Can you answer these questions?

Can you guess the answers to these questions?

____________


True or False?


☐ Castration, neutering and removal of both ovaries are
the same.

☐ Sex life is better after hysterectomy.

☐ Death from heart disease is more likely in hysterectomized
women than in normal women.

☐ Hysterectomy has no effect on men’s sex lives.
____________



Hysterectomy: exactly what is it?

During the operation called hysterectomy the uterus is removed
from a woman’s body and its functions are permanently lost.

During a hysterectomy it is a common and unjustified practice for surgeons
to remove normal ovaries and fallopian tubes in surgery called
bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (also called ovariectomy or castration).

Neither hysterectomy nor oophorectomy is constructive or
restorative surgery. Both hysterectomy and
oophorectomy are, by medical definition, destructive procedures.
There is no treatment which is able to restore, replace or compensate for
the functions of the missing organs.

The immediate and life-long complications induced by these
operations have been widely documented in the scientific and
medical literature since their introduction into the surgical
armamentarium, and are well known in medical circles.



What women say about life after hysterectomy

The adverse effects most frequently reported to
the HERS Foundation:

• Loss of sexuality: loss of desire, loss of physical responsiveness and pleasure, and painful intercourse.

• Pain in bones and joints: “locking” of joints so that some women are unable to stand, walk, or lift without assistance; some women require braces, walkers, wheelchairs; some are bedridden.

• Backache: severe, persistent, disabling.

• Extreme dryness of skin, eyes, genital tissues; vaginal atrophy.

• Rapid, abnormal aging of tissues affecting appearance, skin and general health.

• Angina: chest pain and pressure may occur spontaneously, with exertion, or with exposure to cold.

• Cardiovascular disease.

• Chronic urinary problems: stress incontinence, feeling of urgency or irritability, frequent night voiding, infections, fistulae (surgically-caused abnormal openings into the vagina from the urinary tract).

• Internal pain: in pelvis, groin, vagina or side.

• Emotional dislocation: profound depression, crying, emotional blunting; loss of maternal feeling and of emotional connection and response to loved ones.

• Chronic debilitating fatigue which is not relieved by resting: loss of stamina and of ability to resume the pattern of life which preceded surgery, i.e., diminished ability to run a household, return to work, maintain familiy and social connections.

• Persistance of the condition for which surgery was performed: endometriosis, cancer, pelvic infection, urinary disorders, etc.

• Insomnia; panic attacks; heart palpitations; impaired memory and concentration; weight gain; intolerable hot flashes.


Next: What you need to know about hysterectomy