Hi. Before you start reading through this website of mine, I would like to take the opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Alesia Swanson and I have had two ectopic pregnancies.
I spent an enormous amount of time gathering this information in hope to understand the condition better and to overcome my fears. My hope is that this information will truly help you too, giving you the insight that you need to understand what ectopic pregnancy symptoms actually are, and to overcome any fears that you may have encountered up to this point as well.
Pregnancy is a very exciting and emotional experience in a woman’s life; if this is your first pregnancy, it can be very scary since you may not know what to expect. You may have read books or articles that talk about the different experiences, but unless you experience it yourself you won’t really know exactly how it feels.
If you mix that in with a pregnancy where something could go wrong, your anxiety could literally leave you paralyzed. I’m here to tell you that because of modern science, most problems during pregnancy make little impact on a healthy delivery.
You might hear your doctor or other medical staff talking about a medically normal pregnancy. In a medically normal pregnancy, an egg travels through one of the two fallopian tubes and enters the uterus where it attaches itself to the uterine wall and begins the process growing. The fallopian tubes “guide” the egg from an ovary to the uterus. The uterine wall is designed by nature to be flexible enough to expand to allow the growth of a baby inside.
A complicated pregnancy is anything outside of what is expected. Some complications are mild while others can be severe and life-threatening.
Ectopic Pregnancy is a condition where the uterus is not the housing for the fetus. Most ectopic pregnancies begin with the woman feeling much like she would in a normal pregnancy, and then progress to the ectopic pregnancy symptoms. There are some normal signs and symptoms of pregnancy such as you might experience in a regular pregnancy.
These signs of a normal pregnancy might include such things as:
• Missed period
• Morning sickness
• Tenderness in the breasts
• Increase in urinary output
• Feeling tired or fatigued
With ectopic pregnancy symptoms that you will experience you will generally know that there is a problem with your pregnancy and that all is not going as expected. Some symptoms will arise that will give you a reason to contact your physicians for assistance.
Diagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy depends on some of these symptoms being present, but unfortunately they may also be symptoms of other conditions, such as impending miscarriage so the diagnosis is not always immediate.
Among the ectopic pregnancy symptoms that you will see may be these:
• Pain in either the abdominal or pelvic region, which usually takes place about 6 weeks to two months after the onset of the missed period. The pain will worsen when you move or strain in any way. It may also be very sharp, taking place just on one side of the body prior to spreading out through your pelvic region.
• Bleeding will be another symptom in many cases. The bleeding may remain light spotting or may become heavier.
• Intercourse is usually painful and you will experience more than normal discomfort or pain on a pelvic examination.
• The bleeding that is taking place internally may result in fainting or dizziness and you may experience signs and symptoms of shock due to the blood loss internally. Your pain may also be shoulder pain. The reason for this is that the bleeding is taking place below the diaphragm which irritates this muscle and shows itself as pain in your shoulder.
While not all of these are only found as symptoms of ectopic pregnancy, each of these symptoms is in fact a reason to seek out medical assistance. Symptoms such as these are often found also when an impending miscarriage may be presenting itself. In either case, when any of these signs happen during pregnancy it is cause for alarm and it is time to get a physicians opinion. It is always better to be safe than to hope that the pain and other symptoms resolve on their own.
Ectopic pregnancy tends to take place more often in those who are over 35 and have had a previous ectopic pregnancy. If you are in this higher risk group, know the symptoms and seek out the advice of a physician immediately if you experience any of its signs.
