HERS Honored With Women's Way Award

Amid the applause of 1,100 guests, the Women's Way 32nd Annual Powerful Voice Awards were presented in Philadelphia on May 6, 2009. The awards honored the accomplishments of Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR) Director Teresa White, community organizer and HIV/AIDS awareness advocate Waheedah Shabazz-El, and women's rights advocate and activist, Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services (HERS) Foundation President Nora W. Coffey.

Women's Way Executive Director Melissa Weiler Gerber says of the award, it "serves as a call to action to women everywhere, encouraging us to increase women's influence in the media and make a difference in the community."

Women's Way is the first major women's organization to publicly acknowledge the importance of educating women about the damaging effects of hysterectomy and the lifelong functions of the female organs. The award is recognition that hysterectomy is one of the most serious health issues facing women today. As demonstrated in Nora's book THE H WORD, co-authored by Rick Schweikert, the hysterectomy rate is on the rise, and every woman with a uterus is at risk.

Women's Way presented HERS with an excellent opportunity to talk about the issues, but the award presenter was a pharmaceutical company representative. Nora's first thought was, "I can't accept an award presented by someone from the industry." HERS is an independent women's health education organization with a policy of not accepting support from the medical industry.

"Because there was no opportunity to address this issue publicly at the banquet," Nora said, "in keeping with HERS' mandate of education, I presented a copy of THE H WORD to the pharmaceutical rep as she handed me the award. That way, she could educate herself and her pharma colleagues about these issues."

Since 1977, Women's Way has been the country's oldest and largest women's funding federation. This award brings into focus the imperative to provide women with the information required for hysterectomy informed consent.

We welcome any ideas you might have about getting exposure for HERS and THE H WORD. Each time someone reads the book, it's another person who has been educated about these issues and someone who may educate others and join us in changing the law. Each time the book is in the media, in a bookstore, on a blog, or on a library shelf, the number of people who have access to this vital information is magnified many times over.

This is an opportunity to put hysterectomy information into the hands of those who need it...to save a girl, to save a woman, to save a family. To prevent hysterectomy from becoming the legacy of another generation of women and girls.

The ovary option

There has been a media blitz surrounding recent discussion of the pros and cons of surgical removal of the ovaries during hysterectomy (see Cochrane article below). But the most important issue has yet to be addressed: the uterus should rarely be removed in the first place.

The article below perpetuates a dangerous myth through the subliminal message that if your ovaries are left intact you’ll be fine if only your uterus is removed. Those who are unaware of the aftermath of hysterectomy, with or without castration, can join more than 400,000 others who have watched the HERS
12-minute video by clicking here: “Female Anatomy: the Functions of the Female Organs.”

If the analysis was a sincere effort to provide women with the information they need to make informed decisions about whether or not to allow a doctor to remove their ovaries, the article would have used the word castration, which conveys an immediate understanding of the gravity of their decision. The ovaries are the female gonads, the same as the testicles are the male gonads. The medically correct term for removal of the gonads is castration.

In the HERS Foundation’s ongoing study “Adverse Effects Data,” the experiences of hysterectomized women whose ovaries are left intact are strikingly similar to the women who are also castrated at the time of the surgery. Part of the reason for similar responses with or without castration is that in hysterectomized women whose ovaries aren’t removed, about 35-40% of the time the ovaries cease to function after hysterectomy, resulting in a de facto castration.

This information is public knowledge and has been published in peer-reviewed medical journals for more than a century, so neither journalists nor doctors who hold themselves out as experts in gynecology should get it wrong.

The response to these articles would be far different if the headlines read, “Should women be castrated during removal of other sex organs?”

Removing ovaries during hysterectomy: effects remain unknown
During hysterectomy operations, surgeons often remove a woman’s ovaries as well as her uterus. Cochrane Researchers now say there is no evidence that removing the ovaries provides any additional benefit and warn surgeons to consider the procedure carefully.

“Until more reliable research is available, removal of the ovaries at the time of hysterectomy should be approached with caution,” says lead researcher, Dr. Leonardo Orozco of the OBGYN Women’s Hospital San José in Costa Rica.

Of those women who undergo hysterectomies aged 40 or above, around half also have their ovaries removed. This amounts to more than 300,000 women a year in the US alone. The reason most commonly given for carrying out an oophorectomy at the same time is that it prevents ovarian cancer. However the ovaries produce not only estrogen, but also important hormones such as androgens that may have important clinical effects which have yet to be identified.

The researchers say there is little evidence to support the idea that removing the ovaries during a hysterectomy provides an overall health benefit. They identified only one controlled trial, involving 362 women. This compared hysterectomies with oophorectomies to hysterectomies without oophorectomies. Although this trial showed a very slight positive effect on psychological well-being when oophorectomies were performed, the team say much more data is required before any conclusions can be drawn.

“There could be a real benefit or harm associated with oophorectomy, but it has not been identified, more research of higher methodological quality is needed.” says Dr. Orozco.

Orozco LJ, Salazar A, Clarke J, Tristan M. Hysterectomy versus hysterectomy plus oophorectomy for premenopausal women. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD005638. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD005638.pub2. Cochrane Menstrual Disorders and Subfertility Group.

