Menorrhagia – Surgery

Transcript

“There are surgical options that are available. First and foremost, if you have a polyp that’s inside of the uterine cavity, you can have a polypectomy meaning that we remove the polyp itself that is available. In addition, you can have, if there’s a fibroid there, you can have what we call a myomectomy, which is where we remove the fibroid itself. And those are for people particularly that want to continue childbearing, there is also something called an ablation. Now this is for the woman that is no longer desiring any future childbearing potential. It is not a form of birth control. However, it is a process where we burn the inside of the uterine cavity, which is the endometrium. As we discussed earlier, the endometrium is what builds up and sloughs off. And you have a period and we burn that area. The nice thing about ablations is that they normally work about 85% of the time.

And working means it returns you to a pretty much a normal flow of menstrual cycles. However, 35% of the time you get amenorrhia meaning no bleeding. So if you have no desire for future childbearing, then it’s appropriate. However, if you want to have children, this is not a recommended type of procedure. It is required, however, before you get an endometrial ablation is you have to get an ultrasound and you have to have an endometrial biopsy. And oftentimes insurance companies will want you to have a trial of birth control to see if it’s been effective. Normally for about three months. The other option is removing the uterus in and of itself because that is the area that is bleeding. The organ that’s bleeding. So that is called a hysterectomy and there are various modalities of performing hysterectomies. And your provider would probably discuss that with you in what they thought would be the best way to remove the uterus.”