I have a whole slew of different symptoms going on. I think that they are all related but my traditional Dr. thinks not.
I had my dd about 4 months ago. I delivered her vaginally, labor was normal except for the fact that it was 2 hours long from start to finish, incredibly frightening, out of control and painful.
Within a half hour of delivering her, I commented to the nurses that my hands were swollen. I had not experienced any swelling during my pregnancy. They said that this was normal due to the redistribution of blood and fluids throughout my body, with getting used to only supporting one person and not two. The swelling lasted for at least a week, maybe longer and around this time I started experiencing pain in my finger joints. I thought that it was just due to the swelling.
At 2 months old we took baby on a short trip to visit family. While we were there I fell a little sick. My stomach hurt, I had really bad gas. I initially assumed that I had either gotten food poisoning or a virus because there were at least 15 of us crammed into this little house the whole weekend.
Then the day we started back for home, I got what felt like a gas bubble in my chest. You know it felt like if I could just burp or possibly let some gas go, that the feeling would go away. That feeling lasted for a couple of days and then my neck also started hurting. As the days went on the pain in both my neck and lung area got worse. It hurt SO bad upon inhaling. The pain in my lung was on the lower right side and it hurt when I took a deep breath. I could not palpate any pain in the muscles, and believe me I tried really hard. It was if it hurt from inside of me, I felt like in my lungs. The pain in my neck was under my right clavicle and sometimes radiated up my neck and down my shoulder. The pain in both places got SO bad that I was crying and couldn't take a deep breath.
Went to the ER and they suspected it could be a pulmonary embolism. Did a CT scan and that came back fine, so no PE. ER doctor said he wasn't sure what it was, possibly muscular and sent me home.
I followed up with a primary care doctor the following day. He told me that he thought that I had pleurisy. Which is when the lining of your lungs basically swell up and it is really painful to breath. Sometimes the pain refers up into your neck or shoulders. There is no cure or testing that could tell if that was what is for sure, so he sent me home telling me to take ibuproffen and tylenol as needed.
Well I went home and was taking as much ibuproffen and tylenol as you can possibly take without OD'ing at the same time and I was still in SO much pain. I couldn't lay on my sides, had to sleep propped up. If I moved the pain in my neck or/and lung hurt so bad. It was SO hard nursing the baby because I couldn't hardly move, but I did and basically just laid in bed or on the couch for weeks miserable. At one point the pain quit happening in my lungs and was only in my neck which really confused me because why would it only hurt in my neck if it were pleurisy? Then after this the pain started to move around. The pain would be more in my shoulder or even in my other shoulder or different parts of my neck.
I started realizing that all of these aches and pains were happening to me a lot worse in the mornings and if I could get up and moving that it would get a little better. The pain was worse if I slept on my sides to side lie and nurse the baby in that position, but some mornings I would wake up feeling like something was attacking my body. Along with all of the weird pains I sometimes would feel SO groggy upon waking up that I could hardly function. It was like a full body attack. I was in so much pain and so foggy.
At this time I starting thinking about the bigger picture and all of my symptoms, along with all of this incredible pain, I was still experiencing the joint pain in all of my fingers and now also in my feet. When I wake up in the morning I ache all over, my feet hurt and my fingers hurt, there is no swelling though.
I read somewhere online that some women experience joint pain after pregnancy and during nursing. They believe that it could be due to low estrogen levels from nursing.
Also in my family we have a history of lupus, so I was worried about that.
So some 4 visits later @ 20$ a pop because the symptoms aren't improving, went back to my primary Dr. again and told him my concerns, was all of this pain being induced because of my breastfeeding and low estrogen levels? Was it because the nature of child birth had turned on some lupus gene that I already had? He wasn't too sure about this being due to breastfeeding and low estrogen levels, but did think it was a good idea to look into the lupus idea, rhuemetoid arthritus and also wanted to check my vit d levels, which is ironic because at my 1st visit with him I asked if he could do the vit d test and he said no because it wasn't medically necessary and my insurance wouldn't pay for it!
So tests that came back abornromal was the ANA test and the Vit D test. My ANA test came back positive which could be indicitive of Lupus but probobly isn't. I take a heart medication that produces false positives, and I've taken this test before and got the same positive. So I need to go back and take further blood tests to look at the option of lupus. I'm guessing and hoping that those all come back negative because I've taken them before and they were negative before.
Also my Vit D came back with a level of 21 which is pretty low to me, but this dr. said just take like 500 UI of Vit D a day which is pretty bad advice. I've researched this subject enough to know that I am actually pretty low and need to take a much higher dose to get my reserves back up but I don't think this is what is causing the issues I am having.
So now the new issue that I am having is atrophic vaginosis. Basically my vulva is SO itchy and in SO much pain. It hurts to have intercourse. I have basically no fluid happening down there and everything is swollen, itchy and painful. I was checked for yeast and that came back negative. Was even given a dose of diflucan just in case which I took and none of the symptoms went away. My obgyn now thinks that this is atrophic vaginosis due to low estrogen levels while breastfeeding.
Okay so linking this whole mess together, could my other symptoms be due to this low estrogen? Could my joints just be so loose and not functioning well because of this? Has anyone else experienced this before?
Also another question, if I take the hormone cream medication, what are the side effects, will it be okay while nursing? If these joint and muscular aches and pains are related to low estrogen, would taking a hormone cream help these symptoms too? I'm just praying that someone else has been in the same boat and can shed some light onto what is happening to me and my body.
