misread scan

[sianch]

Do you think I should go and pay for another scan? I had a scan 2 weeks ago as I am having a lot of pain. All my sysmtoms lead to endo. I was told the only thing they seen is polycysitic ovaires which they assumed I knew I had but I didn't and they said I should of known cos I would of always had it but I have had a few scans (the last one was july 2013 and never shown up before. The man who done the scan said they were measuring at 16 and should be 10. Do you think it could be something else and hes just assumed it was cysist. I am really worried.

[Impatient]

An ultrasound does not show up endometriosis - if it did we would all have been diagnosed years before. Sadly because it is flat and grows on the surface of tissues and ligaments and organs and is just the same cells as are appearing in the uterus a scan will not pick them up at all.

You are given a scan not to find endo but to rule out all the other possible gynae issues that can cause your symptoms. Like Pcos, fibroids, mularian deformities (mishaped wombs, fallopian tubes and ovaries) and so on. It os one step towards narrowing down the possible causes of pain.

The only way to dignose endo and map the extent of the disease and to remove existing endo is to have surgery. That is the ONLY way, and while there are clues to hving endo, such as symptoms, or adhsions caused by endo may stick an ovary to the bowel or something llike that, or an ovarian cysts filled with blood which again points to endo, these are only going to put you in the 'suspected endometriosis' stage until you have the surgery.

Finding PCOS is one thing tht your gynaecologist will try and get under control and see if tht eases your pain symptoms. It may be all that is wrongg, but they will tackle that 1st, then see if all your othr remaining symptoms are still pointing to endo before you get surgery to ctually do the diagnosing as to where in the tummy the endo is growing. It could be absolutely anywhere in the body my on one or two blisters or lesions - or up to several hundred locations.