The uterus and its surrounding ligaments serve as a vital support structure helping to keep your female organs separate from your intestines and allowing the bladder and rectum to maintain their correct position. Removal of the uterus can subsequently cause constipation, bloating, painful sex, and inability to hold urine.
As mentioned earlier, the uterus is also a sexual organ and many women miss the deep orgasm that its presence enables.
In myth and custom, the uterus is seen as an essential and vital organ, the source of a woman's creativity, power, and dreaming.
Recent research has proven that the uterine wall also secretes hormonal and other active substances with a vital role in women's health that has not been fully explored yet.
A promising new technique is being developed where the uterus can be removed through a laparoscope. The first American total laparoscopic hysterectomy was performed in 1992 in Philadelphia.
The laparoscope is a slender telescope like instrument that is attached to a TV monitor. The surgery requires great skill, because the surgical instruments must be manipulated through two or three tiny incisions one quarter to half an inch long and the uterus must be carefully removed. According to Dr. Ivan D'Souza, one of a small number of gynecologists in Canada that is highly experienced in this technique, a laparoscopic hysterectomy (abdominal extraction only), requires longer operating time, more equipment and greater skill.
Dr. D'Souza and his partner, Dr. Anthony Lopez, prefer to use a laparoscopically assisted vaginal hysterectomy, where the uterus is freed from its ligaments from above and the rest of the surgery completed through the vagina. In this procedure, the uterus is removed through the vagina. This procedure has the shortest operating time. Some laparoscopic skills are required but more vaginal skills are involved. Skilled surgeons can do this operation in under two hours on most occasions (this surgery is anywhere between 30 and 90 minutes longer than the standard type of hysterectomy).
As with gallbladders removed this way, your hospital stay is greatly reduced to about two and a half days. With the smaller incision, post-operative pain is much less. You may be able to return to work within four to five weeks. However, there is no doubt that without the larger incision, there is much less pain and much faster recovery with this type of surgery.
Two potential problems exist. The first is the possibility of an unskilled surgeon doing the operation. It is essential to know the experience and training of any surgeon doing this operation. At present, this surgery is not widely available in Canada. If your surgeon is going to be learning on you, you had better give your consent ahead of time. Secondly, the quick recovery period for this surgery makes it more tempting for surgeons to remove the uterus unnecessarily.
It is important to realize that many women have had their health and well-being immeasurably improved by the performance of a necessary hysterectomy.
If you have already had a hysterectomy for any reason, you should never berate yourself about it. Because given the information you had at the time, and perhaps considering the pain or bleeding that you were enduring, and your lack of access to alternative choices, you undoubtedly made the best decision you could have under the circumstances. If you feel dissatisfied or angry at what happened to you, you can use that anger to demand changes in unacceptable medical practices and help educate other women about their choices. You can also take the opportunity to improve and maximize your own health, even after a hysterectomy.
Valid Reasons For A Hysterectomy
Uterine cancer or cervical cancer that is invading the uterus, but not cervical cancer that is in situ or confined to the cervix.
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