Do I have a cyst?

At 27, feeling pain in your stomach area is a lot scarier than when you were a kid, because now you have those dreaded medical bills to take into account. So when I felt what I thought was a UTI, I waited as long as I could before going into the doctor. But one appointment turned into four as we struggled to figure out what was actually wrong, because it wasn’t a classic UTI. After many pain filled days, we were finally able to figure out that I had an ovarian cyst and my urinary tract was totally fine (if not better than normal because ya girl got all the cranberry supplements). Having a cyst never even crossed my mind because I had no idea what symptoms to look for and some of them seem normal. So hopefully this list will save you an extra doctors appointment or two!

1. Pain in your lower abdomen

And by pain I mean it hurts quite a lot, like on a scale of 1 -10, it’s over 5 all the time (and I hate those scales). I had to sleep with an ice pack on and pain meds didn’t help much.

2. Antibiotics and UTI pain meds don’t work

This was the biggest clue to me that it wasn’t a UTI. I tried 2 different antibiotics and it didn’t get any better. And same goes for those AZU bladder pain pills; they didn’t do anything to calm the pain, because it’s not in your urinary tract.

3. You have to pee a lot! But it doesn’t burn when you pee.

This is the one that really threw me off because it felt like my bladder was on fire, but it never burned when I peed like a UTI. But I had to pee way more than usual which is a clear sign of UTI. This combined with the lower abdomen pain was enough for two different doctors to automatically say UTI even when the tests said there was no bacteria present to cause one.

4. You are super hungry, but after half your meal you feel full

I didn’t notice this one until after I was diagnosed, but it was so true! I would be starving, but after 5 bites I was suddenly full. Cysts can move around and sometimes push on your stomach!

5. Or conversely, you don’t feel hungry at all

Same reasoning, your cyst is pushing on your stomach so it feels like it’s still full.

6. Your pain is only on one side

Mine was in the middle and on my right side. The left side never hurt at all. This made me worry that the nonexistent infection was making it’s way up to my kidneys, but turns out it was just a cyst.

7. Your muscles on your stomach, upper thighs and back feel tight

You’ve got a cyst pushing all your organs around to new places and your body doesn’t know how to handle it. So the muscles around your stomach are more sore from working harder to hold things in place.

8. You can feel your IUD when you are checking for the strings

Your lovely cyst can also press on your uterus and force your IUD to push through your cervix a tiny bit! I had no idea this was possible, but turns out it can happen if your cyst decides to move to the center of your body and push down on it.

Now, I’m not a doctor, so obviously go talk with yours, but hopefully this will help you figure out if you should be going to an urgicare for a UTI or the gyno for a cyst. I know the worst part for me was not knowing what was causing the pain and not knowing how to stop it. Luckily, most cysts will disappear on their own; you just have to deal with a few days to weeks of pain first. Look for part two on what to do in order to make you as comfortable as possible while you’re in pain.