tah/bso

hello,
my surgery was on feb 19, 2001. my diagnosis was secretory endometrium with autolytic change. acute and chronic cervicitis, squamous metaplasia, nabothian cysts. tubo-ovarian adhesions, hemorrhagic corpus luteal cyst. i really don't know what any of this means. my doctor did not really explain. i was doing pretty good with post op until this past monday when i started having pain again on my right side. is this normal? i just want to feel good again. how can i have pain when nothing is left inside? feeling very depressed.

Hi

I won't try to decipher your pathology report, there are others much more knowledgeable on that score. However, what IS inside that could be hurting are undisolved stitches, and fragile, healing tissue. I also have a pain in my right side (used to be other areas that bothered me most) and I'm TIRED of it!!! However, I know that when I slow down it's better so I figure it's just part of my healing. The current issue (first one, too) of "rosie" has an article about a celebrity who had cancer (ovarian?) and she apparently talks about the pain from the surgery going on for a long time. (I have the magazine but still haven't ready the article.)

You aren't alone with new aches and pains, but be sure to talk to your doctor if you are concerned.

Hi Cookie,

I don't know if you've contacted the Dr on the pain you've begun to feel, it may be part of your healing process but it would be best to check into it.

As far as deciphering your report you might also check this out with your Dr to get clarification on it. I've linked a couple of sites that might help with the descriptions as well. I'm not sure if they be able to answer but may give you some ideas on what to ask the Dr.

They are:

http://onhealth.webmd.com/conditions...em%2C66844.asp

http://www.askjeeves.com/

I do hope you'll be able to get some answers and start feeling better soon.

Take care,
Vicki

I can probably translate them all too, they look familiar, but I'll have to do it later--late for work now!!!

thanks for your reply.

cookie

You can see at the top of the board, there's a stuck thread with a dictionary I started, so I'm glad to get back to it (reminded of it ).

Now, of course, I'm not a medical professional, but I have been rooting around in the medical literature and terminology for a year and a half, and I just doublechecked all of these--

secretory endometrium -- means you were still having periods (completely normal)
autolytic changes -- technically, an enzyme is released, causing cells to change; practically, it just marks the phase of your menstrual cycle (completely normal)

acute -- relatively severe
chronic -- been around a long time
cervicitis -- inflammation of the cervix
squamous metaplasia -- normal cervical cells were beginning to change into a scaly kind of cell, not cancer but not normal
nabothian cysts -- inflammation was causing a narrowing of the canals where the normal moisture would come from so cysts were forming, a result of the infection

tubo-ovarian adhesions -- scar tissue was attached to the ovaries and the fallopian tubes

hemorrhagic -- bleeding
corpus luteal cyst -- normally, when an egg is released, a thing called the corpus luteum forms, waiting to see whether the egg is fertilized. If it is, it stays around to secrete progesterone. If the egg isn't fertilized, it dissolves. You had a corpus luteum that didn't dissolve, formed a cyst, and was bleeding.


So, it was very normal pathology. Nothing to worry about now. The right side pain is extremely common. quite a few months ago there was an enormously long thread on The Road Less Traveled of women saying they had right side pain. I had it until about 6 months and sometime around there realized it was gone and has never come back. So, of course it's always worth mentioning to your doctor, but it's probably part of the normal healing of the internal stitches.

I know it gets scary, {{{cookie}}}

thank you, thank you, thank you. i most certainly feel better about my diagnosis. i wish that my doctor was as informative as you. i feel like i am wasting his time when i ask him questions. i also feel so much better about the pain on my side. i go for my 8 week check up this friday and will mention the pain to him. thanks again.

cookie

Cookie, I just had my 5 month check, and find that the right side pain is just starting to diminish. I wondered when the girls all told me that I should expect my recovery to take a year what they were talking about. That seemed like an awfully long time to me, but I am beginning to see what they meant. It does take that long. In that time you can expect to see a lot of changes in your body, and it looks like it DOES take that long for you to feel normal again. I hope your doctor has some good answers for you.

Thanks for you reply maggie. All of the people that I know told me the same thing, that recovery would take about a year. When I was going into this surgery, I thought that I was different and would be healed in 6 weeks. Boy was I wrong. I just can't wait until I can get back to jogging or even walking a couple of miles. I am feeling great otherwise. It's just this nagging pain on my right side. Have a great day!!!

Hi Cookie,

I have pain in my right side too. It is a dull nagging pain that hurts more when I move. My doctor said that it is part of the healing process. The heating pad helps ease the pain for me. Hang in there. You are not alone.

My best to you