An article appearing on the local new in Nevada (Station – CW) reported this week that mot patients living with endometriosis will undoubtedly be subject to one of the following procedure as a form of treatment. While there is no cure for Endometriosis, surgically hungry doctors are ambitious to cut patients open. Therefore, I thought I would put in my two cents on the aforementioned procedures.
The most commonly used surgeries for endometriosis are:
Laparoscopy. This is a minimally invasive procedure to remove the "lesions" of endometriosis. During a laparoscopy, the surgeon views your abdominal area and reproductive organs through a tiny lighted telescope inserted through one or more small incisions in your abdomen. From there, the surgeon can either cut out the endometrial tissue or destroy it with heat or laser.
This is by far the safest of the procedures mentioned in the article. I have had this procedure performed a number of times during my counted 18 years with this disease. Although minimally invasive means a shorted stint in the hospital, it also means limited viability. Doctors can only remove the tissues which they can physically see in the abdominal cavity. Thus, you can be sown up to heal without knowing if all the cells have been removed.
Laparotomy. This is a more involved surgery requiring an abdominal incision. The major negative of this type of surgery is that it typically requires a much longer recovery time involving more pain and disability.
If you have been blessed enough to have children and know the feelings associated with a C- section, you will find the feeling after waking up from this surgery are very similar. The recovery time is longer, the pain is worse, but the success rate may be better if you are fighting with returning endometriosis Please be wise and discuss all options with your physician.
Presacral neurectomy (PSN). This surgery is performed to help with menstrual pain, not to get rid of the endometrial lesions. It basically cuts the presacral nerve, which provides sensation to the uterus and pelvic floor. One study comparing PSN with laparotomy or laparoscopy found a much higher "cure" rate in those undergoing PSN.
I am highly disturbed by this report. It is not a cure at all. The lesions are still in your body and this endometiosis is still present. The so called cure, is the curring of the nerve which keeps you from feeling the pain associated with the disease and thus keeps you from realizing if the condition is getting worse. Some may say that I am lucky, the endometriosis has wrapped around my spinal nerves and caused a similar effect without surgery, unfortunately, unbeknown st to me, I was not so lucky when my condition worsened without my knowledge and landed me yet again back in the hospital.
Hysterectomy. Hysterectomy involves the removal of the uterus. Sometimes, the cervix is also removed. In a hysterectomy with bilateral oophorectomy, the ovaries are also removed. Although hysterectomy is often performed in women with endometriosis, results are mixed. If the ovaries are left and so continue to provide estrogen (which stimulates the growth of endometrial tissue), then women have a sixfold greater risk of developing recurrent pain, and an 8.1 times greater risk of having another operation than if they had their ovaries removed.
Hysterectomy is not a cure for endometriosis, in fact, many women have endometriosis come back even after the hysterectomy. The return of the disease can be worse the the original fight.
I find it somewhat amusing that the news would feed us such an article as options for medicine. According to the websters dictionary, medicine is the science and art dealing with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease. None of the above options can even start to lead our society to finding a cure for Endometriosis. Cutting a nerve to not feel the pain is not only dangerous but would be ill advised by most neurologists. Having a hysterectomy only to lose your chance at having children, is devastating to say the least but is compounded by the idea that the condition is still inside the body and can come back with a greater vengeance then it started with. I applaud the media for giving ear to our cause, however, how about a report on the ERC which is actively providing treatments, education, and awareness for the endo community while actively researching the possibility for a cure, or even on the women who are struggling with this disease and how devastating it can be. In my opinion, medicine by definition should be offering us more then just the ability to get our stomachs cut open, our uterus's ripped from our body, and our dreams destroyed.
Read the article here online or read more about the ERC here.
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