Regain Control: Gynaecological Wellness

Each month, the tissue lining your uterus thickens, breaks down and eventually leaves the body as menses.

In some women, this endometrial tissue may grow outside the uterus and on the ovaries, bowel or even outside the pelvis. As it breaks down and gets trapped in the pelvic area, this misplaced tissue can get inflamed.

Pain is a sign that something isn’t right. This may be experienced as pelvic pain (the most common symptom), severe menstrual cramps (dysmenorrhoea), or heavy bleeding. You may also feel discomfort during bowel movements or sexual intercourse.

For more information, download our brochure ‘Painful Periods? It Could be Endometriosis’.

Treatments

The degree of pain felt is not an indication of severity of endometriosis. You may experience intense pain even though you have a mild form of endometriosis, or you may have a serious case and yet feel no pain at all.

An effective treatment option is laparoscopic excision. This is where the surgeon’s skill can determine how successfully the condition is treated. Being minimally invasive, patients can expect a quick recovery with minimal scarring.

Sometimes, a fluid- or blood-filled sac (known as a ‘cyst’) can grow on the ovaries. While most cysts are painless and disappear on their own, larger cysts may cause discomfort such as abdominal bloating and pelvic pain before or during your period.

Seek urgent medical attention if you experience severe pelvic pain accompanied by fever, sudden nausea or vomiting. These may be signs of a ruptured cyst.

Treatments

In most cases, ovarian cysts can be easily removed through an ovarian cystectomy, which can be performed as laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery. However, in cases where cysts keep recurring, or if the ovary cannot be preserved, or if risk of ovarian cancer is high, an oophorectomy may be recommend to remove one or both of your ovaries.

Another common gynaecological condition that affects women include polyps, which are small mushroom-like or flat tissue growths. These typically grow in the inner wall of the uterus, but can also occur on the cervix.

Warning signs of uterine or cervical polyps include irregular periods, prolonged or unusually heavy menstrual flow, with vaginal bleeding or spotting between periods or after menopause. Depending on their size, location and number, polyps may affect a women’s fertility.

Treatments

Your gynaecologist may recommend transcervical polyp resection (TCRP), which is a minimally invasive procedure that can diagnose the type, location and number of polyps. The specialist will also be able to remove them at the same time either using forceps or with targeted electric currents.

Fibroids are non-cancerous growths in the muscle wall of the uterus. Depending on their location and size, they may cause pressure or discomfort in your abdomen or lower back, heavy, painful and/or prolonged periods, and pain during intercourse. Frequent, or difficulty passing urine is another telltale sign. Left untreated, fibroids in certain locations can even cause infertility and miscarriage.

Did you know that some 60% of women have benign fibroids with no symptoms? This is why most women only discover them during routine pelvic examinations or with an ultrasound scan at their gynaecologist’s.

Treatments

Women who wish to conceive a child in future can opt for preferred procedures such as fertility-sparing myomectomy or transcervical resection of fibroids, which allow your gynaecologist to surgically remove fibroids without the need for any incisions. In most cases, recovery is quick with little side effects. A more permanent treatment option, especially for women unconcerned by fertility, is a hysterectomy, or the removal of the womb.