Hysterectomy side effects

Hysterectomy side effects include

  1. excessive bleeding
  2. damage to nearby organs e.g. bladder, gut
  3. infection
  4. pulmonary embolism

You are more likely to develop side effects of a hysterectomy:

  1. if you are obese
  2. if you are having a hysterectomy because of cancer
  3. if you have any medical condition e.g. diabetes
  4. the older you are, the more likely you are to develop complications.

Death resulting from side effects of a hysterectomy are rare in most good centers in the US, about 1-2 per thousand surgeries, and none in some cases. Complications may occur in about 25% of women undergoing vaginal hysterectomy and 50% of women undergoing abdominal hysterectomy.

Some hysterectomy side effects are minor while others are life threatening.

There has been a lot of concern about decreased sex drive and difficulty in achieving orgasms even when the ovaries are intact. Studies have shown no difference in sexual or bladder function after a simple hysterectomy for non-cancerous disease.

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November 8, 2006 by Ada
Filed under: Hysterectomy 

Comments

4 Comments on Hysterectomy side effects

  1. cathy on Sun, 2nd Dec 2007 3:02 am

    2. I had a hysterectomy in 2003, he took only my uterus, but I’m still having a light period once a month. It last’s for about 2-3 day’s. Can you please tell me why that’s happening?

  2. Ada on Tue, 4th Dec 2007 9:44 pm

    3. Hi Cathy. Seeing as I don’t know exactly how your doctor did the operation it’s difficult to say. If any part of the uterus is left behind then you will experience bleeding, maybe your uterus wasn’t completely removed? Apart from that, if you have endometriosis (ie uterine tissue that exists outside the uterus) it behaves just like normal uterine tissue and leads to bleeding in each cycle. Your doctor is actually in the best position to answer that question. Have a good day.

  3. Megan on Mon, 30th Nov 2009 6:54 am

    4. I had a hysterectomy performed in 2001. Only my uterus was removed. Apparently the sutures used were supposed to disolve over time, but instead they tore through my vaginal wall causing major damage to my bladder requiring three corrective surgeries on my bladder. Now there are two pins holding a mesh that supports my bladder. That was almost 9 years ago, and I have had NO problems sense then, until this past week. I just started bleeding from my vagina. Not too heavy, but a light flow for 4 days. I need to know if I should see my GYN or my urologist about this problem? What do you think the blood could be coming from?

  4. Msirish on Mon, 28th Dec 2009 9:56 am

    5. I just had a Total Vaginal Hysterectomy about 2 weeks ago. While I am healing faster than I would have if I had gone the abdominal hysterectomy route, I looked at my vaginal area with a mirror yesterday, and was horrified. It is sore, and he had said after 1 week, I could take a bath. So, I took 1 yesterday.

    But, it appears that my entire vaginal and vulvar area is larger than normal, and hanging out. I am worried that it won’t retract to it’s nice, tight little appearance before the surgery. I have had 3 children, all natural vaginal births, all 34-37 years ago. If this area looked like this after childbirth, I do not remember it.

    When I went in for my 1-week checkup last Wednesday, the Doctor didn’t even visually check my vagina or anything. He just talked to me, and answered questions. Am I getting ripped off by paying to see him for a 15 minute conversation? shouldn’t he have checked to make sure everything was still ok?

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