And now...a word about endo cancer

Just wanted to share with my sisters a word of warning about endo cancer, not to freak anyone out.....but just to give you all a heads up, we are helpless to protect ourselves without education. This is what I've learned from my experience..............
For years I had had trouble with not ovulating properly which thickens the uterine lining and placed me at risk for endo/uterine cancers. My doc in the city I used to live in performed periodic biopsies to make sure everything was ok. 4 yrs ago I moved to a new town and the new doc didn't think biopsies were necessary. He continued to treat my ever worsening condition with hormones, etc and always pooh pooh'd the notion of a biopsy whenever I brought it up. It left me thinking maybe former doc had been performing the biopsies unnecessarily. He never recommended a biopsy or ablation. Finally my condition and pain was so bad I requested a uterine ablation (which I found out about on my own) An ablation is a surgical procedure that removes a portion of the uterine lining. I had that procedure on 4/15 and the following Wednesday got a phone call from the doc telling me the pathology from the ablation revealed stage 1a endo cancer. HUH??!?!? How in the world is that possible? He referred me to a gyn/oncologist and I had a TAH BSO 7 weeks ago. Luckily there was no further cancer and no further treatment was required but if you have any of the following symptons, please seek appropriate treatment....
1) missed periods followed by months of heavy bleeding with clotting
2) watery discharge
3) a diagnosis of improper ovulation and ultrasounds that reveal a thickened uterine lining
4) vaginal bleeding following sex and bowel movement
NONE OF THE ABOVE MEANS YOU HAVE CANCER......but they can be indicators and forewarned is forarmed.
I'm not a doc, and I really don't want to alarm anyone, but I hope this is the proper forum for sharing experiences that may benefit a sister.
Good luck to you all and if a visit to the castle is in your future I wish you a speedy and total recovery!!
God Bless.

ceedeewho, thanks for sharing your story with us. It is always good to educate women about this. Now, have you been checked out for polycystic ovarian syndrome? It causes irregular ovulation and not getting it treated can lead to endometiral cancer, which is my story, plus other complications. Though I did have an endometrial biopsy a couple years previous that was negative, before the next one showed up possibly positive - it was the symptoms that took me back. I have incuded a past post about what I went through and explaining PCOS in detail. If this info isn't new to you, I apologize, but like you, I want others to know about this also. The best news is that they did catch it at stage 1a!!!!!

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please scroll down, way down, to my reply once you get there:

https://www.hystersisters.com/vb2/sho...arian+syndrome

Thank you for your story. I also saw somehwere on here about making sure they run a pathology report on everything removed after the hyst. I asked my Doc about it and he said that was automatically done. I'm glad because I was going to request or demand one.

I wonder if I even would have thought about it if I hadn't seen it here at Hystersisters?!?!? Brain is frazzled here lately.

I'm so glad that all of us are here to help each other!

I'm glad you brought that up. A good friend of mine found out she had uterine cancer, but not until she was stage 4! She had normal paps and everything. The way she found out was that she was getting pains she thought was constipation so she took laxitives, which didn't help. The pain kept getting worse and worse, she missed work, couldn't even stand up straight. She didn't have any health insurance because she just switched jobs. It got so bad that she ended up going to the ER on a weekend and that's when it was discovered. They ended up doing an emergency hyst and that's when they found multiple tumors, and cancer that engulfed her uterus, ovaries, colon, intestines, you name it.

After several rounds of chemo, she is now "cancer free" and doing so much better.

It's a scary story but thankfully, a happy ending. The point is, always make sure you pay attention to your symptoms. But, like my friend, you can beat it!