My Body and it's Weirdnesses

            I have always had a sensitive spirit which I believe has translated to a sensitive body as well.  When I was little I had an enlarged tonsil and was sick a lot.  In middle school I got bronchitis often and one time it developed into pneumonia.  When I got my period at 12 my cramps were immobilizing.  When I was 19, I developed a stomach condition associated with stress called Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  At 24, I knew that I was pregnant before I was able to take a test due to the way my body felt.  I have always been fairly in tune with my body and having a child only increased that tendency.  I fought through 15 hours of hard labor at home with no pain medication feeling every change taking place within me.  I become nauseous when I ovulate, and over the past year my body has been telling me that something is NOT right.  I've been experiencing flu like symptoms 5-10 days prior to beginning my monthly period.  Low grade fever, extreme fatigue, muscle ache, horrible breast pain, etc. all every month and then I get to be on my period for 7 days!  It was in part due to these symptoms that I finally found a gyno after 5 yrs post baby.  In addition to the extreme breast pain during my pms week I had also been having a sensation of pain or swelling for over a year intermittently throughout the month.  During these occasions my breasts would feel like there was fluid blocked in my breast that needed to be released.  So, I  consulted the Gyno.  She manually expressed fluid and did a physical exam of my breasts on two different visit’s a couple of months apart.  She then told me that she thought I had a condition called duct ectasia which was a condition that caused fluid to get backed up in the ducts.  She said that this was not her specialty and she would refer me to a Breast Surgeon, apparently they are the specialists.  She also said that she believes I fall into a very small category of women that are Highly sensitive to the drop in progesterone that occurs in the second half of the monthly cycle.  This is why I have been having all the flu like symptoms.  Her solution: “Get rid of my periods” .  Now, I have not been on any birth control in 9 years and really like it that way, so this suggestion made me nervous.  However, I have been miserable and ill for two weeks every month which does not work with my active lifestyle.  So she wrote a script for birth control and I went home and started researching and thinking about my options.