My Journey With Chronic Ovarian Cysts
This story will always be a difficult one for me to share. But there is so much beauty and expansion in overcoming a traumatic situation and finding healing amid our lowest points. In the end, I’m fortunate that my story ended up with a happy ending, because I decided to fully surrender into what was happening and dive deeply into myself to find healing. I also want to note that this is my experience—what worked for me might be different than what works for you. This is not medical advice and please consult your doctor if you believe you have any health issues.
The story begins in December 2017. I met a guy at SantaCon while living in New York City and ended up sleeping with him. He would go on to become my (toxic cheating) boyfriend, and I should have probably picked up on the first bad omen—which occurred during the first time we had sex. Somewhere within the blur of alcohol and excitement I suddenly developed severe pain in my abdomen and told him to get off of me (as calmly as one does during a one night stand while in excruciating pain). I played it cool and went to the bathroom to assess what the fuck just happened. Did he just literally break something inside of me? I wondered as I examined my swollen belly. I anxiously woke up my roommate to get her opinion. “You’re fine,” she assured me and rolled back over to sleep.
I warily climbed back into bed. In the morning, we had sex again, despite my pain and swollen abdomen. As terrible as I felt, I liked the boy and wanted him to stay around. Shortly afterwards, he left and my friends and I ventured to brunch. My belly was even more swollen and I felt a strange pressure as if it was filled with something. I was in pain, but I’d felt worse and tried to walk it off. But throughout brunch, not only did I not have an appetite, but the pain began to worsen and I suddenly felt nauseous.
“You don’t look so good,” my friends said. I decided to go to urgent care and see what they thought of this mysterious swelling and pain following sex. “I don’t like the way your belly looks. You should go to the ER,” a physician said after examining my abdomen. “Could be appendicitis.” At this point, I’m in a ton of pain and now I’m also so afraid. What the fuck could have possibly happened I wondered as I made my way to the ER.
My First Ovarian Cyst Rupture
Little did I know that this would become the first of many trips to the emergency room I would make over the course of the next 3.5 years. At the hospital, doctors were puzzled when I tested negative for appendicitis and other digestive issues. Finally, the healthcare practitioners decided to examine my uterus. After an ultrasound, they found an abundance of fluid and blood circulating in my abdomen, indicating a severe ovarian cyst rupture. “What?” I replied in tears as they checked my left ovary for a pulse. I didn’t even know what that meant. “Is my ovary OK?”
My ovary was fortunately OK, but I would have to spend the next few weeks recovering as the fluid reabsorbed back into my body. I had so many questions. First of all, I had never heard about this condition and wondered why I was not educated about ovarian cyst ruptures in the past. Secondly, I was afraid. How did I have no idea that I had a large ovarian cyst in my abdomen the past few weeks? Is there any kind of remedy to prevent ovarian cyst ruptures? Does this impact my fertility? While I focused on my recovery, I decided to dive deeply into researching the condition—but ultimately I did not have much luck as there is very little research done to understand ovarian cyst ruptures in the female body.
I also admittedly did not know that much about my menstrual cycle prior to my journey with ovarian cyst ruptures. I was a late bloomer with my period, getting it at age 16. They were also regular and fairly light aside from some cramps here and there. I never elected to go on birth control for pregnancy prevention—it personally never resonated with my intuition and I found other ways to prevent pregnancy throughout my sexual history. At this period of my life, I could not even name the four cycles of my period (they’re menstruation, follicular, ovulation, and luteal, by the way) let alone understand how women’s hormones fluctuate within a healthy cycle. Boy was I in for a wakeup call.
What Is an Ovarian Cyst Anyway?
When women ovulate, a cyst forms over the egg and ruptures to release the egg. It’s usually so minor that we do not normally feel them—but for some women the cysts do not rupture during ovulation and slowly collect fluid, eventually becoming so big that they rupture at a much larger size or must be removed surgically. There are four main types of cysts: functional, dermoid, cystadenoma, and endometrioma, and symptoms can include a bloated abdomen, nausea, localized pain, and changes in menstruation and/or hormones. Cysts on the ovaries can also be benign or cancerous. I was relieved to hear that mine was a non-cancerous simple cyst.
