My Period Collapsed My Lung
Here’s something that I was unwilling to broadcast many months ago.
My period collapsed my lung. Not once, but twice. And then it continued to collapse from my hormones, even when continuous birth control took away my period.
It’s medically and scientifically more complicated than my regular 28-day cycle. Endometriosis found a way to my diaphragm, it carved holes there and left my lung and chest cavity vulnerable. The air pressure in the cabin got all out of whack, and things got scary. I had shortness of breath for the first time in my life. I had chest pain on both sides of my chest and pain up my arm and across my shoulder and rib cage. This is what it feels like when your lung is collapsing.
Not coincidentally, my period came around the same time as these symptoms. Initially, I didn’t know there was a connection. Even though Spontaneous Pneumothoraxes (lung collapses) rarely occur in women or short, curvy people. Science has discovered that a lung collapse is possible for a woman on her period, and it is hormonal. The Endometriosis becomes agitated with that estrogen flux and the Endo fenestrations on my diaphragm created a perfect storm for my right lung.
When it happened a second time, at the same time of the month, I wondered what kind of shit luck this was. Is this the woman’s curse, times a million? It felt ridiculously unkind of the universe. I had been tracking my periods for two years, aware of my fertility and trying for a baby.
In the hospital, I remember my period being so heavy but feeling no pain. I was on all kinds of pain meds for chest tubes, but the period was as present as ever. Nurses had to help me manage in the bathroom, it was very humbling, and hard to find words for. What I do know is those nurses were women, and I felt a sisterhood with them. I was not embarrassed — not at the time. Looking back, I feel really uncomfortable about it.
I asked one doctor who visited me: I had my period both times my lung collapsed, do you think there is a connection?
He said it could be hormonal.
This would have been good information to have on board when my lung collapsed for the first time. I had to connect the dots for myself. I had to ask about it, then do the independent online research.
The third time I was in the hospital, I became acquainted with the nurses as ‘the one whose lung collapses with her period’. I became the example, to let all the women know that this happens, including the nurses and doctors, who didn’t seem to understand that — prior to me becoming their patient.
What I know now is that I fit the description for a woman at-risk. My mom and other women in my family have Endometriosis, I’ve had painful periods all my life, and in my late-30s I was at an age that seems to attract cycle-associated issues. What we didn’t know about Endometriosis caused me a lot of grief.
Let it be known — when a woman shows up to the ER with a ‘spontaneous pneumothorax’, one possibility is Endometriosis, thoracic or diaphragmatic. And every woman and medical professional needs to know that.
