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Abnormal Bleeding: A Patient’s Perspective

Summary & Participants

Every year, thousands of woman suffering from abnormal uterine bleeding are told that their only option is hysterectomy. Some choose to undergo this complicated and invasive procedure, while others simply choose to live with their condition. But hysterectomy is not necessarily your only treatment choice.

Medically Reviewed On: July 09, 2008

Webcast Transcript

MARY WAGNER: Welcome to our webcast. I'm Mary Wagner. We're here today to talk about abnormal uterine bleeding from the patient's perspective. We have Dr. Grace Janik who is Associate Clinical Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Director of Reproductive Endocrinology at St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee.

MARY WAGNER: Dr. Janik, would you like to introduce your patient.

GRACE JANIK, MD: Hi, Carol. Thanks for coming and sharing your story with us. It's important to share your story because there are a lot of patients out there like you that can benefit from hearing your experiences. How have you been feeling lately? I haven't seen you in a while.

CAROL: I'm great. Thank you.

GRACE JANIK, MD: I think it would be best to start with explaining what happened before you started seeing me.

CAROL: Okay. I had been trying to get pregnant for about two or three years. It wasn't working. My GYN had tried to -- also the problem I was also having was I was having a lot of spotting, like bleeding. Not heavy bleeding, but between and before and after my period, which was always normal. I would have these constant spotting, and also during...

GRACE JANIK, MD: How many days was it on either side?

CAROL: It was immediately before and immediately after and then sometime during ovulation, I would also have it.

GRACE JANIK, MD: Okay.

CAROL: This was a problem because I was trying to get pregnant and it would make it difficult and just uncomfortable to deal with and just to go ahead with the whole procedure of getting pregnant. But when I did try to get pregnant, it wasn't working. It wasn't working.

GRACE JANIK, MD: Annoying to have the bleeding. In addition, difficult to time intercourse.

CAROL: Right.

GRACE JANIK, MD: What happened next?

CAROL: He had also tried to put me on some birth control pills to control the spotting. But that wasn't something that I was very excited with because I was trying to get pregnant and this was going to maybe help with the spotting but not with the whole idea of getting pregnant.

GRACE JANIK, MD: So what did he do instead then?

CAROL: That's actually when I was referred to you, just to check what might be wrong, what might be causing this.

GRACE JANIK, MD: I thought you had a couple of D & Cs before you saw me too.

CAROL: Actually yes, I did. I'm sorry. I had two D & Cs. Those procedures were quite uncomfortable and they did help with the spotting for a couple of months, but then after that, the spotting just returned. And that's actually when I was referred to you because those things didn't help. So.

GRACE JANIK, MD: So you had the spotting, wasn't getting better with the D & Cs. You weren't getting pregnant.

CAROL: Right.

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