stomach pain switches sides
Pain in Ovaries? What could be the problem?
Every month, a few days before I start my period, I have pain in a single area where the ovaries are located. The side the pain is on switches every month. It only started about a year ago so it hasn’t been happening all my life or since I started my period (I am 18 years old).
Please do not suggest a doctors visit. We simply can’t afford that.
Before now, I associated it with cramps, but my friends have told me it isn’t normal, and another one said she thinks I might have an Ovarian Cyst (I looked it up, but I don’t have the symptoms). I also have cramps, but not like the sharp jabs to my ovary area. My cramps are more in my lower stomach.
To reiterate, the pain gets so intense that there have been times where I can not even talk, or I bow over and cry.
Thank you kateh, that was the kind of answer I was looking for 
I have the exact symptoms that you describe. As I understand it, before each period, a corpus luteum cystic gland forms on the ovary and produces progesterone. This is from the site where the egg was released. Since the ovary that produces the egg each month switches every other month, your pain should travel from one side to the other month to month. Technically it’s not an ovarian “cyst”, although it will feel like one on external palpation of the ovary. I guarantee that if you went to the doctor, they would feel the mass and send you in for an ultrasound just to make sure. That’s what happened to me, and it was nothing abnormal. Incidentally, I was 19 at the time that mine started to happen, and it’s been going on ever since.
As far as the pain, it definitely makes you gasp for air. If a trip to the doctor really is out of the question, the best thing you can do is anticipate when the pain is likely by keeping a chart of your cycle and taking aspirin or ibuprofen a couple days in advance of when the pain generally occurs. This certainly makes it more manageable in my experience. Otherwise, wait until your next GYN appointment for your annual pap smear (which you should be having EVERY YEAR now that you are 18 whether sexually active or not- before pap smears became routine, gynecological cancers were the leading cause of death in women, so it’s very important) and bring it up with her.
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