“Hi, I’m Shira. I’m sharing my story to hopefully raise awareness and help other people that might be going through this or have some of the same symptoms.

I was diagnosed with pelvic congestion syndrome.

My path to get to that diagnosis was kind of long and bumpy to get to the help that I needed. So, I’m hopeful that this will shed a little light.

My symptoms actually started out where I had a lot of pressure and heaviness that was happening.

It was a little bit odd, but you kind of keep going. You’re not thinking too much about it, but it continued to get worse and worse.

I was realizing that I was almost holding my stomach a lot because the pressure was really intense.

Over time, even when I would sit down, it was like I was pregnant, but I wasn’t. Then when I would stand up, it felt like my insides might come out. It was so heavy. It was a little bit odd.

I kind of kept going, but when you say you have stomach pain or issues, it’s such a broad spectrum, nobody really knew what it was. It got to the point where even just general walking was becoming uncomfortable.

I would feel that pressure no matter what I was doing. Day and night. Even sleeping, I could feel the pressure.”

So, eventually I went to my gynecologist because I had pain down there so I thought it was a good place to start. I explained everything to her. We went through a lot of testing, some pretty extensive internal examinations and sonograms and different things.

Everything looked good, but there were really no answers to why I was feeling that. So she suggested going to a GI doctor, which I did. It still seemed to make sense so I went to the GI doctor.

I went through a colonoscopy and endoscopy and again everything looked great which was good. But back to no answers. Time went on and I didn’t really know where to go.

I had a new primary care doctor and went to the initial visit. I explained that I was going through this and I also had some swelling in my feet and a little bit of pain. She said it’s probably nothing but why don’t you get checked out by a vascular doctor.

She referred me to Dr. Wright. I went through the initial testing, the ultrasounds of the abdomen and the legs.

I have to say that I was really impressed because when the results came back, he spent over an hour with me going over all the questions, going through in detail different things. As we were talking and going through it, he started asking me more pointed questions about the pressure I was feeling, which at that point had gotten quite severe.

He was asking me questions and I felt like he got it. The other doctors weren’t really sure, but he heard what I was saying and could repeat things back or ask different questions. And I would say, yes, that is what it feels like, or that is a symptom.

It turned out I had a lot of vascular issues, but one of them was the pelvic congestion syndrome. So, I asked what’s that.”

From my understanding, women have two uterine veins that come up. Veins are supposed to send blood upwards, but one of mine was leaking which was causing the blood to come down and pool and accumulate. This was causing that pain and congestion.

So, we talked through all of that. He answered all my questions. He was really helpful and spent a lot of time with me, which was really good. It was so validating because I had gone through so much. I was probably two and a half, maybe three years in.

It had started gradually so it wasn’t that terrible in the beginning but it had gotten to that point where I couldn’t even sit for long periods of time or sleep well because it was just pressure and pain and discomfort going on.

We talked about the options, about surgery and how non-invasive it is and how much it could help. So we went in that direction.

The procedure was actually very simple. It’s laproscopic, so not very invasive. They go in, and he has a scope and a monitor and he’s checking everything out. He checked the right side and everything looked good. He checked the left side and he could see the leaking and the pooling which was the source of the pain.”

So, he puts a coil in and he watches and he monitors. It did slow it down, but he could still see some leaking. So, he put another coil in and waits a watches. Then he could see that it pretty much closed that whole vein, which is what it was supposed to do.

So, there was no more pooling or leaking of the blood going down. He was satisfied so he buttons everything up.

I go into recovery. I just want to share that going through 3 years of not really knowing and just kind of dealing with it. But then it getting progressively worse and nobody really understanding.

It was day and night from when I had the surgery to the next day and how I felt. I mean all of those symptoms were gone. It was pretty amazing.

I came back in for the follow-up almost glowing. I was so excited. He was even a little shocked because it was just a drastic change and I’m so so thankful that he diagnosed it when no one else could. That he knew how to fix it and that I felt better. That was the biggest deal.

That is pretty much my story. I wanted to share it so if anybody’s going through it, has pain and discomfort and swelling and that pressure that’s just hard to explain but it’s there and you know it’s there and you’re feeling it…I would highly recommend that you look into it, seek it out and hopefully they can help you.

If it’s pelvic congestion syndrome, which is really undiagnosed or misdiagnosed a lot of the time. So if this helps raise awareness, good, I hope you get the help because I feel so much better.

It’s been 11 months now and I’m doing great. I hope I can help someone else. That’s my story.