Staying Active: Get More Out of Life After GYN Surgery

By: Red Hot Mamas

Published: December 9, 2015

Contributed by Dr. Natalya Danilyants- Red Hot Mamas Medical Expert

Finding activity that you love is essential to getting and staying healthy.

Staying active can mean all the difference to maintaining great health as we age. It has been proven that as we age and our bodies become more prone to lose muscle mass and our bones more prone to brittleness, staying active is a way to combat the degeneration of overall health. It also sharpens mental acuity and alertness, strengthens the immune system, and slows the aging process.

Surgery can throw a wrench into the active lifestyles of women who have reached or are past menopause. Muscles can quickly lose their strength if not used. Fatigue can overtake the body and inertia can become the norm, rapidly undoing momentum to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

At the same time, pelvic pain, incontinence or abnormal bleeding after menopause can also keep women from enjoying their lives, including enjoying activities that they love in order to stay healthy. These can be a deterrent for making plans or being away from home for too long.

Treating these conditions with minimally invasive surgery with fast recovery can mean a new lease on life, especially if the treatment not only eliminates the problem.

Part of the reason the surgeons at The Center for Innovative GYN Care, Dr. Paul MacKoul and Dr. Natalya Danilyants developed the DualPortGYN and LAAM techniques was to bridge the gap in what current surgeries were lacking, and help women return to their lives faster, with less pain. Seeing their patients regain parts of their lives that they thought were lost forever is one of the most rewarding parts of performing minimally invasive GYN procedures.

Too often, women are only offered painful open procedures for conditions that can be treated either with therapy or minimally invasive options.

“When we see the patient just a few weeks after surgery at CIGC who is very happy, and they’re back to their lives, and their lives are improved, this is what makes us happy,” said Dr. Danilyants.

Procedures that help patients get up and moving the next day, and within a week they are back to their normal lives should be the direction for the medical industry. Conditions like fibroids that often do not go away after menopause, or pelvic adhesions can cause pain, bleeding, and difficulty going to the bathroom.

When a woman is in pain, the last thing on her mind is being active. For women to maintain a healthy lifestyle, these minimally invasive GYN procedures can actually be life changing.

“One of the problems was my husband and I like to go on walks,” Brenda, a hysterectomy patient with CIGC. “It was just uncomfortable. Now I don’t have that pain any longer, and it’s a different world for me… I have so much more energy. I’ve lost weight and I’ve made a whole lifestyle change. You don’t have to be the person who gets the full incision. There are other options out there, so do your research.”

“Brenda came to us for a second opinion, and found out that a minimally invasive approach for large fibroids is actually possible,” said Dr. Danilyants. “Brenda, like many women who have large fibroids, hear from other doctors that they can only have open surgery. That isn’t correct.”

Heidi who was always active was told that her condition may be cancerous and that she had to have a robotic procedure with a power morcellator, neither of which are recommended for women who may have cancerous tumors. She saw multiple doctors before finding a procedure that didn’t require a power morcellator.

“I just was so happy!” said Heidi, a hysterectomy patient with CIGC. “I just couldn’t believe that I found a better way to have a hysterectomy. A couple days after the surgery I felt like I could do 30 sit-ups, if I wanted to. I didn’t have any restrictions on what I could do. I was out walking the dog. People were saying didn’t you just have surgery? I said ‘Yeah, but I feel great.'”

As you are thinking about your New Year’s resolutions, remember that staying healthy is a collaborative effort between you and your doctor. Always request second opinions for GYN treatment options, and consult your doctor about any exercise program that you undertake, but find something that you love so that taking care of your health can actually be fun.