescendo of an out of tune pitch. My anxiety matched it as I couldn’t stop the crescendo of pain. No pain medicine, home remedies, or self talk helped.
After a CT scan and venogram, my doctor found that my left ovarian vein was incompetent and engorged. This was causing a back up of blood to build up and across my pelvis. My venogram showed severely engorged veins all through my pelvis and down my right leg. It was one of the worst cases my doctor had seen.
An incompetent vein means that the valve within the vein has failed. The valves in a vein are there to stop deoxygenated blood from flowing back down as it is pushed up towards the heart. When that valve stops working, that blood just collects, the vein becomes enlarged, and the back flow of blood effects the surrounding veins causing pain and engorgement.
I’ve had two surgeries to deal with this problem and will likely have to do another one. Insurance wouldn’t cover the embolization the first time. My vein had miraculously shrunk down to normal size the second time and the doctor couldn’t insert the coil to embolize the vein. It was extremely frustrating and as I sit here trying to recover, I have to challenge myself to rest. My normal pelvic pain has returned and trusting this process is hard in this moment. PCS doesn’t just fix itself and my doctor has never seen an engorged vein reverse in size.
Along with the pain, having such severe pelvic congestion actually makes POTS worse! The only form of rest I can muster up for this particular issue is trusting God. Maybe a platinum coil wouldn’t stay put, dislodging and causing an entirely different set of problems. Maybe PCS does reverse itself? Perhaps my pelvis was congested, in part, because of emotional congestion over an assault I endured. I don’t really know. What I do know is that my pelvis hurts and I’m praying for strength to rest. A much needed rest.
Resources:
RestWell 