Modern Medicine: Uterine Ablation - WMBB News 13 - The Panhandle's News Leader

Modern Medicine: Uterine Ablation

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Panama City, Fla. -

Some women suffer from debilitating menstrual cycles.  Women who suffer from heavy bleeding can now find relief with a procedure called uterine ablation. It's an alternative to hysterectomy.

Dr. Krystal VanLowe from Coastal OBGYN recently moved to the Bay County area and specializes in uterine ablation procedures.

"If we can stop the problem, the heavy bleeding...then we don't need to have major surgery. You don't have to be off work for 4 to 6 weeks," Dr. VanLowe explains. 

The uterine ablation procedure requires no incisions and patients can go back to work in one to two days.  The procedure only takes between two to twenty minutes with a total hospital stay of three hours.

Dr. VanLowe describes the procedure, "What we do is we burn the lining of the uterus so that it cannot bleed the way it did before."  This stops the uterus lining from thickening each month.

After the procedure, the periods are lighter.  Dr. VanLowe says some women may not even have a period or may just have spotting.  She says about "90 percent of women will see a significant decrease in their problem such that their cycle is much less than the average woman." 

Dr. VanLowe stresses that uterine ablation is not a form of birth control.  It is only for women who are done with childbearing because it would be unlikely to have a healthy pregnancy after this procedure.