My Endometriosis Diary Part III

You could say that yoga saved me, to quite an extent. After my IVFs I would be hospitalised for days because of extreme pain in the pelvis. Nobody could really figure out the reason, except for that it was endometriosis related. The painkillers never helped and after a few days of agony, the pain would subside on its own. By now I was on a low-dose birth control pill called Loette 20. It helped partially, in the sense that my periods were not painful or heavy. but once or twice a year I would succumb to agonising pain. 

I don’t know why more women don’t take birth control (BCP), because not only do they regulate your period, they also reduce the flow, and remove pain.  When I first began taking the pill, I asked my doctor about weight gain, which is supposedly the main side effect of taking it. She said that BCPs don’t directly make you put on weight, but they do make you hungrier. So really it was all about keeping your mouth zipped and making the right choices in food. The extent, severity and symptoms depend a lot on your lifestyle. But it has to begin with early diagnosis and treatment with the help of an experienced doctor. 

When I started yoga I was still getting these bouts of extreme pain. But once I started practicing, I didn’t have them for many years. Many years back I have taken Zoladex injections to control endometriosis. The doctor told me that I would put on a lot of weight, which would never go away. Zoladex makes you temporarily menopausal, so even your body becomes a bit bulkier like it would for a woman undergoing menopause. From a size six I had become a size 14 and the weight didn't budge until I started yoga.

When I began my aim was not to lose weight. After all the doctor had told me that my body would never change, so I didn't even expect it. I practiced to do something constructive, to feel better, to clear my mind. In fact my first month of yoga was before my fifth (and last) IVF, so I did it to facilitate a pregnancy. And when that didn't happen I did it to get over it.

I went to the studio everyday, sometimes even twice a day. I always reached on time and did yoga not just as an exercise but as breath work and meditation in motion. I guess that’s the reason behind it working so beautifully for me. I lost weight, found my tribe at the studio, my guruji Seema Sondhi, my closest friends. For the longest time it removed all symptoms of the disease, but unlike PCOS, which can be cured with yoga, endometriosis is incurable. 

...To be continued

Lead image: Shutterstock