Following my ER ordeal, I made an OBGYN appointment. There, my OBGYN brushed off my rupture saying that they were “common”—and that the “only medical solution” was to go on birth control for hormone regulation. She also added that birth control doesn’t always work but we should try it anyway. “Why was my body not able to pass the egg?” I asked my doctor. She said they aren’t entirely sure why women develop ovarian cysts, but hormone imbalance could be at play, which is why birth control could potentially help. I took the birth control home but something in my intuition just didn’t sit right. I still had so many unanswered questions about why this had suddenly developed—why my hormones changed to become imbalanced in the first place.
At this point in my life, I had major health anxiety from some allergic reactions and traumatic ER experiences in high school, so I was (and am) always apprehensive about taking new medications unless absolutely needed. I decided to uncover what was throwing off my hormones instead of relying on birth control to do it for me. It was a risk, but it felt worth it to me. I understand that some women may have other medical problems impacting their cycles, but this just felt aligned with me and my body.
My Lifestyle in New York City
During my early 20’s, I was lucky enough to call the City That Never Sleeps home for several years. Following my graduation from Fordham University, I moved into Manhattan bright eyed and ready to dive head first into my new lifestyle. I was fascinated with the vibrant city lights, beautiful creative energy, and rich diversity of humans that live in Manhattan. Plus, it was a hub for some of the best magazines in the world, which was perfect to fulfill my dream job as a magazine writer and editor.
After countless rejections, I earned an internship at a notable brand in spring 2018. I was elated to get an internship in the industry despite all of my friends being almost one year into their careers—I didn’t care—I just wanted to pursue my passions. While looking back now, this is when my health really started to take a turn for the worse, but I didn’t see it at first. As a former D1 athlete, I was not unfamiliar with putting my physical and emotional health on the line to be better at my craft, and this state of mind unfortunately carried its way into how I handled my career in New York City.
Always hungry to succeed, I worked hours upon hours a day as a writer and editor at various magazine jobs over the years, often putting my body and mental health on the line just to meet a deadline or make sure a feature was perfect. This led to me putting my self-care to the side and losing touch with my body.
My idea of self-care became running 6-8 miles a day before or after work in exchange for a brief rush of endorphins. I was buzzed up on coffee and failed to nurture my body with nutrient dense foods due to a lack of hunger from constant anxiety. My anxiety and panic attacks quickly became debilitating because of my lifestyle, and over the course of the next 3+ years, I would go on to experience multiple ovarian cyst ruptures. Every rupture was even more painful and traumatic than the previous one. I felt completely out of control of my body, health, and life. My inner light began to dim and I completely lost myself. But, I had a cool job and interviewed celebrities so it was worth it, right?
That Time I Had Surgery… and Developed a Cyst Right After
Between 2017 and 2021, as I slowly began to climb the ranks of the corporate world, I continued to develop chronic ovarian cysts and ruptures periodically, landing myself in and out of the hospital. My anxiety and panic attacks became debilitating, as I never knew when I’d have another ovarian cyst rupture or if the next time I did, I would end up losing an ovary. I spent many sleepless nights in fear that I wouldn’t be able to have children, which was always a dream of mine.
While I would reject birth control over and over again, after every ovarian cyst rupture I would promise myself to get to the bottom of my health and hormone imbalance, but then I would prioritize one more deadline, interview, or event. I really risked it all by hoping my ovaries—and fertility—would be OK. I was lucky, despite it all. But I was also so fucking lost. In April of 2019, I learned that I would have to have surgery to remove a 5 cm. cyst on my left ovary. I also was diagnosed with fibrocystic breast disease, which is the presence of non-cancerous cysts in the breasts. The result? Painful, swollen breasts that are tender to touch. I spent many nights with ice packs on them, especially during my menstrual cycle.