Removal of one or both ovaries increases incidence of cognitive loss

HERS Foundation said...
This article is soon to be published in the Journal 'Neurology'. Many hysterectomized and castrated women experience memory problems that began after the surgery. Because they are often ridiculed by doctors for connecting their memory problems to their surgery their concerns and experiences are often trivialized by family and friends.

The Real Experts have been telling the so-called medical experts for a century that castration causes memory loss and impaired cognitive function. Doctors tell them their memory loss is because they have a relationship problem with a partner, family or friends. They tell them taking hormones is the remedy. And they tell them they have memory loss because the are depressed.

The loss of memory results in a profound loss of self and identity. Competent, intelligent, dynamic women suddenly have difficulty finding the common ordinary words they know as well as their own names. Thoughts run around the edge of their brains, unable to be retrieved. Most women characterize this tremendous loss as irritating, frustrating, and terrifying. The thing that I always find incredible is the way so many women have learned to cope with this loss by compensating. Sometimes it's a facile changing subject, or with a laugh, "oh, you know what I mean". Sometimes it's like charades. "It's green, it's wood, it has a back, and you sit on it." All the while she's trying to be pleasant and not show how foolish it feels to play a game to get others to guess what is in her head.

Women who experience these problems can use this article to help family and friends understand what is so difficult to comprehend and accept, particularly because it is denied by gynecologists who perform the surgery. Acknowledging the problems caused by hysterectomy is not good for business. Kudos to the authors.

Increased risk of cognitive impairment
or dementia in women who underwent
oophorectomy before menopause

W.A. Rocca, MD, MPH
J.H. Bower, MD
D.M. Maraganore, MD
J.E. Ahlskog, PhD, MD
B.R. Grossardt, MS
M. de Andrade, PhD
L.J. Melton III, MD, MPH
ABSTRACT
Objective: There is increasing laboratory evidence for a neuroprotective effect of estrogen; however,
the clinical and epidemiologic evidence remains limited and conflicting. We studied the association
of oophorectomy performed before the onset of menopause with the risk of subsequent cognitive impairment or dementia.

Methods: We included all women who underwent unilateral or bilateral oophorectomy before the
onset of menopause for a non-cancer indication while residing in Olmsted County, MN, from 1950
through 1987. Each member of the oophorectomy cohort was matched by age to a referent woman from the same population who had not undergone oophorectomy. In total, we studied 813 women with unilateral oophorectomy, 676 women with bilateral oophorectomy, and 1,472 referent
women. Women were followed through death or end of study using either direct or proxy
interviews.

Results: Women who underwent either unilateral or bilateral oophorectomy before the onset of
menopause had an increased risk of cognitive impairment or dementia compared to referent
women (hazard ratio [HR] 1.46;95%CI 1.13 to 1.90; adjusted for education, type of interview, and history of depression). The risk increased with younger age at oophorectomy (test for linear
trend; adjusted p 0.0001). These associations were similar regardless of the indication for the
oophorectomy, and for women who underwent unilateral or bilateral oophorectomy considered
separately.

Conclusions: Both unilateral and bilateral oophorectomy preceding the onset of menopause are associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment or dementia. The effect is age-dependent and suggests a critical age window for neuroprotection. Neurology® 2007;69:1074–1083

Hysterectomy Myths vs Facts

Female Anatomy Exposed:

If the female sex organs were visible like the male sex organs,
would they still be removed from 622,000 women each year?

Myth: “Only men have gonads.”

FACT: A woman’s gonads are her ovaries. Removal of the ovaries is castration, and the aftereffects are to women what the aftereffects of removal of the testicles are to men.

Myth: “Sex will be better than ever after hysterectomy.”

FACT: Removal of the uterus causes the loss of uterine orgasm, one of the many irreversible consequences of hysterectomy.

Myth: “After the surgery you’ll feel like a million bucks!”

FACT: The most common problems women report after hysterectomy include loss of sexual feeling, loss of vitality, bone/joint/muscle pain, fatigue, and personality change.

Myth: “Doctors don’t perform as many hysterectomies as they used to.”

FACT: Less than 2% of all hysterectomies are life-saving. Most hysterectomies are performed for benign conditions, not medical problems. The rate of cancer in the female sex organs and the male sex organs is almost identical. The rate of male sex organ removal is statistically insignificant, and yet in the last decade an average of 622,000 hysterectomies and 454,000 female castrations were performed each year in the U.S. That’s more than one every minute of every hour of every day. There are 22 million women alive today in America whose sex organs have been removed.

Myth: Doctors don’t have enough time to provide information about female anatomy and the functions of the female organs before they tell women to sign hysterectomy consent forms.

FACT: It takes just a few seconds for doctors to hand women HERS’ 12-minute “Female Anatomy: the Functions of the Female Organs” DVD, available at www.hersfoundation.org/anatomy.

HERS’ 12-minute female anatomy video makes the female organs visible. It fills the information gap and can prevent about 610,000 unnecessary hysterectomies each year and save more than $17B+/year in rising healthcare costs.

Then sign the Petition to compel doctors to provide the information in this video to every woman before she is told to sign a Hysterectomy Consent Form.

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