Thanks for looking
I had my dd about 4 months ago. I delivered her vaginally, labor was normal except for the fact that it was 2 hours long from start to finish, incredibly frightening, out of control and painful.
Within a half hour of delivering her, I commented to the nurses that my hands were swollen. I had not experienced any swelling during my pregnancy. They said that this was normal due to the redistribution of blood and fluids throughout my body, with getting used to only supporting one person and not two. The swelling lasted for at least a week, maybe longer and around this time I started experiencing pain in my finger joints. I thought that it was just due to the swelling.
At 2 months old we took baby on a short trip to visit family. While we were there I fell a little sick. My stomach hurt, I had really bad gas. I initially assumed that I had either gotten food poisoning or a virus because there were at least 15 of us crammed into this little house the whole weekend.
Then the day we started back for home, I got what felt like a gas bubble in my chest. You know it felt like if I could just burp or possibly let some gas go, that the feeling would go away. That feeling lasted for a couple of days and then my neck also started hurting. As the days went on the pain in both my neck and lung area got worse. It hurt SO bad upon inhaling. The pain in my lung was on the lower right side and it hurt when I took a deep breath. I could not palpate any pain in the muscles, and believe me I tried really hard. It was if it hurt from inside of me, I felt like in my lungs. The pain in my neck was under my right clavicle and sometimes radiated up my neck and down my shoulder. The pain in both places got SO bad that I was crying and couldn't take a deep breath.
Went to the ER and they suspected it could be a pulmonary embolism. Did a CT scan and that came back fine, so no PE. ER doctor said he wasn't sure what it was, possibly muscular and sent me home.
I followed up with a primary care doctor the following day. He told me that he thought that I had pleurisy. Which is when the lining of your lungs basically swell up and it is really painful to breath. Sometimes the pain refers up into your neck or shoulders. There is no cure or testing that could tell if that was what is for sure, so he sent me home telling me to take ibuproffen and tylenol as needed.
Well I went home and was taking as much ibuproffen and tylenol as you can possibly take without OD'ing at the same time and I was still in SO much pain. I couldn't lay on my sides, had to sleep propped up. If I moved the pain in my neck or/and lung hurt so bad. It was SO hard nursing the baby because I couldn't hardly move, but I did and basically just laid in bed or on the couch for weeks miserable. At one point the pain quit happening in my lungs and was only in my neck which really confused me because why would it only hurt in my neck if it were pleurisy? Then after this the pain started to move around. The pain would be more in my shoulder or even in my other shoulder or different parts of my neck.
I started realizing that all of these aches and pains were happening to me a lot worse in the mornings and if I could get up and moving that it would get a little better. The pain was worse if I slept on my sides to side lie and nurse the baby in that position, but some mornings I would wake up feeling like something was attacking my body. Along with all of the weird pains I sometimes would feel SO groggy upon waking up that I could hardly function. It was like a full body attack. I was in so much pain and so foggy.
At this time I starting thinking about the bigger picture and all of my symptoms, along with all of this incredible pain, I was still experiencing the joint pain in all of my fingers and now also in my feet. When I wake up in the morning I ache all over, my feet hurt and my fingers hurt, there is no swelling though.
I read somewhere online that some women experience joint pain after pregnancy and during nursing. They believe that it could be due to low estrogen levels from nursing.
Also in my family we have a history of lupus, so I was worried about that.
So some 4 visits later @ 20$ a pop because the symptoms aren't improving, went back to my primary Dr. again and told him my concerns, was all of this pain being induced because of my breastfeeding and low estrogen levels? Was it because the nature of child birth had turned on some lupus gene that I already had? He wasn't too sure about this being due to breastfeeding and low estrogen levels, but did think it was a good idea to look into the lupus idea, rhuemetoid arthritus and also wanted to check my vit d levels, which is ironic because at my 1st visit with him I asked if he could do the vit d test and he said no because it wasn't medically necessary and my insurance wouldn't pay for it!
So tests that came back abornromal was the ANA test and the Vit D test. My ANA test came back positive which could be indicitive of Lupus but probobly isn't. I take a heart medication that produces false positives, and I've taken this test before and got the same positive. So I need to go back and take further blood tests to look at the option of lupus. I'm guessing and hoping that those all come back negative because I've taken them before and they were negative before.
Also my Vit D came back with a level of 21 which is pretty low to me, but this dr. said just take like 500 UI of Vit D a day which is pretty bad advice. I've researched this subject enough to know that I am actually pretty low and need to take a much higher dose to get my reserves back up but I don't think this is what is causing the issues I am having.
So now the new issue that I am having is atrophic vaginosis. Basically my vulva is SO itchy and in SO much pain. It hurts to have intercourse. I have basically no fluid happening down there and everything is swollen, itchy and painful. I was checked for yeast and that came back negative. Was even given a dose of diflucan just in case which I took and none of the symptoms went away. My obgyn now thinks that this is atrophic vaginosis due to low estrogen levels while breastfeeding.
Okay so linking this whole mess together, could my other symptoms be due to this low estrogen? Could my joints just be so loose and not functioning well because of this? Has anyone else experienced this before?
Also another question, if I take the hormone cream medication, what are the side effects, will it be okay while nursing? If these joint and muscular aches and pains are related to low estrogen, would taking a hormone cream help these symptoms too? I'm just praying that someone else has been in the same boat and can shed some light onto what is happening to me and my body.
Thanks for looking