Learning that I would need surgery rocked me and devastated me. The last time I had surgery was, interestingly enough, in my pelvic area for a double hernia repair when I was in 1st grade. It’s safe to say that I entered this lifetime carrying trauma in my womb, from my ancestors, past lives, females in general. As a highly sensitive child, I believe that I unconsciously stored a lot of these traumas in my womb space. I believe that in addition to my lifestyle, these energetic traumas in my womb contributed to my chronic ovarian cyst ruptures. Although I was terrified to have surgery, I was relieved to know that this large painful cyst that was causing my abdomen to look permanently bloated would be removed from my uterus. Large cysts also hold the risk of torsion and cutting off the blood supply of the ovary, which can threaten the life of the ovary. This is very dangerous and can even be life threatening in general. These thoughts and fears kept me up at night every time I had another ovarian cyst rupture between 2017 and 2021. Cue the extreme panic.
I underwent a laparoscopy in June 2019, which is considered a minor surgery. For what it’s worth, my surgeon became my new OBGYN, and although she encouraged me to take birth control in fear of risking the health of my ovaries, she also listened and respected my wishes to heal my body naturally, while offering suggestions. Prior to her, I admittedly developed a deep distrust for my western doctors throughout my journey with ovarian cysts, because I felt like every OBGYN I had seen looked at me like a set of symptoms, rather than an individual human who needed personalized care.
The Path to Healing
The surgery went “flawlessly” according to my OBGYN, who ended up removing the cysts from the outside of my right fallopian tube where it had traveled to. I was relieved that it was gone, but boy was I in for it the next few months. My body took about a year to recover from this surgery. The pain was horrendous—after taking pain killers on night one after I left the hospital, my highly sensitive body did not sleep for a minute because I felt awful on them, so I went pain med-free throughout my recovery. My abdomen remained bloated for several weeks after surgery, and whenever I would overexert myself in a workout such as running months after, it would bloat right back up. I simply felt like I could not recover. This triggered trauma and fear as I could never tell if I had yet another cyst or was still recovering. Well, it turned out to be both. Just three months after surgery, I developed another ovarian cyst, and this is when I almost lost all hope.
In January 2020, everything came to a head and I hit my lowest point of stress, anxiety, and health. Just days before my 24th birthday, I learned I had another large ovarian cyst on my left ovary, fibrocystic breast disease, and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). This hit me like a bus, and everything changed with these diagnoses. I knew at this moment that I had to make some serious changes or else my health and fertility were in danger. I dove deeply into connecting with my womb and embarked on a healing process that would go on to change my life forever. I explored a range of alternative therapies including yoga, reiki therapy, meditation, acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, functional medicine, Ayurveda, breath work, Kangen water, yoni steaming, yoni crystal wand work, and so much more. (Read more about How I Healed My Body of Chronic Ovarian Cysts here.)
Eventually, I found healing once I quit my corporate job and moved to Hawai’i to explore a more flexible lifestyle as a freelance writer, a yoga instructor, and a reiki practitioner. My connection with my womb is stronger than ever, and I now believe that I am embodying my true dharma. Prior to my journey with ovarian cysts, I was heavily in my masculine, stuck in a pattern of giving, giving, giving, doing doing doing all of the time. The ovaries represent the female creative centers of the body, and by failing to prioritize my self-care and allow myself to receive and play, I created an energetic imbalance of these two polarities in my body, resulting in illness.
The Power of Surrendering
I share this story with you to remind you that our bodies are always on our side. When our health is threatened, we are forced to surrender everything to try to be well. When you’re sick with a fever, you have to rest. When you have a chronic illness that impacts all facets of your being like I did, you have to do everything to find healing, and it changes your perspective on life permanently. My journey with my ovarian cysts has become my greatest gift because of the woman I came to embody by healing my inner traumas, switching up my lifestyle, taking risks in the name of my health and intuition, and aligning with my dharma. I feel strong and empowered.
If you have ovarian cysts or a reproductive illness, just know that you are not alone and you do not have to feel helpless. There are plenty of paths—including both western and eastern approaches—to finding healing. Instead of trying to escape your body out of fear, surrender and turn within. Commit to your healing process, ask your body what she is trying to tell you, and you will find the answers you seek. Connect with your womb. The healing is in the journey. The power is in the healing. You can do it. Thanks for taking the time to read my story. I do hope it helps you. I love you.