HSG

It's my CD6 and I had an HSG this afternoon.

I'm not going to sugar coat it....it hurt like total hell.  Here's what happened

I arrive and get registered and everything.  The nurse takes me back to a typical looking x-ray room where I changed into a gown but only had to get undressed from the waste down.  The radiology tech took a quick preliminary x-ray before the doctor arrived.  A few minutes later the doctor arrived and we chatted a little bit about how I was doing w/ my meds and stuff.  At that point he positioned me at the end of this awful cold hard steel bed.  I had my feet propped up on the edge of the table so that it was similar to being in stirrups.  He injected something into my cervix and that's where the pain began.  It felt like getting shots into your gums when you're about to get a filling.  Those were done three times then he swabbed my cervix with antiseptic and with medication to help prevent infection.  That felt similar to getting a pap smear.  When he enter the catheter used to insert the dye, it burned and stung a little.  At this point, I had to scoot up on the table so that I was under the x-ray machine with the speculum and catheter still inside...that was a little awkward.  He put some of the dye into my uterus and then I had to semi-turn to the right and he put more dye in and then I turned to my left where more dye went it.  When I was facing the right...it hurt horribly.  I was almost in tears but I held it back and kept taking deep breaths.  It was a sharp, cramping, throbbing, burning kind of pain.  I was told by people who've had the procedure that it feels like menstrual cramps..but that is a huge lie.  It is WAY worse than that.  Then the doctor pulled the catheter and speculum out which wasn't bad because my focus was on the pain in my uterus area.  The dye was pouring out of me.  I felt like I was peeing on the table.  Driving home I felt great and about an hour later I started having mild pain.  You know that dull ache you get when you leave a tampon in too long? That's what I felt like.  I'm 9 hours post procedure and I'm feeling pretty good.  I really only had dye leakage for about 4 hours afterwards and it wasn't anything a pantiliner couldn't handle. 

Last night I took 600mg of ibuprofen, at 7am this morning I took 800mg and another 800mg about an hour before the HSG was done.  I also ate a decent lunch 6in turkey from Subway.  This is what I was instructed to do by the doctor and I really think it helped a lot. 

The positive is that the procedure was super quick.  Also, I had no blockage or abnormalities.  Hopefully the dye "cleaned out the cobwebs" and I get pregnant soon!  The funny thing....my left fallopian tube is curled! It has one loop right in the middle.  Doc assured me that it's normal and doenst cause problems but to me it seems like it would make it harder for the little guys to get to the egg.  I need to google it and see just how loopy I am compared to the rest of the world :)

I plan to buy some ovulation tests this weekend and start testing.  I'm curious to know if I am going to ovulate with just taking Actos.

Was the HSG as bad as I planned it in my head? Yes, most definitely and I hope I never have to go through that again!