ovarian follicle?

the ovary theory:

when i get gastroenteritis, perhaps it presses against the ovary. maybe there IS a little bit of appendix swelling, but not a lot. maybe it's true, the appendix might swell a small amount every time you get a stomach virus, and most people don't know it, and don't need to do anything about it, and it takes care of itself.

so it presses against the ovary there and causes pain, which is noticeable at the same time as the gastroenteritis.

here is how the idea got in my head. i glanced at a page mentioning several other things that can cause pain in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen, and the ovary was on that list.

there are some symptoms that might suggest i have problems with my ovaries, but they're not quite the 'classic symptoms' of polycystic ovary disease. still, it might be milder than some other people's cases. i have whiskers, but i don't take that as an absolute guarantee of a hormone problem, especially because i have had TWO trips to the doctor where i've gotten blood tests done and they said 'All of your hormones are normal.' Both times.

i also take the position that the modern lifestyle contains chemicals that act like hormones, which affect some people worse than others. xenohormones, xenoestrogen, etc. i am a feingold-diet kid, which indicates that i do benefit from avoiding certain chemicals.

since this is on retmeishka, i will say this. i've been hesitating to talk openly on my other blog, because i started getting news articles saying that employers will google people and find their blogs while you're applying for a job there. and i've been rejected for several jobs. and i had a 'battle of wills' telling me to start blogging openly about psychotronics and hearing voices. i'm going to change a couple things and might make my other blog temporarily anonymous. that could be making employers not hire me.

so, anyway, it was one of the voices that called my attention to 'ovary' as being a theory i should think about.

since it was a voice, my instinctive reaction is to reject it, except for the fact that it's in one of those areas where i DO accept 'advice' sometimes from the voices and the hackers who send me relevant news articles.

if i were writing songs, then i WOULD be very angry and reject all forms of 'advice,' and i would be in direct conflict with them, because writing songs is a CREATIVE activity that involves expressing emotions, and it is very unique and personal and can't be done 'collaboratively' or 'cooperatively' with the voices in your head trying to put their two cents in. but in the realm of medicine, i do accept alternative viewpoint suggestions, and this ovarian cyst theory is one of those times.

here is the rest of the ovarian cyst theory. i felt sure that i hadn't ovulated this month. my cervical mucus texture didn't change. i hadn't felt the tiny sharp pain that i sometimes feel in the area of the ovary.

i had read an article saying that the circadian rhythm, using visible light, can trigger ovulation. they related it to the full moon. they said that sleeping with the lights on for three days, as though there was a full moon, would trigger ovulation by affecting the circadian rhythms of the body, whichever gland it is, the pituitary gland.

since i was sick anyway and feeling awful and wanted to be able to see the pathway to the bathroom if i had to go throw up, i slept with the lights on for a couple nights. then, there was the 'something ruptured in my abdomen, and it wasn't the appendix' incident.

the next morning i bled a little bit and i thought i was starting my period. but then, the bleeding stopped. it was vaginal blood, not rectal, and it had nothing to do with my appendix.

that spot of vaginal bleeding would be blood from the ovarian cyst that ruptured; apparently it was a worse-than-usual cyst. i don't know if it's proper to call it a 'cyst' or just a normal ovarian follicle.

there are some fights going on with the other personas, voices, attitudes, and beliefs. one attitude says that there is something to disapprove of, to frown upon, if you misdiagnose yourself, if you make a mistake. something to be ashamed of if you mistakenly believe one idea, then change your mind about it afterwards.

i was talking about this to peter and i observed that there were some situations where i had originally dismissed people's claims about things, only to change my mind over a period of years and gradually come to agree with them. for instance, the best example i can think of is that long ago, some woman told me that reheated foods made her sick. i forget who it was. i thought that she was making a mistake and she was misunderstanding something. but now, i've come to agree. reheated foods DO have chemical changes that reduce the quality of the foods. the fats and proteins DO change when they've been on heat for a long time, or are reheated over and over. so i agree now that reheated foods could make people sick. her observations and her knowledge were probably right. she may have observed it on her own, and also read it and researched it.

so it seems humiliating or bad to think that i have appendicitis, then change my mind about it - and worse yet, to have it happen because the voices in my head were talking to me about it.

there is also something disapproved-of about female hormone problems, polycystic ovary syndrome, and things like that. it's hard to explain. i have conflicting attitudes. one attitude is that i am a natural hair lover, and i don't see it as 'wrong' for one woman to have more facial hair than some other woman (or for some particular man to have more or less hair than some other). most people immediately think that there is something wrong with female facial hair.

i think it shouldn't be taken as a sign of illness right away, unless there are OTHER symptoms that really are causing problems. and you shouldn't strive to get rid of the hair just for the sake of getting rid of it because it's wrong, and you shouldn't judge the success or failure of your treatment based on whether or not the woman still has facial hair afterwards and is therefore still having a 'hormone problem.' 'getting rid of excess hair' shouldn't be the one and only thing you're trying to do whenever you treat a female hormone problem. you should get rid of undesired symptoms such as fatigue and infertility and cramps.

but i like to accept variations in hair patterns and i like ethnic and genetic variety, and 'excess' female hair is part of that.

plus, the other thing i just thought of is that the vast majority of women who have facial hair HIDE it, so that you can't even be aware that this 'symptom' even exists. it's very, very common, but almost everybody shaves it off, waxes it, or bleaches it, or has it electrolysized. (i'm not sure if i spelled that correctly.)

if the symptom exists, but it's hidden, because people are doing external cosmetic things to make it invisible, then you can't know whether it's a common, ordinary phenomenon, versus an extremely rare phenomenon that indicates a problem. in our society, doctors aren't familiar with the normal variations in the patterns of body hair, because so many people shave almost everything off of their bodies, and they shave and pluck their eyebrows, and they cut their hair. nobody has any information about what people's hair variations would look like if they were left alone. how many people would grow floor-length hair? (my furthest point stops at just above the knee, where the hair is tapered off to just a few hairs remaining, but most of the hair stops around the waist level. i call it 'classic length.') how many women have mustaches and beards? how many caucasian people's eyebrows cross over their nose bridge? (that's seen as a bad thing in the usa, partly because it's associated with arabian or middle eastern ethnic groups.)

we don't ever SEE the normal variations in hair patterns because people remove all of their hair. so you can't just look at me, and say 'she has a mustache, therefore her hormone problems must be really bad.' there are dozens of other women with mustaches who wax them off, but they haven't all been diagnosed with hormone problems. the government maybe would start requiring all cosmetic products intended to remove female facial hair to have a cautionary warning saying that female facial hair is an abnormality and a sign of disease, and if you are using this product, you are hiding an important symptom, and so you should go to a doctor to get your hormones checked if you feel the need to use this cosmetic product.

(and i'm a libertarian/anarchist, so i'm NOT advocating that the government should do that.)

i don't have much time left to write. but i'm pretty sure now, after changing my mind, and hearing the opinions of 'the others,' that i think i ruptured an ovarian follicle in a worse than usual way for some reason. and that i am now ovulating, or attempting to ovulate at least.

(on another topic which i don't have time to get into, i also noticed that i liked the way i smelled for a day or two before that. it was in the 'perfume' category of smell, which i guess is described as 'musky,' but i'm not sure if that's the correct word referring to it. even though i am no longer using any perfumed deodorants, shampoo, or soap, i still sometimes have a perfume-like scent. it's definitely noticeable in the past couple days, along with a sharper smell which is probably related to the foods that i am eating or the stress of being sick. i had to mention it.)