Endometrial abolation(?). Any good?

[orangeandlemons]

Have had it up to here with periods. Currently every 19 days, bleeding for about 8 days, stuffed up to eyeballs on tranxanamic acid, which doesn't seem to do that much.

Sick of flooding, cost of tampons. Am 49, and hormone test has revealed that I am not near menopause. Is it a successful treatment?

It was certainly successful for me. I had two years of almost endless bleeding which hormones and a d&c did not improve.
I was constantly pressured to have a mirena coil fitted - which I did not want.
Eventually managed to get them to agree to do an ablation. Had it just over three months ago and it's been like getting my life back!
I am 51.
Hoping that will be it for me now. Had a few weeks light discharge after the procedure but no pain.

So far, so good but we shall see. I had it done 5 months ago. So far it has been so wonderfully liberating. I can go out without having to plan loo trips to cope with floodings; I can get out of bed from day 1; I can exercise mid-cycle without the risk of bringing on breakthrough bleeding; the period pain is significantly reduced...

On the downside my skin is now paper thin. Also, the last couple of months I had to upgrade from a liner to a towel and bleeding is back at being 7days+. No regrets.

Why does it make your skIn thin?

The dry, thin skin might be due to lower hormone levels, because the endometrium is no longer sending feed back messages to the ovaries. Of course, I could just be further along in reaching my next stage of life! :D

I had it done 2.5 years ago so far so good, very very light bleeding/spotting for about 3 days each cycle now - I have my life back!

My sister was told that it has a very high success rate. Unfortunately for her there has been no improvement at all. She is gutted.

There are several methods of Endometrial abolation. I had the Novasure method done and it has totally changed my life. I have had no bleeding at all since the operation in September 2012. It was done under General and I feel fantastic. I am a 'period free' 46 year old who is very happy with the results.

I had Thermochoice done, only had one monthly cycle so far, but it was brilliant! No real pain, just a bit of backache, and no flooding [yea!]. Glad I had it done, don't think I could have coped with the nightmare much longer.

I had the microwave endometrial ablation three years ago ('m 50 next month). It didn't work. My consultant told me at the three month check up that he "acts conservatively" - in my case it appears so conservatively that nothing much happened. I had an ultrasound scan and the radiographer said that my endometrium looked normal, which it shouldn't do after the destruction of the ablation.

My consultant counts me as a "success" because I'm not as anaemic as I was - in other words, the overall amount of blood lost is less than before the op. However, from my perspective, as it all still comes flooding out at once, the social problems that I had before have not been resolved. I still have a ferritin level in single figures and live on iron tablets.

My own theory is that my blood loss has diminished simply because I'm heading toward the menopause and one thing is for sure, the bleeding will stop one day...

I'm very very cynical about ablation as a result of all this - not least because despite being told I would be fine after a few days rest, I was off work for a fortnight and didn't feel normal for three weeks. I had constant bleeding for 6 weeks after the op.

There's no chance of a hysterectomy as my consultant is the lead guy in our region and his mantra re wombs is that "if you're not going to die of it, you're going to die with it". He only performs hysterectomies these days in order to save life.

Best of luck - my advice is to question your gynae very closely on his/her approach and be sceptical about claimed success rates. They claim success based on their own measures, not based on patient satisfaction IME.