I wanted to quickly respond to your e-mail question. I have had 13 abdominal surgeries in the past 20 years. 12 involved adhesions. Each time the surgeon went in they would "take down" all of the adhesions - after each surgery the adhesions returned and were worse than the time before. My surgeon even tried septafilm but it did not work in my case. That surgery nearly cost me my life. Needless to say - the thought of another surgery strikes a chord of great fear in myself and my family. It has been my experience that adhesions/surgery is a very vicious cycle - surgery only buying about 1 years worth of pain relief each time then the adhesions return with a vengence. So based on my experience - I would recommend finding you a good pcp (if you don't have one already) that will prescribe appropriate meds that will help relieve your pain and hold off on surgery until a. you have no choice - like a bowel obstruction or b. researchers discover a barrier that really does work in preventing the reformation of adhesions.
If you do seriously consider having surgery - you may want to talk with Dr. Harry Reich in New York - he has developed the skill of taking down adhesions totally through the laprascope - not the open lap method. I have not seen him myself personally but I have heard some great things about his skill.
God Bless you in your search for answers - I pray that He will give us wisdom to make the right choices with our health.
Tina
At 12:22 PM 7/11/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I am trying to decide whether or not to have adhesions removed
>surgically or if this should be just another one of those things that I
>learn to 'live with.' For the past 4 years I have gone from one
>gynecological problem to another- had three surgeries in 11 months - two
>laps for cysts, one ovary removed and one hysteroscopic myomectomy for a
>fibroid that had somehow gone undetected for the 2 1/2 years that I had
>been seeking treatment for heavy, long periods. Of course the problem
>cysts came back and it took three months for the last one to painfully
>resolve itself. Now when I went back for my last ultrasound the gyn
>could tell that the cyst had recently popped and also could very clearly
>see a bunch of adhesions. Now the gyn does not know why I would have
>these adhesions - my pelvis was clean when he did the hysteroscopic
>myomectomy in October- and he did nothing that would have caused these
>adhesions because all the 'work' was inside the uterus. Well now he
>says I should wait to see if the pain goes away - but I am so tired of
>being in pain. I would like to feel better even if it was only for a
>little while. I am currently on lupron to prevent reoccurence of the
>cysts. I can only have one more shot and then I have to go on birth
>control pills, which I hate. They make me feel like I am always having
>terrible PMS and the longer I take them the worse I feel. At least if I
>got rid of these adhesions I might be able to enjoy myself until then.
>Any ideas? Thanks- Laurie
>