A year ago, Susan Bouncer’s life was pretty much controlled by a troublesome medical condition, unpredictable and excessive uterine bleeding.
“It would come on so suddenly that I would have,you know, no protection. It was really a problem. I would have to leave situations that I was in, social situations, work situations, because, you know, this problem just came up so abruptly. I was completely exhausted, had headaches all the time, just really worn out, didn’t feel like I could do anything.”
“It’s very, very common. Ah… 40% of GYN visits for women over 40 are about some aspects of bleeding.”
Susan tried hormones to control the bleeding and was preparing to undergo a hysterectomy when she discovered an alternative called endometrial ablation.
“Endometrial ablation is not new… The tech… some techniques have been around for as long as 15 years. But the technology has just gone crazy and for the good, I mean, it’s so easy. Now, we can complete an ablation in 2 to 3 minutes now.”
“Still remember that when we scoped it, she was all… …”
The American College of OBGYN says women who have not been helped by medication are candidates for endometrial ablation which, the college says, appears to be an efficient and cost-effective alternative treatment to hysterectomy.
“Safe.”
“Safe, yeah.”
The minimally-invasive surgery destroys the inner lining of the uterus or the endometrium, the source of the bleeding.
“(I mean,) the idea is just to destroy that, cuz the only function of endometrium is to accept the fertilized egg. So, when you’ve finished your childbearing, with reproduction, there is no real need for your endometrium.”
Dr. Wheatley says the new technology has greatly reduced risks from the procedure , plus side-effects tend to be minor. But perhaps the biggest bonus comes in recovery time. For a hysterectomy can take as long as 2 months for a woman to feel back to normal. But recovery from ablation is almost instantaneous.
“I planed the surgery for a Thursday so I could have a long weekend for / recovery. But, I probably could’ve gone work the next day. That’s how good I thought. And I was back to work Monday morning.”
“I am amazed that how few women have ever heard of it, because, I mean, I am a gynecologist,and I see patients all day long who have bleeding problems and sometimes, they are even reluctant to tell me, cause they are afraid of I’m gonna tell me they have to have a hysterectomy. And there is all kind of options. But ablation is just such an easy, reliable option. I am stunned that more patients haven’t heard about that.”
In one clinical study, endometrial ablation successfully reduced menstrual bleeding to normal level in almost 90% women according to the FDA. But the American College of OBGYN points out the procedure is not for everyone and some women require additional treatments.
“And those would be people that have big fibroids, that… well, that have cancer, obviously that’s a whole different thing. And then, there is certain percentage of patients, depending on kind of which ablation technique you are using, that are gonna fail the ablation. I probably… 10 % or 15% of patients that I have done ablations on are gonna go back and have hysterectomy, because it either didn’t work or… you know, didn’t work well enough or something.”
Fortunately, Susan was a good candidate for endometrial ablation and the simple surgery proved to be the antidote to getting her life back to normal.
“I felt like a burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I felt like I couldn’t plan when to go away vacations. Um… so many times, this problem was just keeping me from doing things I needed to do. You know, gained a lot of weight from all the hormones that I had been on. So now, I’ve lost 12 pounds, I feel like my energy has come back, I just feel so much better.”
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2007-03-10 
