Strong Period Pain Post Excision

[Sarah001]

Hi,

I had my 4th excision 4 weeks ago and have still experienced my usual ovulation pain and pain running up to my period. My period has now arrived and it is awful - No better than before my excision.

Has anyone else experienced this? After all 3 of my previous surgeries I have had some relief for a few months but this time I'm not seeing any difference.

During the surgery my bowel was stuck to uterus, had two large nodules on my colon that were shaved off, my left ovary was stuck to my pelvic wall and some other patches removed just around my pelvis / bladder. Could it be that because this was a bigger surgery that everything is still healing and therefore causing pain..?

I will of course mention to my surgeon but just wondered if anyone else had experienced this too.

[luthien]

Wow; it seems like you've had quite a lot done in this operation which can affect recovery times.

My specialist said it can often take about 4 to 6 months to completely recover from an invasive excision lap, but there should be improvements at about 8 weeks onwards, where you'll start to see your new "normal". So you're still early days.

We can't compare to previous surgeries as there's so many factors involved which I didn't take into account; health levels, diet, weight, age, fitness, hormones, part of the cycle the op is during, where the endo is, how long the op was, how invasive it was, surface / deep endo, behind other structures (ie suturing / moving things out the way).

My first surgery was endo all over bladder and uterus, where he had to excise it and unstick stuff - it took about 6 weeks to really notice improvements. The second was just (well I say just) endo shaved off the back of my bowel - took about 8 weeks. But my specialist said because that second one was more invasive that's why it took longer and quite often we forget that. He also mentioned that our bodies can't tell the difference between endo pain and removal of endo pain as it's still triggering the same nerves, so we think nothing has changed, it has, it'll just take time to notice.

All those organs in there don't like being moved around so it can take longer to recover as they need to move back, plus if there's lots of healing then that's lots of toxins to remove so inflammation can be more. Our uterus doesn't like being moved around either so it sends the hormones into chaos which can cause our cycles to be a bit weird and with odd symptoms.

Hope you see some improvement soon x

[Sarah001 in reply to luthien]

Thank you, yes hopefully it's just where its still healing and my body can't tell the difference between endo and removal yet as its my first period post-surgery. I was just expecting at least a few months of being pain free!!

How long ago did you have your bowel endo excised if you don't mind me asking? I've read that when endo is shaved from the bowel (as opposed to the section being removed) there's quite a high change of it recurring so I am just wondering whether you've managed to stay "symptom free" for a while post-surgery ? xx

[luthien in reply to Sarah001]

Rest and recover, hope you have some pain free months in a while

I had my bowel endo removed July 2018, so a while back, no recurring symptoms yet. My endo specialist and colorectal specialist discussed a rectal shave as opposed to a resection because from the previous lap they could see it hadn't perforated the bowel, but as that was 8 months prior I signed for a resection before my bowel lap just to be sure; they still only needed to do a shave which was fine.

Yes you're right a shave off the bowel will cause recurrence but if the endo has perforated; if it hasn't and is just on the surface then a shave is less invasive, but it need to be done when it's quite early growth.

I have symptoms but no where near as bad; it's just around my period now, and stuff I can cope with / work from home, and just plan out that time to not socialise.

[Sarah001 in reply to luthien]

Thank you

Yes they discussed resection but my surgeon wasn’t expecting anything to be as bad as it was so didn’t have a colorectal to hand (I can’t have an MRI as I have a medical device) so he was going in blind essentially.

The two patches he managed to shave off were 4cm and 3cm so quite large and I read somewhere that anything over 2/3 should be resected so I’m just worried now that it’ll come back or he maybe didn’t get it all as they were so large!

Thank you for sharing though, fingers crossed it has all gone! X

[Sarah001]

Thank you, no its always helpful hearing how others manage!

I guess I'm just slightly disappointed as with all my other surgeries I've had a "break" from symptoms but not this time!

Hopefully it is where it is just all healing still and therefore when everything inflames with a period its put some pressure there but I'll see how I get on next month xx