Community Experiences: Laparoscopy

When your healthcare provider recommends a laparoscopy as a treatment for endometriosis, it can be a lot to consider. Some questions you may think of are:

• • Will it effectively treat my pain & symptoms?
  • Can I take time off from work?
  • What will recovery be like?

When big and difficult questions like this arise, we know there is no better place to turn than our amazing Endometriosis.net members! Therefore, we asked our Facebook community, "Have you had a laparoscopy as a treatment for endometriosis? What was your experience? Did it help?"

Here are the summarized responses:

Yes, was a success and/or experiencing some relief

• "I had one around a year and a half ago. It helped a bit."
• "Although it didn't clear up all of my symptoms, it definitely helped me be able to manage them (for now)."
• "I had 6 surgeries, 3 of them laparoscopy then the 2 hysterectomies.
•  "I had 2 done in 2014 (was stage 1) and the other in 2018 (was stage 4). Had pain 3 months post surgery. I'm doing good now."
•  "It did help I have been pain-free for over a year it took me almost 2.5-3 weeks to recover properly."
• "Had it last year. They removed one of my ovaries that was encased in endo and had a large cyst growing off of it. It did help with pain for a while."
• "I have had it twice with 1 successful pregnancy. Still have issues & chose to go back on the pill continuously to relieve symptoms. So far the pill is helping to avoid the pain & heavy periods."

Yes, but the pain came back or no relief 😡

• "I have had several. At least 8 and a total hysterectomy. No relief for longer than a month tops. In miserable pain and still bloated every day."
• "I've had it twice. It relieves a lot of the pain for about 5 years then it comes back full force."
• "I've had 3.  Helps for a bit and then comes back of course."
• "It helped for 6 months then came back. Mine got worse with every surgery."
• "I’ve had 5 done. I get relief for 1-3 years and then it’s back again."
• "Helped for about 3-6 months, then the pain returns."
• "I've had 3. Helps for a tiny bit then comes back full force 😞"
• "I've had an ablation and 4 laparoscopies done and next month they're finally going to do a full hysterectomy. It helped for a few weeks at tops a month max then the severe cramps and spasms start again. And bleeding even though I had the ablation done."
• "I've had one and it helped for about 3 months and came back."
•  "It helped for close to a year then I had my hysterectomy because the pain was back."
• "I did not help me...at all😥. It was painful and it took about a week of recovery."

How about you? Have you had a laparoscopy? What was your experience? Please share in the comments below.