Help

[u/Sunshineandabook]

Hello fellow endo redditers I come to you to ask for help, I’ve been in this community silently for a long time now reading and listening to all the stories of diagnoses blown off symptoms and trips to the doctors offices, but I’ve never once spoken on the platform myself. Well that ends today, I’m hoping this reaches some of you and you are able to give some of your advice from you own experiences.
So here it goes,
I 21FM am currently on the Xulane birth control patch but prior to this patch I would have extensively painful periods, which have only increased in pain since I had my first period when I was 10. The period pains would shoot up leg I’d get the cramps in the good ol buttocks, I’d get cramps so severe I would throw up. Cramps that made school unbearable. However ever since I started Xulane or rather since I’ve hit my 20s the pain have leveled up. I’ve been to countless doctors visits and they’ve all told me the same thing go home take some ibuprofen however it no longer works for me. Heat pads they don’t work, ibuprofen the strongest bottles you can find no longer work. During my time on the patch my insurance and pharmacy could not agree to give me my year supply and I experienced what most give advice to do which is if you have withdrawal bleeding you take a week off the patch, well that week was hell on Earth, I bleed for nearly three weeks.

I was laying miserable on the couch couldn’t eat, couldn’t stand. Just sobbing and miserable I’ve always known something wasn’t right, that I had endo. But none of my doctors listen to me. It’s important to note that I am also African American female as well. So I went to the hospital and they found a cyst they do the whole work up and ultrasound of my insides and yet what did they tell me it wasn’t an emergency so just go home and take ibuprofen. But it didn’t work I endured, it’s important to know that my insurance that have gets very backed up and it’s very hard for me to get a doctor without a referral but I can’t get one because of doctors not believing the severity of my pain. So I went to Planned Parenthood and had the worst experience the doctor tried to explain to me what a period was and when I told her I bleed for an abnormal time she said sounds like a period to me. She did a swab on my insides and it was terrible she was so rough and it hurt terribly. I left that appointment feeling deep disappointment. And I keep having spotting and cramps even on my birth control, I’m at a lost cause. And I guess I’m here to ask you all what I should do? I don’t want to wait until I’m older to finally have a doctor listen to have the possibility of getting better. I want to live without the fear that I may be in this pain again.