What's going on with my ovaries and breasts?

[meaghank]

I have had ovarian pain for about the last year and a half. It's gradually becoming more intense and more frequent. It's a stabbing pain, on both the left and right sides, but predominately on the right. When it first began, it would be just for a few seconds to a minute or two, but now it's increasing in duration, and every month or two I will have a day when I am curled into a ball, crying in agony because of the pain for an hour or two.

Throughout the past six months, I have also started to have breast pain as well. My breasts have not yet stopped growing, which concerns me a bit, as I am 22 and they started growing around age 8 or 9, gaining about a cup size a year until the end of high school, when the growth slowed but did not stop. This summer, I gained three cup sizes in two months - I'm currently a 36K, and I'm about to bust out of the cups of this size. I'm constantly buying new bras, as my breasts keep growing and I'm losing weight. The increase in cup size is not solely related to the weight loss, as I measure myself regularly, and the darn things really are growing still.

The pain in my breasts is a sharp stab, as if someone is sticking a needle into my breast, and the ovary pain is similar.

I keep up with my yearly exams, and at the last exam I was told that I may have ovarian cysts, however the Planned Parenthood that I went to doesn't have the ultrasound equipment required to determine this for sure.

As the pain continued to increase, I made an appointment with an ob/gyn to take a look. This doctor irritated me, as she was one of the ones with an "I'm the doctor, you're not, so you don't know what's going on" attitude. She brushed off my breast issues completely, just saying that larger breasts tend to have more soreness, especially when wearing ill-fitting bras (which I don't!). She did a pelvic exam, said everything looked normal, and had me come in for a vaginal ultrasound just to take a better look.

I know that the ultrasound shows things bigger than they are, so here's what I saw: on the display, my ovaries showed as the size of a large lemon. Each had black spots that were nickel to quarter sized on the display (so probably dime sized or smaller on my acutal ovaries) numbering somewhere in the 7-10 range per ovary. I was told the doctor would call me within 3-4 days with my results. No call, of course.

On the seventh day after the ultrasound (two days ago), I felt an intense burning sensation around my left ovary. This lasted for about five minutes. For the rest of the the day, I had the usual stabbing pains almost constantly, on both sides. I called to inquire about the results of the ultrasound, since I hadn't heard anything and was in more pain than when i went in, and I was told that the doctor said everything looked normal. I don't know whether I should beleive her or not, as she was extremely condescending and didn't seem to beleive there was anything wrong with my reproductive organs at all, becuase I have not noticed there to be a pattern with the pain in regards to my period - they are independent of each other.

All day yesterday, I continued to experience the pain with unusual frequency and intensity, and the entire left side of my lower abdomen ached when I stood up. Walking was almost unbearable. When the burning pain occured, I also experienced some dizziness, which has been present the past couple days any time that I experience particularly intense pain. The pains have continued today, as well.

I decided two days ago that I would go into the ER first thing on Saturday and tell them everything, including doctor reactions because I have seen several, until they help me, because I can't afford to take time off of work to see someone.

I have been on birth control patches for the past three years, and taking them or not has no effect on the pains. Painkillers don't help because I've had migraines since I was six and my body has a very high tolerance to painkillers - Percaset to me is like taking a children's Tylenol, as I learned when I had my gall bladder out, and over-the-counter pain releivers haven't been effective on anything for years.

I have been keeping a log of my pain since I saw the gyno at the initial visit before the ultrasound, and I'm recording the time, duration, location, intensity, and type of pain so that I can present this to the doctors for reference. I'll probably print this out, too, at least as a reminder to myself as to what I need to mention.

Any advice, ideas, etc?

[Bhupinder Kaur, MD]

Hello,
From the symptoms and the ultrasound reports, possibility of cysts on ovary are high. There may be multiple cysts on the ovary causing multifollicular ovary or PCOS may be present. To differentiate it from PCOS, you can get tests like 2 hr GTT,serum androgen and testosterone levels,LH-FSH ratio,prolactin levels,TSH levels,17-hydroxyprogesterone levels  and 3D ultrasound done.

It is very difficult to precisely confirm a diagnosis without examination and investigations and the answer is based on the medical information provided. For exact diagnosis, you are requested to consult your doctor. I sincerely hope that helps. Take care and please do keep me posted on how you are doing.

[meaghank]

Any ideas? This pain has been interfering with my ability to work in the past few days.