caution: girlparts
Oct. 6th, 2008 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraWas just reading someone's blog wherein she described her hysterosalpingogram as "excruciating" and I remembered that I had wanted to write something about mine here and never did.
What I wanted to write was more or less "mine was easy and my worry was misplaced", but let me back up a step for everyone going "your whoosiwhat now?". An HSG is an X-ray imaging of the uterus and Fallopian tubes (I warned y'all about the girlparts) via the injection of contrast dye. It's one of the first-line tests they do in cases of possible infertility. (We'd only been trying for about eight months, but I saw no point in not finding out as soon as possible if we were going to need to escalate to some sort of assisted conception or whatever else.)
I had read scary things about the severe pain and was pretty freaked out - I even made Josh come along in case I was so crippled by pain or sobbing or whatever that I couldn't drive myself home. This turned out to be entirely unnecessary; the insertion of the catheter through my cervix (girlparts girlparts girlparts!) was mildly uncomfortable, but less so than a pap smear, and the inflation of the little balloon that held it in place felt like menstrual cramps, but not as bad as my worst cramps. It was well worth the awesomeness of seeing my very own uterus on the viewscreen.
I should add that my parts turned out to be healthy and the dye spilled through one tube immediately and the other shortly thereafter; I understand that it's more painful if you turn out to have blocked tubes. And I did remember to take ibuprofen in advance which I'm sure helped. But I wanted to put my experience out there as a PSA for any of y'all who might someday have it done and come across the scary descriptions on the internet: at least one person you actually know says it was not a big deal. (Extra PSA for any male partners reading this: even if not excruciatingly painful, "catheterization" still way outscores "wanking" on the medical suffering scale, so your female partner still totally gets to be annoyed by the contrast in your contributions to this first round of testing.)
Oh, and one other thing: apparently sometimes just having the HSG done sort of "clears the way" for conception; we started the meeple on that cycle, which could easily just be a coincidence, but who knows? We had a pretty short "baby chase" as it turned out and I totally don't want to be all "I got lucky, you might too!" when I know it's not that easy for lots of people, but I would have to give two thumbs up to the HSG based on my own personal experience.
What I wanted to write was more or less "mine was easy and my worry was misplaced", but let me back up a step for everyone going "your whoosiwhat now?". An HSG is an X-ray imaging of the uterus and Fallopian tubes (I warned y'all about the girlparts) via the injection of contrast dye. It's one of the first-line tests they do in cases of possible infertility. (We'd only been trying for about eight months, but I saw no point in not finding out as soon as possible if we were going to need to escalate to some sort of assisted conception or whatever else.)
I had read scary things about the severe pain and was pretty freaked out - I even made Josh come along in case I was so crippled by pain or sobbing or whatever that I couldn't drive myself home. This turned out to be entirely unnecessary; the insertion of the catheter through my cervix (girlparts girlparts girlparts!) was mildly uncomfortable, but less so than a pap smear, and the inflation of the little balloon that held it in place felt like menstrual cramps, but not as bad as my worst cramps. It was well worth the awesomeness of seeing my very own uterus on the viewscreen.
I should add that my parts turned out to be healthy and the dye spilled through one tube immediately and the other shortly thereafter; I understand that it's more painful if you turn out to have blocked tubes. And I did remember to take ibuprofen in advance which I'm sure helped. But I wanted to put my experience out there as a PSA for any of y'all who might someday have it done and come across the scary descriptions on the internet: at least one person you actually know says it was not a big deal. (Extra PSA for any male partners reading this: even if not excruciatingly painful, "catheterization" still way outscores "wanking" on the medical suffering scale, so your female partner still totally gets to be annoyed by the contrast in your contributions to this first round of testing.)
Oh, and one other thing: apparently sometimes just having the HSG done sort of "clears the way" for conception; we started the meeple on that cycle, which could easily just be a coincidence, but who knows? We had a pretty short "baby chase" as it turned out and I totally don't want to be all "I got lucky, you might too!" when I know it's not that easy for lots of people, but I would have to give two thumbs up to the HSG based on my own personal experience.
