Hysterectomy-My Plea !

Bellevue Pharmacy Solutions-Compounding Specialist
and my source for bioidentical hormones

01/19/08

BHRT (Bioidentical Hormone Replacement) is once again at risk. Please speak up now to preserve
our right to choose what is best for our bodies and health. Even if this doesn't effect you
at present, it may indeed effect your or a loved one's ability to chose a
compounded medication that is more suitable to you.
If you're concerned about your right to choose, now is the time to let your voice be heard.

What you can do:

From the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists-

BHRT At Risk: Take Action to Save BHRT!

Last week FDA made a horrible decision—choosing Wyeth’s wealth over patient health.
FDA agreed to support Wyeth in their campaign to end compounded hormone replacement
therapy—specifically by starting a crackdown on the use of estriol which FDA claims is illegal.

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WOMEN ACROSS OUR CONTINENT NEED YOUR HELP !

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE !!

Women are having hysterectomies in staggering numbers, one of these could
be your mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, significant other,
or perhaps even yourself if you're female, of course!

It is my opinion that the medical community as a whole is not prepared to deal
with the numbers of younger women in our society today that are undergoing
hysterectomy. Ninety percent of the literature and communications regarding
hysterectomy and hormone replacement are in relation to menopausal women
or women very near to menopause that have had a hysterectomy.

At this age, women have already been experiencing a decline or hormone
production in their systems for quite a few years. It is said that around
age thirty-five, a woman's body STARTS the slow down of hormone production
which then goes on for ten to fifteen years, giving the body a very slow
decline, without marked symptoms.

Thousands of women today are having hysterectomies long before menopause
(25 - 40 yrs. of age). Many of these operations needed, many are for
cancers of female organs, many also due to endometriosis and uterine fibroids.

As we know, for cancer, there is no cure, treatments are often agonizing,
although often life-saving. With endometriosis, no cause or cure is known.
It is a progressive, often debilitating disease which in worst case scenarios,
can leave a woman's pelvic organs including bowel and or bladder literally
"glued" together, cause infertility and make daily life and monthly
menstruation agonizingly painful. Uterine fibroids, despite popular
contradiction can also be debilitating causing heavy bleeding, pain and infertility.

Less drastic surgical procedures are performed for these conditions, as well
as drug therapies. These are often extremely costly, often causing side
effects in and of themselves. My prayers go out to any woman today
suffering from any one of these diseases. The woman that does not have
health insurance suffers the greatest.

I myself am a forty year old woman who had a Total Abdominal Hysterectomy
with removal of both ovaries, fallopian tubes and cervix due to
endometriosis, pelvic adhesions, painful recurrent ovarian cysts and
chronic pelvic pain. I battled this disease for six years with two pelvic
laparoscopies, Depo Lupron, Synarel, Birth Control Therapy, Chiropractic,
all of which gave me only a brief respite in symptoms if any.

The sometimes callous, uneducated treatment, comments, advice I received
from medical personnel including doctors and nurses, I could literally
write a book about. Some of the stories I've shared with the women
I've been in contact with, I call my "sisters" that have had hysterectomies
and endometriosis and have gone through so much, have often brought tears
to my eyes ! It is almost too much to bear when you're living a painful existence.

Thousands of women today that are having difficulty after hysterectomy
(myself included) are often patted on the hand by medical professionals.
Many of us are suffering almost as much as we did before our conditions
were eradicated by hysterectomy. For a younger woman the sudden loss of
hormone production often brings sudden and severe symptoms including
but not limited to:

Hot flashes, drenching night sweats, weight gain (yes! while maybe not
"hysterectomy" related, it is related to removal or failure of the ovaries!),
loss of libido, fatigue, joint pain and muscle aches, trouble sleeping,
depression, brain fog, memory loss, hair loss. I am sure there are some I've left out.

Let me assure you, women who experience these problems/symptoms
are not hypochondriacs, as I myself have suffered from all of these
symptoms and even fourteen months after my surgery was still seeking relief.
While I am thankful to not have the pain and symptoms from endometriosis,
I, as many others were not prepared for something almost as bad and
debilitating as the disease I was having the surgery for.

Pre-Op information given regarding the aftermath of hysterectomy is scant.
I got most of my information from a pamphlet I picked up at a doctors office
one day a few years before my surgery, knowing this would be my eventual,
final treatment for endometriosis.

HOW CAN YOU HELP??

So glad you asked! My plea is to medical professionals, politicians, influential
women in our country, researchers, insurance medical
review persons, bosses, family members, and women.

1. If you are a person of prominence in our country, please take this issue
seriously. The loss of employment related productivity, quality of life,
and family life for many women after hysterectomy, is seriously suffering.

