Success stories after severe endometriosis please

[Moomin]

I'm asking this on behalf of a friend who's not online at home at the moment. She's 28 and has just undergone surgery to remove very severe endo. They removed part of each ovary but both are still potentially in working order; there's no blocking of the f.tubes and they've told her that in a year's time would be the best time to try to conceive and she has at least a 'fighting chance' of being able to. She has no children as yeat but is keen to try when she's given the go ahead.

She's going to have Zoladex implants to bring on a kind of menopause, then Livial which is HRT to try to get things moving again. Does anyone have any experience of these drugs after endo? Or any other success stories about post-endo of this extent?

Thanks in advance - I will print any replies off to give her. She's very keen to hear about other people's experiences.

I was told I'd never have children after I had surgery for endometriosis.

I had extensive endometriosis - grade 4, loads of adhesions, left ovary totally gnarled up with scar tissue. The surgeon who did two of my operations thought before the first op that he'd give me five years clear of it and seemed quite blase about how straightforward the operation would be.

After the operation, he came and sat on the bed, held my hand and said very solemnly that he'd never seen endometriosis this extensive and I'd be lucky to have two years free of it (he did my final operation 25 months later).

I wonder why she's been told she has to wait a year. My surgeon told me to go for it as soon as I felt up to it after surgery. I needed Clomid to conceive first time (I have PCOS too), which I took for one cycle and fell pg first time.

I took Provera after I had surgery, but it sent me utterly loopy, so I came off it. I didn't want Zoladex because I'm very sensitive to drugs and the idea of having an injection that meant the drug was in my system for three months and there was nothing I could do about it scared me.

I now have two boys and conceived DS2 very easily. I've also bfed for over two years now (with a five-month gap between pgs) and haven't had a period now since April 2005. I very much hope that this is meaning the endometriosis has buggered off now - although it was starting to get painful again between pgs (DS1 was one when I got pg with DS2 and I'd had about four periods in between).

I wish your friend the very best of luck and a speedy recovery. I would question why she's having drug therapy before ttc - there may very well be good reasons for it, I don't know. Is she in touch with the Endometriosis Society? They're very good - there's a message board on their website, which is here.

If you or she want to email me, feel free - my address is hunkermunker at gmail dot com

That's fab info and advice hunker, thanks so much. I will pass your details on altho like I said she's not online at home at the moment and not due to get back to work until christmas now. Thing is, she's early into a relationship and they're not even living together yet, but I think it is serious and they have plans for the future that include children. He's also 10 yrs older so I think she's having to move the children thing up the agenda because of the situation with the endo, which I think is what they both want but in an ideal world I'm sure she's have chosen to wait a bit.

She too was told the endo was very severe and had it not been for her age and the fact that she has no kids they said they'd have done an hysterectomy. It's very hard to know whether what they have prescribed is the right thing; I guess you're very much relying on trust that they know what's best for each individual patient. Maybe they told her to wait for a year because of the scarring from the op too - it's bigger then my c-section scar i'd say, so there might be complications if a c-section was necessary?