I HAZ DIAGNOSIS!
Had my post-op visit this morning and it turns out the lesion that he excised was endometriosis. He wasn't sure at the time of the surgery because he only found the one small lesion and it was non-traditional in appearance but the testing confirmed it as uterine tissue outside of my uterus. So yay! But he told me that even though I now had a formal diagnosis of endometriosis, that one lesion could not account for my symptoms. So, boo. Then he said that during the laporoscopy he was able to closely observe my uterus and noted that while it was mostly normal in appearance, my uterine wall appeared somewhat thicker and different than he would imagine. Based on that indication, the pics from my ultrasounds where he noted that there "noticeable musculature" in my uterine wall, and my overall symptoms, he gave me a presumptive diagnosis of adenomyosis. The diagnosis is presumptive because the only way to confirm the diagnosis is to cut into the uterine wall which can only be done after a hysterectomy. He gave me some literature on adenomyosis and after reading that and the information on the link here, it's like they were discussing my symptoms to the tee.
When I asked him why he didn't mention this as a possibility before, he said that without performing the diagnostic laporoscopy to actually see my uterus he didn't want to jump to conclusions because for all intents and purposes it's pretty much a worse case scenario in that the ONLY cure is a hysterectomy whereas with a diagnosis of endometriosis treatment is simply removing the lesions. While I would still need to be on some type of hormone therapy to stop the symptoms for both (e.g. menopause induction with Lupron), with endometriosis that treatment would be short-term and with adenomyosis I would need to be on something permanently or the symptoms would simply return. So basically, it's either suffer and keep my fertility options available or not suffer and pretty much write off having children. He recommended the Lupron treatment for 6 months which involves monthly injections and a daily oral medication because I still need to treat the endometriosis to prevent it from coming back, and it will also stop the adenomyosis from getting worse for the time being. After the 6 months, we'll have to make a decision on how to proceed because basically the pain will return once I stop the medicine and will continue to increase in severity.
Sigh. I can't think long-term right now. I'm just going to take a moment to enjoy that I'll only have one more month of HELL and then the bliss of NO MONTHLY DEMON FOR 6 MONTHS! The pain should decrease too, but unfortunately will probably not go away completely.
When I asked him why he didn't mention this as a possibility before, he said that without performing the diagnostic laporoscopy to actually see my uterus he didn't want to jump to conclusions because for all intents and purposes it's pretty much a worse case scenario in that the ONLY cure is a hysterectomy whereas with a diagnosis of endometriosis treatment is simply removing the lesions. While I would still need to be on some type of hormone therapy to stop the symptoms for both (e.g. menopause induction with Lupron), with endometriosis that treatment would be short-term and with adenomyosis I would need to be on something permanently or the symptoms would simply return. So basically, it's either suffer and keep my fertility options available or not suffer and pretty much write off having children. He recommended the Lupron treatment for 6 months which involves monthly injections and a daily oral medication because I still need to treat the endometriosis to prevent it from coming back, and it will also stop the adenomyosis from getting worse for the time being. After the 6 months, we'll have to make a decision on how to proceed because basically the pain will return once I stop the medicine and will continue to increase in severity.
Sigh. I can't think long-term right now. I'm just going to take a moment to enjoy that I'll only have one more month of HELL and then the bliss of NO MONTHLY DEMON FOR 6 MONTHS! The pain should decrease too, but unfortunately will probably not go away completely.