am i alone in this?

i'm 19. but i feel like i'm 99. i've felt this way since i was 17.

two years ago, my life turned upside down. it seemed that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. it was one hit after another from the news of my father's affair to sexual harassment at work. then my health started failing.

it started out with my periods. for a couple years, they had been really off. i'd go months without having one. then when i did have one, it would be so incredibly painful. cramps to the point where i passed out. headaches for days. pms like you wouldn't believe. i guess during those years i didn't think much of it...too ashamed to talk of it or just not worried it could be serious. other girls i knew had period issues and were fine. but when i was 17, everything got worse. my cramps would last for over a week when i wasn't even bleeding. i started having mood swings, irritability and hot flashes. i felt like i was going into menopause. then my acne came full force. on top of that, i started noticing dark hair where a woman shouldn't have dark hair (my chin, my stomach). i gained a few pounds unexpectedly. so i tried out the doctor.

i started at my family doc. i thought it was polycystic ovarian syndrome (i had most of the symptoms). she told me that my hair growth was nothing (i was plucking nearly every day and still not able to keep up with my "beard") and that i wasn't fat enough to have pcos. just to shut me up, she ran a blood test and ultrasound and sent me to the obgyn. she also sent me to a psychiatrist to stop my mood swings (i never made that appointment). all the tests came back "normal" and the obgyn prescribed me a medicine used for menopausal women. i never even tried that prescription.

soon after these appointments, i noticed that i'd been having a lot of joint pain and just general fatigue. i could barely make it out of bed. i was just feeling crappy. not like i was about to turn 18 and head off to college. so i went to a rheumatologist. she was nice and ran a bunch of tests to rule out everything. when those came back normal, i was sent on my way with a muscle relaxant and an arthritic pain reliever. then my head started hurting. every day. migraines with nausea and sensitivity to sound. my next appointment was with the neurologist. she was also nice and ran more tests. an MRI showed there were no tumors and blood tests came back with a low B12 level but that's it. she sent me on my way with an antidepressant (to help me sleep) and migraine/tension headache medicine. i filled two of the prescriptions: the headache medicine and the muscle relaxant. they just made me tired. more so than i already was. the neurologist also sent me back to the rheumatologist who (at a loss for anything but needing something) diagnosed me with fibromyalgia and prescribed more medicines (that i didn't even try). i also saw two different dermatologists for the acne, who prescribed antibiotic treatment (which never worked but gave me plenty of urinary tract infections and yeast infections) and birth control.

i went off to college the spring after these appointments, heavy hearted that i didn't know what was wrong with my body but still felt horrible. i tried an internal medicine doctor in the college town i moved to. she ran more tests, came back with nothing and put me on an antidepressant. i tried it for a month, feeling so desperate to be fixed. during the time i was on it, i had two mental breakdowns (2 in a 30 day period compared to maybe 2 in a 90 day period). needless to say, i went off them.

when i went back home for the summer, i tried another obgyn. she didn't say much about the irregular periods. she prescribed birth control, which i started immediately. they say wait 3 months to let your body adjust. so i did. i waited and waited. by the 6th month, my body was the same as it ever was. my cramps were worse now because i was having them every month instead of intermittently. there was horrible nausea. plus i was craving so many horrible, fattening foods (didn't happen as much when i wasn't on the pill). i'm sure i gained 5 pounds just from the pill. so i went off that as well.

two months after going off the pill (which brings me to the present), i got severe pain in my sides. within 24 hours, it progressed to horrible stabbing pain on my right side. i went in for an emergency ultrasound only to find out i had ovarian cysts and one ruptured. now i've finally been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (the first thing i went in for!!!!) which is now called anovulatory syndrome (basically, i'm infertile at the moment). with the arrival of this news, i have been prescribed a different birth control (the 4 period a year one to lessen the days i'm indisposed) with narcotic pain killers. so far, i haven't filled either. i'll tolerate the pain over putting their meds in my bodies. and the birth control is known to cause months of breakthrough bleeding (which i'd prefer not to have!).

here we are, in the now, and i'm still having all these issues. yet i've seen a total of 8 separate doctors with multiple appointments with most of them. and tried many of their prescriptions. only to be stuck at the same point in time. i'm not any better. granted, i'm not getting much worse. my periods obviously are. and my acne/hair growth have their days. but overall, i'm stagnant. i'm stuck in this spot of being 19 years old and feeling 99. the saddest part of this all is that i know i'm not alone. i know there are other women out there who are 30 and feel 90 or 25 and feel 75. when we shouldn't. we should be in the prime of our lives, getting our degrees, making our way in the world, having kids, marrying amazing partners, traveling the globe. we shouldn't be worrying about packing our suitcase too much because the muscle weakness leaves us unable to lift much. we shouldn't be confined to our beds every month because of severe cramping and heavy clotting. we just shouldn't.