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| Operating Team Image, thanks to Shutterstock |
I was keen to write this post as there seems to
be very little information on the web about women’s personal experience of
having a TCRE. Many, many women suffer in silence with heavy periods and I want
to share my positive experience of having a simple day operation that can make
the world of difference to your every day life.
A Brief
History
I shared in a post a few months ago about how
I've suffered with terrible heavy, frequent and painful periods for around a
decade now. I honestly cannot tell you why I put up with it for so long, I
think it had simply become a part of my life and I'd learnt to live with it. It
was only when I was on holiday in May last year and my awful bleeding stopped
me enjoying the pool every day with my girls that I realised something had to
be done.
I have the most wonderful GP and she sent me off
to see the gynae specialist nurse at the Conquest hospital (Hastings, East
Sussex) as thankfully she knew I had been suffering for quite some time, having
been prescribed Tranexamic Acid and Mefenamic Acid for a few years, as well as
having scans for an embedded coil, missing strings and cysts. I was given a
hysteroscopy and straight away the specialist nurse could see there were
problems and referred me for an ablation of the endometrium.
I was led to believe this would be done by a
simple balloon being inflated in me and radio waves passing through to burn off
the excess lining of my womb. This is apparently a really simple procedure that
the nurse can do, however she told me as my womb was quite enlarged (she didn't
think it had ever fully shrunk back after having my twins) that it would be
better to be done by one of the consultants with a general anaesthetic.
Meeting my Consultant
When I met the consultant he reviewed my notes
and said he didn't feel I was suitable for the ablation due to the size of my uterus,
the thickness of my endometrium and also the presence of fibroids. He felt it
would be better to do my surgery the old fashioned way, which would mean him
using a hysteroscope to see what needed to be taken away and then burning it
away accordingly.
He told me I was very overweight and this could
make the surgery more complex and he went through the risk factors with the
surgery and what could go wrong, telling me I had a 70-80% success rate for the
surgery. With those odds, I was happy to progress as I just needed some respite
from the constant heavy bleeding.