How do you know

While reading message boards I see a lot of reference to Bowel resectioning, adhesion on the bowel, uterus or ovaries attached to other organs. Are these things something that is known prior to surgery or are they found during surgery? I opted not to have a laperoscopy because my doctor was 99% sure we would end up going through with the LAV anyway. I had already tried so many other treatments, D&C, Ablation, Medication. I often wonder what they will find when I they are in there. Are these things something they can see on an ultrasound?

Julie

Adhesions are when the organs stick together .. they realy cant be seen on US, CT Scan or MRI.. they are usually found during surgery and cleaned up... However, it is usually surgery that causes many adhesions.. so it is a catch 22 sort of....

If you rest sufficiently after surgery you are less likely to get the adhesions.

I had a few adhesions that were removed during my laproscopic diagnostic surgery, probably caused from my tubaligation, or appendectomy years ago...

There are occasions when adhesions happen due to endo scaring up and adhearing to other organs and other gyno problems. Hope that answers your questions...

Ces.

They can't tell until they go in. I had a lap and when she went in my uterus was stuck to my bladder but she was able to cut it apart. I was so thankful not to have the incision a lot of women have. I am at 4 weeks and my bladder is finally get back to normal. Good Luck and God bless!

The good news, JJ, is that the docs are VERY experienced with this. I'd bet that very few of them are surprised when they find adhesions. As the others said, there's no way of knowing about these problems until they get in but rest assured, the docs are prepared for this.

I had an ovary adhesed to my bowel with ureter involvement as well and a fallopian tube folded and adhesed to itself. The biggest 'problem' I had from the adhesions after surgery was that all the 'scraping' to get the ovary off the bowel and clear the ureter caused a hematoma in my belly. That put pressure in the area of the ureter. There was additional bruising as well. It was 'deep bruising' so it didn't surface for over a week - kinda freaked me out a bit but a quick trip to the doc proved what it was. None of that was horrible.

Hi,
For me I already knew I had endo. Had previous 2 surgeries. Then I had a colonoscopy due to rectal bleeding and that is when they found the endo in the bowel. I had 3 masses that were endo. So I knew I needed my bowel resection. As for the adhesions connecting things, they won't know how bad for sure til they get in there. My surgeon did say on exam, an internal and palpation he could feel everything in there was "stuck" together and it would be a tricky surgery. Cant' tell "what" is stuck til they go in. Turns out my insides were stuck to about everything! Bowels were all stuck together, uterus to ovaries to bladder to abdominal wall, well it was a mess. But alot of times they don't have a clue til they see it after opening you.
Good luck! Tiffany