Hi Pete and Donna:
I know more than 2 doctors are doing conscious pain mapping because they
had a feature about it on our local news (Portland, Maine) just about
the time I had my first lap (Mar 98.) It seems they are doing it at the
Atlanta center so I am sure they are doing it in Boston somewhere. I
checked Brigham and Women's website but nothing about that. I was
hoping for an e-mail address for questions, but no luck.
>From what I understand they also refer to it as "minilaparoscopy". I
don't know why it would be mini, other than the fact it can be done
outside the traditional OR setup. (and the instruments are smaller)
This would give me the creeps and the gyn I mentioned it to at the time
of my first lap agreed. But come to think of it, they give general
anesthesia in oral surgeon's offices for wisdom teeth removal. Anyway,
it seems they can poke around and because the woman is under "conscious
sedation" (rather than general anesthesia) she can respond and tell them
when and where she feels pain. Then they know what specific areas to
work on and not waste time in other areas that might not be causing
pain. (I don't know if at that point they would then put the woman
under general anesthesia and complete the work or schedule it for a
later date) Because of referred pain, sometimes the area causing
problems is not the area with the pain.
I was surprised myself that Helen Dynda didn't have a resource for info
on this procedure. Maybe she's on vacation. I searched the web but
didn't come up with much.
Chris