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[]> Personal Profiles * Spirit of Women * LBHHN......Summary: But you're feeling all this pain." Kristen Plantz of New Tripoli knows pelvic pain. The patient is sedated, but remains awake to give feedback as the doctor gently probes to produce the exact pain she's been feeling. "Compared to the pain I had before, this didn't even come close," she says. After removal of stubborn endometrial and scar tissue, Plantz is on hormone medications and feeling...
It happens to almost everyone with endometriosis. They tell you, 'I don't see anything abnormal.' But you're feeling all this pain." Kristen Plantz of New Tripoli knows pelvic pain. Now age 24, she started suffering extreme cramps in her teens. As a college student she discovered it wasn't "what everyone feels," but endometriosis-a condition in which patches of uterine lining grow outside the womb. But hormones, narcotics and even surgeries failed to resolve the problem.
Then Plantz met gynecologist Craig Sobolewski, M.D., director of the chronic pelvic pain program at Lehigh Valley Health Network, and heard about a new procedure called "conscious pain mapping." Using fiber-optic instruments inserted through tiny incisions, the surgeon views the pelvic area on video. The patient is sedated, but remains awake to give feedback as the doctor gently probes to produce the exact pain she's been feeling.
"In 15 to 20 percent of cases, we find a cause that could not be detected if the patient were asleep under general anesthesia," Sobolewski says. It didn't sound pleasant, but Plantz was willing to try anything. "Compared to the pain I had before, this didn't even come close," she says. "And I liked being able to work with the doctor and feel more in control of my treatment."
After removal of stubborn endometrial and scar tissue, Plantz is on hormone medications and feeling "really good about the future." She even dreams of having children.
"Dr. Sobolewski promised that it's possible," she says. "He sat down with my fiance, answered all his questions and helped him understand what I was going through. That was tremendously important to me. This is a doctor I can trust."