It would be great to get through life with all of your organs intact, but there can come a time when removal is the far better course of action — for your health and for your quality of life.
The hysterectomy is a perfect example of this. Each year in the United States, about 600,000 hysterectomies are performed, making it the most common surgical procedure among women (except for obstetric surgeries, such as Cesarean sections).
As for what drives so many women to opt for removing their uterus, and often other reproductive organs, the reasons vary. To give you an idea, the team here at Women’s Clinic of the Rio Grande Valley, which is headed up by Dr. Fernando Otero, pulled together five circumstances in which we might recommend a hysterectomy.
According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, uterine fibroids are the leading reason behind hysterectomy, and this has been our experience, too.
Most women develop fibroids — benign growths in the uterine walls — and, for many, the fibroids don’t pose any problems. For some women, however, the growths can pose problems, especially if they grow large or numerous enough.
While we can certainly remove the fibroids without removing the entire uterus, some women find that the growths quickly return and pose problems again. When this happens, hysterectomy is often the best path forward — without a uterus, fibroids can’t grow.
Bleeding and cramps are part of a normal menstrual cycle, but about 10% of women experience very heavy bleeding, which is often accompanied by severe cramping. If this sounds familiar, you know the effect that heavy bleeding can have on your life, and it’s not a pleasant one.
If conservative efforts to regulate your periods don’t work, such as hormonal birth control, a hysterectomy might make better sense.
Upwards of 1 in 10 women have endometriosis, a condition in which endometrial tissues grow outside the uterus. There’s no cure for endometriosis, but a hysterectomy can improve the symptoms.
While removing your uterus doesn't necessarily address any existing endometrial adhesions outside your uterus (we can tackle those, surgically, as well), we do get rid of the source of the displaced endometrial tissues. So, a hysterectomy serves to prevent further endometrial problems.
Another driver of hysterectomy is pelvic organ prolapse, a condition in which organs in your pelvis lose support and shift out of position. If one of these organs is your uterus and it’s shifting downward into your vagina, we can eliminate this problem via a hysterectomy.
While some people refer to a hysterectomy as elective, it becomes decidedly less so if we’re addressing certain reproductive cancers, such as uterine or ovarian cancer. In these cases, it’s imperative that we remove the affected reproductive organs to contain the disease.
As you can see, there are plenty of reasons why a patient may opt for a hysterectomy. And the good news is that you’re in excellent hands with Dr. Otero, who has considerable experience performing this procedure using the most advanced and minimally invasive techniques available.
If you’d like to explore whether the hysterectomy route is right for you, contact one of our offices in McAllen or Edinburg, Texas, to schedule a visit with one of our women’s health experts.
