The Medical Mystery

Well, I promised an explanation of the poll question, didn't I?

Some of you probably have already heard about my ongoing post-baby dilemma, but for those who haven't, I'll give you the rundown, hopefully without giving you more details than you really want! But if health stuff, especially female health stuff, makes you squeamish, this is probably a post you want to pass on.

Any woman who was ever given birth knows that after having the baby comes the fun part of having your plumbing clean itself out. Essentially you have the equivalent of one very long, crampy period to make up for the ten or so months you've gone without. Now with K, this was no shock or surprise to me. After all, he is my fourth baby. But in the past, the heavy bright red bleeding has only gone on for about two weeks before lightening up and tapering off. By about 4 or 5 weeks postpartum, I'm usually done altogether.

With K that didn't happen. Essentially I've been bleeding off and on ever since I had him (and he's now 5 months old.) It's not usually heavy, except when I assume I'm having an actual period. It's not always easy to tell because it doesn't exactly stop much though. I complained about it to my OB nurse (boy, you better believe I called in-- who wants this kind of thing going on forever???) but she was of the opinion that it was probably just because it was my fourth kid and things were taking awhile getting back to normal. My OB prescribed some Provera and left it at that. The Provera made a difference-- for about a week. Then I was back to spotting every day.

Ugghhh.

It was getting to the point where I was mentally considering a hysterectomy, anything to make it stop!!!! Then one evening I scratched myself under my nose with my fingernail. (Kind of like that minor paper cut Bella gets in New Moon. Should be no big deal, right?)

I couldn't get the bleeding to stop.

Nothing worked. Not direct pressure, not Band-aids, not cayenne pepper, not cornstarch, not Vaseline. I had my mother on the phone looking up every possible remedy to stop bleeding short of stitches. I couldn't feed K because if I let up pressing tissue to my face, the blood would drip down my chin onto his head. My mother made the 45 minute drive from her house to help me-- I was still bleeding when she got here. Two hours later, she suggested that I might have to go to the ER, but I balked at that. $150 co-pay for a fingernail scratch! No way.

It took over four hours to get the bleeding stopped. After that, we began to wonder if my perpetual menstrual bleeding was being caused by something else so I went to see my family doctor. She ran a whole bunch of blood tests-- it took five or six vials of blood, which my freely-bleeding body had no trouble supplying. Well, the blood tests are back, and my results are normal, but my doc is pretty sure she knows what the problem is. It's the Zoloft I'm taking. Apparently Zoloft (and the whole class of similar anti-depressants) have a possible side effect of bleeding problems.

So the dilemma. Do I go off the anti-depressants? Or do I continue to bleed like I'm on Plavix? My doctor had me phase out the Zoloft and phase in Wellbutrin. I don't know much about the anti-depressants, but I guess this one is in a whole different class and works very differently. She's a bit concerned that it won't work as well for me-- I have to have a check up soon to make sure I'm not reacting poorly to it.

I can't help but be a little worried. The Zoloft worked so well for me-- and like everyone who voted in my poll, I'd rather bleed than be depressed. But so far, the bleeding has stopped, and I'm not moping about the house, so hopefully this is going to work. Fingers crossed!!!!!