Hey everybody !

Last year my partner and I decided to get some fertility tests due to TTC for approx. 2 years to no success.

As it turned out, we both came up with problems.

For him as he went a few months sooner than I, a low overall semen work up due to a herniated testicle at infancy (which we expected) that we were told should still be fine when trying to conceive and will only make it take a little longer.

So I was thinking “totally fine, no need to panic. Surely we aren’t that unlucky that I too have something”.

Fast forward about 3 months, I’m sitting in my doctors office waiting for the results from my fertility blood work. Super calm and collected, assuming everything’s all dandelions and lollipops.

Yeaaaa not so. Within 2 seconds of exchanging hellos, she says 2 words that sent me into a bit of shock. Pituitary. Tumour. I knew nothing of what that meant other than the word Tumour as a rule being really bad, and my pituitary gland (thanks Science class for the basic anatomy education) being in my head. So obviously all I could think was “holy poop on a stick I have a brain tumour! I’m gonna die! Omg! No!” I hardly could hear anything my doctor said after that point, aside from needing to go for an MRI and (totally unrelated) needing to redo my MMR vaccine (cause apparently my body gave the first 2 the ol’boot in the booty hehes).

Of course, I spent the rest of the day overthinking, contacting family, crying, looking to doctor google for answers (yeah DONT DO THAT), and then came across a YouTube channel (Laura Hoyda check her out she’s super sweet) and exchanged emails with her to inquire about the condition. She settle all my insecurities about it and I calmed the eff down, THANK YOU LAURA!

Turns out it’s not at all life threatening, it’s not cancerous, it just messes with your ovulation basically. Unless it’s big then you could potentially lose your eyesight starting with peripheral vision but that takes quite some time without treatment usually.

Prolactin (if y’all don’t know) is the hormone most commonly found in pregnant or breast feeding women. It has a hand in ovulation, menstruation, and causes leaky boobies (hehes) in some folk. Anyways, totally not normal for someone who does not fall into those 2 categories and causes a host of issues ie; no ovulation (annovulation), absent or irregular periods, breast milk production (galactorrhea) , acne, weight gain, osteoporosis, headaches, anxiety issues, painful sex due to vaginal dryness, etc. Everyone is different so symptoms may be in different varieties and severities. For example, in all the time I’ve had the condition I’ve only leaked “milk” (it’s more like water when the cause is not related to childbirth) once, and in a very very small amount. It was freaky but it didn’t happen again since. Because I was unsure if any of these were symptoms in the beginning and assumed they were normal body things I neglected to disclose it with my GP in the beginning, so MAKE SURE you tell your doc everything you think might be odd. Also, if your GP tells you to google info about the condition, stand up to them because my doc did that and it’s a BS waste of tax dollars or even your own dollars for a trained professional to suggest google as a means of education. Dumb dumb dumb.

So I go for my first MRI, I’m told it’s inconclusive, so I go for another and VOILA, the teeniest little devil I ever laid my eyes on! 3mm Microadenoma that packs a punch in all it’s prolactin glory. My first MRI wasn’t inconclusive at all in fact, they just wanted to see if there were any changes between scans, there were not.

So fast forward to 4 days ago, I’m chilling for an abominably long time in my brand new Endocrinologists office (the hormone doctors us lovely folk deal with after diagnosis of a pituitary adenoma/tumour) and get my “treatment plan” so I can get back to the baby dance. I say treatment plan because my tumour is too small to be worth removing by way of surgery, and instead was given the medicinal route.

I was set up with a 3 month supply of Bromocriptine, taken once (half dose to start, full dose in a few days) at bed time with food. My partner and I were pleasantly surprised when my endocrinologist said we could conceive in as little as one cycle once beginning this medication. He was literally floored, I later had to tell him “you know we’d have a full 9 months to prepare for the little nugget right?” Because he was so concerned about getting all the necessities right away and what not, best reaction in all this experience I must say.

Anyways, so there are 2 types of medication used to treat my condition. 1) Bromocriptine and 2) Cabergoline

In all my research I decided Cabergoline would be the most convenient because it was determined to have the fewest side effects and more time between doses (once weekly), however I was prescribed Bromocriptine to start (it is known to cause relatively bad side effects) because of cost differences between the two. Bromo is WAAAAAY cheaper, and is covered by all insurance plans. Cabergoline is stupid expensive and is covered only by a few plans and that’s only if Bromo proves to be problematic.

My endocrinologist said if I had any issues on Bromocriptine that she would change the prescription.

Needless to say, first day on it was rocky. I felt like a creature out of a Romero film. Totally disoriented at waking (dizziness), extreme fatigue, nausea, headache, muscle weakness, loss of appetite, slight confusion.

The second day, I didn’t even get out of bed till 7pm. PM. Yikes. And even then I had no energy. But I was not nauseous, confused or dizzy.

Day 3, I was alright aside from a little fatigue.

And now today, I feel FINE. Totally 100% fine. Which is really weird for me because I’m never fine haha.

Some weird things I’ve noticed just in these 4 days however is my appetite isn’t big, my depression hasn’t been acting a fool (I deal with severe episodes of depression regularly that often include suicidal ideation, ya none of that right now and it is a blessing), and the not so positive side; my eyes are bugging me a bit with lack of focus ability. But other than that one thing I feel pretty good.

Bromocriptine and Cabergoline are Dopamine agonists, what that means is they have the ability to replicate dopamine, which incidentally shrinks pituitary tumours and regulates prolactin and a whole boatload of things apparently. Dopamine is an important chemical neurotransmitter that is often associated with the bodies pleasure and reward system. Not entirely sure how that is at all relevant to pituitary tumours but hey, Science.

Anyways, I’m feeling positive about all this now, and that’s a really freaking good feeling, so I figured I’d share my scattered experience in case there’s someone on here like me that needs any info I have to offer and because I FEEL GOOD!

I may post updates as things progress, obviously if I conceive there will be all kinds of Posts.

Thank you for reading ! Remember, DONT GOOGLE MEDICAL STUFF , and STAY POSITIVE NO MATTER WHAT!

Sending love to all you lovely people!