Please do not delay in seeing a gyn. I know insurance is an issue, but there is help for those without insurance - you just have to look for it. Go to your department of Health and Human Services, you may qualify for your state's medicaid program.
I have excellent insurance, and I delayed going to my doctor. I had some of your symptons (heavy bleeding with large clots). I also had severe back pain and lower pelvic pain that I attributed to my back pain. Although I did not expereince bloating, I could not eat and the smell of food cooking made me nauseous. In 10 months, I lost nearly 100 pounds. I went to an internal medicine doctor who found a mass on my left ovary immediately (I had felt it as well, but tried to pass it off on the weight loss and being able to feel things I couldn't before).
She immediately sent me for a CT Scan that revealed a rather large tumor on my left ovary, and she sent me to a gyn oncologist. I had surgery 3 days later.
The gyn oncologist had initially thought I was Stage IV Ovarian cancer, but the surgery showed that I was Stage IIIC Endometrial Cancer (a large tumor in my uterus had spread to my ovary, my cervix, and my para-aortic lymph nodes. I was only 41. That was almost 4 years ago. After surgery I went through 7 weeks of radiation and 4 months of chemo. Today, I appear to be cancer-free but suffer from the lingering after effects of the treatments.
Get to a doctor - find a free clinic in your area. Many times, the doctor(s) who run(s) those clinics can call in favors with other doctors and can get you help. My gyn oncologist was able to help a woman with no insurance and he even got the hospital to foot the bill for the hospital stay.
I have a college degree and yet I was ignorant of so many things. Had I gone to the doctor when my symptoms first appeared a few years ago, the doctors could have caught the problem before it turned into cancer and changed my life forever.
Please don't delay - if it is cancer and is caught in an early stage, then the prognosis can be excellent.
Take care of yourself -from someone who has been there a little too late.
On 3/14/2007 Perrrfection wrote:
I've known something has been wrong for sometime now. I have the worst periods sometimes I pass clots almost the size of my fist. It's like a faucet it is constant. When I wake up in the morning no matter what I use I have soaked though everything and have ruined what ever was under me including towels. I have gain 25 pounds in 3 or 4 months I feel so bloated all the time. When I have sex it feels like something is inside of me it is very painful way up into my abdomen. After sex it is horriable and I have stabbing pains that go up my rectum and I can't even move or they hurt worse. I feel constipated but I am going normally. I have dissableing back cramps and pain and the first couple days of my period I can't even leave the house. Not just because of pain but because I can't control the bleeding. I'm tired all the time. I don't feel like doing anything. I've put off seeing a doctor because I don't have insurance. BUT now after finding your website I think maybe I waited too long. What should I do? I never thought It could be serious I was embarrassed. Thanks, Angela