Why Are So Many Women Still Getting Hysterectomies?
The procedure can change your life, and not always for the better. There are newer solves to treat bleeding and pain, yet many women and doctors are still going for the nuclear option…unnecessarily. WH investigates.
Renée Meyer always had period pain so bad she “couldn’t function” without ibuprofen. But in 2016, at 37 years old, she started going to the bathroom every hour and having problems with bladder leakage. Her doctor’s initial suggestion was Kegel exercises. But when Meyer noticed her pelvic area was starting to appear pregnant when she wasn’t, she returned to the doctor. An ultrasound uncovered the true problem: fibroids, masses in the uterus that are benign over 99 percent of the time. And the solution? Removing her uterus, so the fibroids could no longer grow.
Meyer, now 42, didn’t plan to have kids, so she was on board with getting a hysterectomy. But the surgeon also suggested removing the cervix, the opening to the uterus, so she would no longer need Pap smears. Meyer asked how that might affect her sex life; she couldn’t find much online about which reproductive organs were involved in an orgasm. But the doctor she consulted told her “there would be no difference,” she recalls. Except there was. A lot of what women feel during orgasm is the contractions of the uterus and cervix. While she doesn’t regret going the route she did, “I’m pissed off there wasn’t more information,” says Meyer, who lives in Sacramento. “I miss cervical orgasms.”
She’s not the only one who has dealt with a major information gap around such a life-altering procedure. Hysterectomies have been around since before the Middle Ages, but only in the past couple of decades have researchers started to prove what, for years, was whispered among those who had one: Removing the organ sometimes causes problems, at least as much as it solves them.
And although there are now less-drastic options, many women aren’t provided with them—or they are encouraged to go full-bore and remove the uterus because that solution is the obvious and easiest. (We’re not talking about instances of cancer or possible cancer, where removing the uterus really may be the only option. About 90 percent of hysterectomies are done for reasons unrelated to cancer.)
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a34574411/hysterectomy-side-effects/