2. If you are a doctor, nurse or medical professional administering
care/treatment to a woman with a disease of her female organ/s,
or dealing with the aftermath of hysterectomy. Please do not devalue us by making
comments such as "You just need more attention from your husband",
(yes one doctor really said this to a distressed post-hysterectomy patient
who came to him with many of the above mentioned problems).
Please have patience with us, listen with empathy when we describe the new
and sometimes shocking things that are happening to our body.
Imagine yourself trying to get through your day in your profession with
the above mentioned symptoms to deal with daily.

3. If you are a researcher, professor of medicine, please try to raise
awareness about these issues, obtain grants for study of effective post
hysterectomy hormone therapy that does not have enough side effects
to make us feel worse, possibly threaten our mortality, or
cause more disease such as that of synthetic hormones.
Imagine having the above mentioned symptoms and there
are no truly effective, safe therapies for them.

4. If you are an employer or a boss of a woman that's dealing with disease
of her female organs, or coming back to work after hysterectomy,
please have patience, we need enough recovery time after our
surgery to allow healing, usually 4-6 weeks, depending on the
surgery and the woman. Allow us to come back to work gradually if we need
to, this often helps. Understand that we do not want to miss time from
work or be non-productive. Imagine yourself coming to
work daily while enduring the above mentioned symptoms.

5.If you are a woman who has had a hysterectomy, please help to try and
raise awareness. Share what you are going through with others.
Tell your story so that others may know the problems we face. If we
stay silent, change will never happen.

Be good to yourself, if your surgery was recent, realize that it is
MAJOR surgery, allow yourself the time you need to heal, listen to what
your body is telling you, rest when you need it, even if it seems like alot.
Learn to ask others to help you, allowing yourself to recover at YOUR bodies
pace, will help with quicker recovery time and less problems.
Make yourself heard and understood with your physician, don't be
afraid to speak up and say something isn't working, ask to try an
alternative, or vocalize what you are going through and how bad it is,
if it is. Do not hesitate to change doctors if you are not treated with
the utmost respect and caring. We are half of the solution, if
we don't tell others what we need, how can they help?

6.Last but not least, if you are a family member, loved one, or friend of a
woman going dealing with a reproductive disease or recovering from a
hysterectomy, please have patience with us realize that we want
to be well, it is why we had the surgery in the first place. We want to
resume our lives as before only better!
Give us time, and understanding, hugs, and support.

Thank you all for spending a few minutes in our world. If you can help
by ANY means, please do. Millions of women are suffering. Your
colleagues, co-workers, bosses, employees, wives,
daughters, sisters and friends need your support.

**In loving dedication to my "sisters" who bravely suffer with diseases of their
female organs, or the aftermath of hysterectomy.

My plea is for understanding, empathy, more time spent on research
of these diseases that are causing women to lose time from work, decrease the
quality time and emotional resources they have for their families, and to
be able to live a daily life without enduring pain that they must struggle
with all the knowledge, assertiveness and emotional resources they have
leftover trying to obtain competent, respectful,
empathic, effective, treatment from medical professionals.

My knowledge base is primarily endometriosis, hysterectomy and
hormone replacement, as I have had experience with all three.
Too little importance, research, and time is being spent on
finding the cause of endometriosis. Despite millions of women
all across our continent being afflicted with it, virtually nothing
is known about it. The cause is not known, there are no cures.
Even total hysterectomy does not always eradicate the disease.
Many people don't even know about it, many doctors and nurses
are not experienced with its presentation of symptoms, its different
appearances, and effective pain control.

HRT-NHRT at Yahoo Groups was started in hopes of being able to discuss
hysterectomy, hrt & nhrt with others and share experiences and support.

Join the "Quiet Revolution" at HRT-NHRT group.

Hysterectomy Newsletter

Compounding Pharmacy Listing Page

The much anticipated and long awaited:

MISINFORMED CONSENT

Misinformed Consent – Women’s Stories
about Unnecessary Hysterectomy by
Lise Cloutier Steele
Foreword by Stanley T. West, M.D., FACOG
and Author of The Hysterectomy Hoax

The U.S. Edition of Misinformed Consent is now
available through amazon.com

To order a copy online, click on the book below:

The U.S. edition of Misinformed Consent will be released in
early 2003 by Next Decade, Inc. of New Jersey.
For more information, go to:

www.nextdecade.com

My own hysterectomy story is proudly included in Misinformed Consent

How You Can Help

Hysterectomy Newsletter

**Request copies of my FYI newsletter by email, subjects listed on the Newsletter page.

Hysterectomy *Connections*

Compounding Pharmacy Listings-U.S.

Compounding Pharmacy Listings-CANADA-OTHER

Monthly Interview Page

Monthly interview featuring a women's health related website and interview
with the site's owner or representative.

*December 2000-Pete Hueseman, R.Ph.,P.D. of College Pharmacy

*September 2000-Dr. Daniel Bivins and Hormonetesting.net

*July 2000-Dr. Joe Collins-Your Menopause Type.com

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