Finally a Diagnosis

Over the past two and a half years I have been to Dr. after Dr. trying to figure out why I would be in constant pain like I am.  I have been to the emergency room so many times I can't even keep track anymore.  I have been misdiagnosed with every thing from Type 2 diabetes, Gluten intolerance, and IBS.  In the past three years I have also had two surgeries, one of which actually helped take some of the edge off.  July of this year I finally went to see my husband's family doctor to see if he could help me out at all.  When I got in to see him, he wasted no time and had me an appointment scheduled for me to have some tests ran.  He received the result the same day, and he called me as soon as he got them.  He informed me that every thing he saw on my scans were outside of his scope, but he was going to get me in to see a specialist right away.  The next day I was sent to one of St. Luke's clinics and they were good enough to work me in to their already busy schedule.  The doctor told me he saw some things on my scans that made him nervous, and that he wanted blood work done.  He also told me that he had a pretty good idea of what was going on, and that a blood test would just confirm it.  I walked down the hall, and got my blood drawn right then and there.  I had to wait a few hours for the results to be processed, but it was nice having the results the same day.  The doctor had me come back to the office to go over my results.  He informed me that they tested a few different areas of my blood such as my LH and FSH numbers, the levels of androgens, and my TSH. He said that after looking at these levels, and seeing all the cysts on my scans, that I had Poly Cystic Ovarian Disease and a high possibility of endometriosis.  He said that unless I had surgery, they wouldn't be able to really know whether or not I had endometriosis.  I had a lot of things run through my mind.  What could I do to make it better? What would this mean for my husband and I?  Most of all was this going to be a long term thing we were going to have to deal with.  I was also extremely upset, after all the trips to the doctors, and all the trips to the ER, no one ever thought to run a simple blood test for this?  Instead they poked at me more than was needed, did close to 40 some ultrasounds, and even did a few MRIs.  I understood that the ER is there to stabilize a person, not to diagnose, or fix the problem, but I did see and OBGYN more than once, and had blood work done there, and was told that every thing was "fine".  He told me that my best chance at feeling better was to have Laparoscopic Surgery done in order to remove any scar tissue and/or cysts on my ovaries.  I followed his advice and had the surgery.  I didn't have any cysts that were large enough to remove just a lot of smaller cysts.  We did find that I had a good amount of scar tissue on the back of my uterus and had started to displace itself to one of my kidneys.  Since she removed the scar tissue my kidneys have hardly hurt me anymore.  I can't really say much for all my cysts, but they have become more than a problem for my husband and I and we are dealing with them one day at a time.