Yet Another Surgery & Birth Control Pills

Be warned, this is going to be a poorly written post as I just need to vent....

I have now had 3 surgeries on my ovary in 15 months. This last surgery (on October 25, 2007 at Mt. Sinai Hospital) I initiated and I told my doctor (Rudy Segna) that I wanted my ovary OUT. You can read about my history with endometriosis and benign tumor growth in my past posts. This has been an extremely hard year on me.

A lot of my problems started about 1 year after I got off the birth control pill. I had been on the pill off and on for almost 19 years. I think that I had taken breaks from the pill for more than a year at a time in the past, and had no problems, but back in the spring of 2005 I got off the pill, thinking that I'd been on for long enough. My periods had never been fun, but they started getting worse and within about a year I started getting very sharp pains in what turned out to be my right ovary.

I had hormone tests and it turned out that although my hormone levels were not high, I was estrogen dominant during the time of the month that my estrogen was supposed to be lower than my progesterone. I also found out around the same time that I was hypoglycemic. So, I started changing my diet. I have since found out that sugar and simple carbs can contribute to estrogen dominance. I am not sure if my change in diet, which has done wonders for my mood and how I feel, has done anything for my estrogen levels. One reason that I do not know is that after the appearance of the 2nd cyst on my ovary, I my doctors urged me to go onto a low dose pill, YAZ. Because YAZ is a low-estrogen pill, the doctors thought it might prove helpful in postpoining more endometriosis and alleviating my ovary pain. YAZ did do away with my most crippling ovary pain, but I did still experience pain.

During my second surgery the doctor found 2 cysts, 1 an endometrioma (in the same spot I had an endometrioma during my first surgery) and 1 a very scary looking seromucinous cystdenofibroma cyst (there is another post on this). There was little to no endometriosis and since my previous surgery had been 10 months before, I was unsure if the YAZ had helped with anything or not.

I decided to stay on the YAZ and about 3 months later I started feeling pain in my ovary again. This time I got proactive and went to my second-opinion doctor, Rudy Segna, who is an OBGYN oncologist and told him that I wanted the ovary out. He said it wasn't necessary unless he found more suspicious growths on my ovary during the surgery, but I told him I wanted it out regardless, because I did not want to keep facing yearly surgeries to remove more growths and I was also freaked out about how much my previous growth looked like cancer (although it was benign).

During the operation Dr. Segna found about 5 more cysts forming on my right ovary, this time they were fibroids. My left ovary was pristine and seems to have always been so. So, my conclusion is that the YAZ is not really helping me. If 5 more cysts formed 3 months after my previous surgery, which seems to be even quicker than the cysts formed after my first surgery when I was not on the pill, I am thinking I should GET OFF THE YAZ. Also, new reports are coming out on how birth control pills contribute to heart disease and blood clots. And frankly, there have been NO long-term studies on the effects of birth control pills, so frankly, we women who have taken the pill over the long term have essentially been guinea pigs, testing out these things.

My fear is that the high-estrogen birth control pills that I was on for so long contributed to my endometriosis to begin with and all of the subsequent growths on my ovary. Part of me is afraid to get off the YAZ because I'm afraid of more endometriosis. At the same time, it really doesn't seem to have helped me and is potentially VERY dangerous! What a conundrum. I am so sick of dealing with these issues. I HATE surgery. I hate the idea of things growing on my reproductive organs. I SOOOO hope that taking out the right ovary will end my problems, but my fear is that somehow the problem will switch to my left ovary, though I don't really see how it would since the left ovary has been such a champ over the last few years.

Anyway, I just needed to vent. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.