home from the castle

hi girls, I'm home from the castle. Doctor successfully removed the left ovary but ended up calling a general surgeon into the operating room to assist in removing large quantities of adhesions. Doctor said I was a real mess inside. They were able to do surgery laproscopically. However, I will have to go back in for more invasive surgery to have the right ovary removed once I heal from this surgery. I guess the right side is all stuck together and they could not even locate my right ovary. I will need to have it done by another general surgeon and it will be an abdominal incision. Needless to say, I'm not a happy camper. When will this all be over?

Welcome Home, Sorry to hear you had problems. I am curious to know if you had all those adhesions when you had your hysterectomy or did they develope over the past year? I am really worried about that because I had a lot of adhesions, my uterus was stuck to my bladder and I kept my ovaries. I am hoping I won't have to have another surgery for at least 5 years since my endo was only on my uterus.

Hope you heal quickly,

Hi Tracie, I was told that back in January when I had my uterus removed there were tons of adhesions inside my abdomen. When they went in laproscopically the other day to remove the left ovary they were back and there were lots of them. They called in a general surgeon to assist in removing them. I was told that the left ovary was plastered to my bladder and that everything was plastered to my bowel and abdominal wall. They then tried to locate my right ovary but could not even see it due to all the adhesions on the right side. They said it looks like everything is stuck together on that side also. I have already been told that I will need to have a vertical incision and not just laprascopic surgery to fix the problems on the right side this time. They also said that a general surgeon would be needed to repair and assist in that surgery. I had no idea my ob/gyn was not going to be able to do all the surgery himself. I was surprised to hear that they "called in" a "general surgeon". I can't believe I have to heal from this surgery and then go back in for yet another surgery. I wish I could understand why they just didn't open me up right then and there and do all that was needed instead of making me go through more stress waiting for yet another surgery? The only thing I can figure is that they were only planning on the left side taking an hour and I was in there for over 4 hours. Maybe they thought that it would be too long to keep me open and on the table if they were to attempt to repair the right side too.

adhesions suck, i get them bad too, and am nervous that i will have to go in every so often to get them removed. i hope i don't but my adhesions i had that they removed had their own blood supply (creepy).

How aweful. Do they know why you had so much more adhesions? I hope they take some measures to try to prevent them. I know there are some materials the can place over internal wounds that help keep adhesions from forming. I am going to ask my doctor today when I go in if they used that stuff because I completely forgot to ask earlier.

they have tried using the materials in the past but it never worked. i had problems with adhesions early after my c-section, had problems so they went in laproscopically about 8 1/2 yrs ago and removed adhesions and endo, at that time he used the material and when he did my next c-section he found alot more adhesions, but didn't remove them. so then when he did this surgery he tried to do it laproscopically (made for incisions) and then realized there was no way so i ended up with a tah/bso. so needless to say i am nervous about having more problems with adhesions in the future, i'm going to talk to my dr more about it see what he thinks.

Great question ... I didn't know about that stuff. Luckily my surgeon did and he and the general surgeon used it when they fixed the left side. The great part is that when they go in to do the right side they can look and see if using that stuff on the left side worked or not. If it did work, they will use it when they go in to repair the right side.

The thing is that was 8 1/2 years ago and hopefully they know more now than they did back then. At least that is what my surgeon told me. They are beginning to realize just how bad the adhesion problem is for women and are therefore trying to come up with new and better materials to help slow or prevent future problems with adhesions.

i'm on a adhesion site that talking about adhesions and have lots of answers there. http://www.adhesions.org/index.htm, they are finding more and more that the materials don't work that well. its a good site and i recommend it to anyone with this problem.