My Adenomyosis Story-Pregnancy and Children mentioned

I suffered with heavy periods, horrible cramps, and never-ending periods since I was a teenager. My doctor suspected Endometriosis and Adenomyosis as possible causes. My uterus was also in a very retroverted position, resting on top of my rectum. This caused a feeling of pressure and discomfort. The last few months, I had been bleeding more often than not. I finally decided that something had to be done. I have two sons, and because of my diabetes and two very complicated pregnancies, I would not plan another pregnancy. The only thing that would fix all of my problems, was a hysterectomy.

I had a Laparoscopic/Robotic Supracervical Hysterectomy on January 9th, 2007. I went in at about 7:30a.m. My doctor found that I had no Endometriosis, but I did have Adenomyosis and Fibroids. My uterus was three times larger than normal. Surgery went well, all done in about 3 hours. I wound up having four incisions in my abdomen. They were only about 3/4 to an inch long. I stayed overnight in the hospital because I was very sick to my stomach from the anesthesia. My blood sugar was also a little off. At about 10:00a.m. on the 10th, the nurse removed my catheter. I went potty about an hour later. I took a shower and went home.

I took vicodin 5/500 and motrin for pain and inflamation. I was sore when I would try to reposition myself, but I wouldn't say that I was in pain. I was pretty uncomfortable for about the first three days. On the fourth day, I stopped the vicodin, and just took the motrin as needed. After that, I began to start feeling better. I finally had a b.m. on the fourth day after surgery.

I felt pretty good, still a little sore, about 1 week after surgery. I was back to taking care of my kids(6 and 9) and doing laundry. My family was great about helping with dinner, so I didn't have to worry about that for the first week and a half. I went back to running my day care at 13 days after surgery.

I was able to keep both of my ovaries, so I was surprised at how weepy I felt at times during my recovery. One day I went to put on my jeans and I had a strange realization. The last time I wore those jeans, I had a uterus. I just cried and cried. I knew that I was not going to plan another pregnancy, but I would have been happy if it ever happened unexpectedly. The finality of the surgery was hard to deal with. There would never be that "surprise" baby. Believe it or not, it was even hard to accept that the part of my body that carried my children was gone. I have been pretty emotional about it. I didn't expect to feel this way.

I try very hard to focus on the positive things in my life, and the reality is that my hysterectomy brought a lot of positive things. I do not have pressure down below, horrible cramps, and bleeding all month long anymore. Since I kept my ovaries and cervix, I did experience one five day long mini period at 6 weeks. I have not yet had another one. Although my mini period was a bit unexpected, it was also reassuring. It was the first time in my life that I had bleeding with no miserable cramps! It also warned me to adjust my insulin for my low blood sugar levels that occur during my period.

I was very fearful of surgery and complications. My experience was smoother than I expected. I can honestly say that I had many periods that were more painful than my hysterectomy.

If you are suffering with Adenomyosis, I hope hearing my story will be encouraging to you. There is an end to the suffering!

I figured that this would be the best place to post this. I had a partial hyst two years ago due to fibroids and adenomyosis. At the time my ovaries looked fine and so they were left in to avoid surgical menopause. About two weeks ago I found myself in a miserable amount of pain and I wound up in the ER twice. They did an ultrasound and the doctor there told me that I have a 5.5 cm endometrioma in my left ovary. I met with my gyne yesterday and he said that he is doubtful that it is an endometrioma because I didn't have any endo at the time of my hyst. He thinks it is most likely that I have a hemorrhagic cyst. I guess those are caused when a blood vessel is broken when an egg is trying to be released. That causes you to bleed into your ovary. Apparently, ultrasound can not tell 100% whether or not I have an enometrioma or a hemorrhagic cyst. Yesterday I started on birth control pills to see if the cyst would shrink or not. I am supposed to have an ultrasound next Monday. I had a flare up of pain again tonight and it feels miserable. When this happened a couple of weeks ago, the onset of this was rapid and intense for me. I have had two children without the use of pain meds during labor and I handled it like a champ. This pain from my ovary had me balling like a baby and writhing around in pain. I felt like I had a charley horse in my left side and I was experiencing a constant deep pain accompanied by stabbing pain. I also had a fever of 102 and my belly swelled up like I was three to four months prego. Since the first episode a couple of weeks ago, I have had problems with urinary frequency and pain when I try to stop the flow of urine. My doctor put me on Vesicare to help with those problems. It has helped with the urgency but not much with the cramping pain at the end of urination. Passing a BM is very painful. I have so much discomfort in my perineum that it is miserable. I plopped myself down in a chair at the dinner table tonight and I about went through the roof! Apparently both types of cysts can cause all of the same symptoms and they can both leak. The only difference is that with the endometrioma, the leaking contents of the cyst can spread endo. The hemorrhagic cysts can bleed and cause clots that cause the same type of urinary and bowel problems, but they eventually resolve without surgery.

If you have had any experience with either type of cyst, I would like to know if you experienced any of the same symptoms that I am experiencing and what was done for you.

After tonight, I am ready to just call my doctor in the morning and schedule the surgery to have my ovaries out. This pain is too much.
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I went in for my ultrasound on Thursday morning. In addition to the cyst, there was also a solid mass. I was very worried about that because solid masses are more often cancerous. I guess the mass was present at the ultrasound that I had in done in the ER, but it wasn't mentioned to me. Shortly after I got home from the ultrasound on Thursday, I got a call from my doctors office. They wanted me to come in as soon as possible and they asked me when I had last had anything to eat. I had a feeling that I would be having surgery later that day. My husband came home from work and took me to the doctors office. It turned out that the ultrasound showed that there was no longer any blood flow to my left ovary. My ovary had twisted and cut off it's own blood flow and my ovary had died. This is called ovarian torsion. My doctor believes that my the torsion occurred around December 20th or 21st when I had the terrible pains that sent me to the ER. It must not have completely cut off the blood flow until a later time though because there was still blood flow to my ovary on the 20th when they did the ultrasound. Now, knowing that my ovary had died, my doctor knew that he needed to do surgery and get that dead ovary out right away. So, I went straight to the hospital after the appointment and my surgery began around 4:00 p.m. My doctor had said that surgery would probably take about an hour. When my doctor got in there he was surprised at how bad things were. My ovary was twisted twice and was dead. My colon had wrapped itself around the ovary and two masses and was adhered to the big mess. All of this was sitting right on top of my bladder. I had a lot of adhesions everywhere and my intestines were all twisted up and adhered to eachother all the way up to underneath my ribcage. My doctor disected all of the adhesions, removed my dead left ovary with the masses on it, and tacked up my right ovary to help prevent it from torsing in the future and he filled my abdomen with some kind of special fluid that is supposed to prevent adhesions from developing. I have had two previous abdominal surgeries, so some of the adhesions were probably from those surgeries. But, the majority of them were caused by my body's response to having a dead ovary inside of me. All in all, the surgery took a little over two hours and my doctor managed to do the whole thing laparascopically. I have four one inch incisions in my abdomen. I am very sore because of all of moving around of things inside of my belly and I am very bloated. The initial tissue samples that my doctor sent to the lab did not indicate any cancer. I am grateful for that! I came home from the hospital yesterday at around 4:00 p.m. Yesterday actually marked the two year anniversary of my partial hysterectomy. Kind of ironic. My uterus and ovary are now together somewhere in the land of hyster!
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