How can i have endo without the lacaroscopy?

[Hollyms]

Hiya, i got diagnosed 5 years ago and have had all sorts of treatment, but i never have had an operation, nor a camera inside to have a look. Surely i cannot be diagnosed without having that?

[Impatient]

Quite correct - you cannot be diagnosed without surgery. Surgery will confirm if you have endo, all the locations it is growing, how big each lesion or cluster is, and how deep it has grown, it will also determine whether your fertility is at risk and what if any adhesions you have growing inside. None of that can be determined from any scans.

It is also the ONLY way to have existing endo lesions removed.

If you have been battling the symptoms for 5 years - it is high time you did have surgery to determine the existance and extent of the disease. Please ask your GP to refer you to an endo specialist gynaecologist - not a regular fertility gynaecologist with very little experience of endo.

You need to find one who has plenty of work under their belt dealing with removing endo that is found in a diagnostic lap op.

I would imagine mean time in the 5 years you have been taking steps to manage or stop your periods which you would continue to do after any surgery - but for the surgery itself it is actually better to have your endo active, for you to be on a period or just fnished a period, so the active endo can be easily spotted and removed.

If you have surgery after having your endo in a coma for some time, ie during or after GnRH drug use then the endo can be very hard to spot. You don't want to go through extensive surgery and be left with existing endo inside, so try and aim to have a period or two before any operation takes place - painful as that will be short term, it is much better for your long term prospects of recovery if most of the endo can be removed in one op.