Re: Another surgery?!?!?

From: cathy:- (anonymous@medispecialty.com)
Tue Mar 26 14:28:02 2002


Please please please go to http://www.adhesions.org and click on the "adhesions quilt" Go down and read the story of Karla N. A hysterectomy will NOT "fix all of this adhesion growth." The adhesions are NOT "coming from" your uterus. Your adhesions are "coming from" their scalpels! An adhesion is a "healed up" surgical cut. (That's the most common cause of adhesions. The less common cause is that an adhesion is a "healed up" infection.) If they cut out your uterus and/or ovaries, then you will grow adhesions from all of the places left in your body that they cut the organs out of. If they cut every single adhesion out of your abdomen and very very meticulously tie off or cauterize every single tiny bleeder, and keep the surgical field irrigated the whole time, and they do this laporoscopically, then you MAY end up 2 weeks after the surgery with fewer adhesions than you went into the operating room with. But this meticulous surgical technique is very time consuming -- like 6, 10, 12 hours under the knife. And it requires great skill. The insurance companies have decided that they will pay a few thousand dollars for this surgery. It costs $20,000 to $40,000, so basically you are not insured for this surgery. You have the choice of going to Germany where you can pay for it out of your own pocket (and the cost is subsidized by the German taxpayers -- people here have spent roughly $6000-$7000 on this option.)

It sounds like your doctors are telling you that they are planning to just go smashing in there, grab your uterus (and ovaries) and then back out leaving all of the adhesions and lots of dried-out bloody tissues behind to form gobs and gobs of new adhesions. Unless of course they are volunteering to go in and do $40,000 surgery on you and take the $2000 your insurance company is going to give them... Ok, I'm cynical, but "follow the money." If the only surgery out there that isn't going to make you worse is supposed to cost $40,000, then don't let anybody do $2000 surgery on you instead.

I think the first thing you should investigate is whether you need the hysterectomy at all. It's certainly possible that you have some pathology separate from adhesions that make the hysterectomy a good idea. It is also possible that the adhesions have strangulated your uterus and it needs to come out. But taking your uterus just because you have abdominal adhesions makes about as much sense as amputating your pinky because your thumb has gangrene. (I always wonder what it is that they tell men who have adhesions in these situations. A man needs a hysterectomy like a fish needs a bicycle! heeheehee)

At Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Angela wrote: >
>I need help! I have had 4 surgeries in the past two and half years, and
>recently,on March 21st after trying to get a hysterectomy, the doctor
>has to stop the operation because I had to many adheshions around the
>bladder. He said if he proceeded I would have lost it. So here I am in
>pain again, waiting for yet another specialist to try to fix the other
>half of the operation my doctor could not complete. Will a hysterectomy
>fix all of this adheshion growth? They say that is where they are coming
>from. And what about bladder operations? I have no idea what I am in
>for and I need some first hand advice on what to expect. I want the
>best doctor I can get, but how do I begin to even find one? I just want
>this pain to be over. I do not want to keep going through surgeries and
>hurting all the time. Ican hardly take it anymore. The trauma of all
>this is starting to take a real emothional toll on me. I am a strong
>person, and I try hard to keep it in so my family doesn't know how much
>it hurts inside, but if I don't get some support soon I think I might
>just lose it. This is all so confusing to me. Please any advice?

--
cathy :-)

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