Measuring Ovarian Reserve

Generally speaking, the age of menopause is the day you run out of eggs. So the obvious question is, when will that be, or to phrase it a different way,: Women want to know are they loosing eggs. Older women, younger women, many of us have the same question. Women seeking fertility and women seeking not to be fertile, and women wanting to establish if these hot flashes are menopause or something else all want to know: just how many eggs do they have left. Their Gynos want to know as well, and how we can determine this is that has been as critical as knowing that running out of eggs may have really occurred. We tend to have clues, the age of average menopause, the age your mom went through menopause, and other factors. Ultrasounds have been used to look at how many growing eggs are in the ovary at the start of the menstrual cycle to determine if you have many eggs or fewer than you should, measurements of your estrogen levels have been used to just name a few tests, and just the plain old obvious: are you still having regular periods. Now new blood tests may be what you need to determine if you have any ovarian reserve, or to put it bluntly, do you have any eggs left. So you may need a series of measurements. One set is really not enough, and beginning these tests in your 30s may help them be more useful.. One random blood test is just not enough to say where you are in the menopausal process. Just like you can’t say if a kid has grown just because they seem tall in their class, you have to know what the height was at the beginning and the end of that school year. Two tests that we now use are FSH, and AMH (some doctors also use inhibin B). If you know your basal (at the point you are starting to look) FSH and anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) levels and then your later levels, you may have a clue.For women without a uterus they often do have to rely on symptoms and blood tests, because obviously they don't have periods any more. For instance before and after measurements when you are having a hysterectomy you can determine if your hysterectomy caused diminished ovarian reserve when you specifically chose to keep your ovaries, at least this is what Hehencamp and researchers did when they were trying to determine if uterine artery embolization (UAE) caused ovarian damage. Now ovarian damage or diminished reserve doesn’t always mean menopause. But for smokers, and women with various inflammatory diseases like lupus, an early age of menopause might be predicted. In the case of UAE about 20% of premenopausal women over the age of 45 were found to pop into menopause anyway in earlier work by a Dr Tulandi. It is only about a 1/100 chance of becoming menopausal if you are younger and have UAE A bit technical, but your gyno will know when you ask about these tests, call to see if you need them!

Passing Your Uterine Lining, Menstrual Period Norms

Decidual Cast Periods can be fairly easy, passing some tissue at a time, or off can come the whole lining in one piece called a decidual cast. Generally the lining of the uterus is only 6-8 mm thick at the time of the menstrual period, and it is shed gradually, a few cells at a time. The decidual cast is when the entire lining passes spontaneously. It's not uncommon, but it usually both uncomfortable, and alarming to some. But us women are designed to have some sort of periods Or Not? We have to pass tissue each month. Or Not? Are they good for us? Or Not? Do we want them? Or Not? Is this something that is individual? Or Not? It's a complex topic that I will be discussing a lot over my time in this blog. So lets start with basics: How much do we bleed and what are we loosing, and just what was this that the patient passed? And another basic: track your periods, and the Women's Health Practice site http://www.womenshealthpractice.com/media/pdf/menstrual_chart.pdf you...

Post-Endometrial Ablation Syndrome

If you have had an endometrial ablation and have developed symptoms of pelvic pain you might have post endometrial ablation syndrome. What is post-endometrial ablation syndrome? It is a constellation of symptoms due to entrapped blood or tissue within a uterus that has previously undergone an endometrial ablation. We are able to diagnose this at Women's Health Practic e but occasionally other conditions are causing similar symptoms. Other complications of endometrial ablation include pregnancy, risks from pre-existing conditions such as a polyp or fibroid, an infection of the uterus, or a pregnancy. If you have had a tubal ligation then it is possible that the condition could be post-ablation tubal sterilization syndrome. The ablation procedure is designed to destroy all lining tissue, but in fact there is no way to confirm the completeness of the ablation. It is thought that either residual or regrowth of the tissue is producing the symptoms of post-endometrial ablation syndrom...

You Have an IUD: But a Positive Pregnancy Test

Fortunately IUD pregnancy failures are rare. But if you have an IUD for contraception, and you get a positive pregnancy test, you probably ask yourself, what next? Well, make your gyno appointment promptly, this is a condition that is not typically an emergency, but it can be and it’s not handled over the phone or on a blog, or through self diagnosis! That being said, some researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas decided to look back at over 4100 women who had IUDs and of those 42 cases who became pregnant in their institution, over about a year period of time, to help understand what these women could expect when they got to their gyno and what actually happened to their pregnancies. Accurate pregnancy diagnosis, pelvic examination, and pelvic ultrasound were the cornerstones of the evaluations. They had very specific ways they looked at their ultrasound to prove there was no pregnancy in the fallopian tube, or partially in the fallopian tube...

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