I had an ablation about 6 years ago. I had previously had surgery to remove a couple of fibroids and that helped considerably, but a year later I was still having bleeding issues and I had the ablation. (my doctor had suggested it at the time of the fibroid removal, but I didn't want to do them both at the same time). My periods didn't stop, but I discovered Light tampons, and only needed about 5 of them a month. I haven't heard of women having hormonal problems after ablation. I certainly didn't have any problems with my procedure, which was done with the balloon method. I had cramping for less than 12 hours, then felt fine. You do need to use birth control, because you can conceive, but there is no where for the embryo to implant without the lining, so a pregnancy could be dangerous. I think that it's important to know why you are having bleeding problems. For example,if you have fibroids like I did, an ablation isn't going to remove the underlying problem.

My seven-year-old cocker or has been dealing with allergies and severe ear infections for the past two years . He has seen three different vets and a dermatologist, He’s been on every anabiotic steroids eardrops you name it nothing has helped. I finally made the decision to proceed with that year ablation surgery which was five days ago , i’ll be honest I didn’t expect him to recover so quickly and was very heartbroken and torn about the decision . His surgery was at PVSEC in Pittsburgh and the surgery cost $5000 per ear. Prior to his surgery he was absolutely miserable, his ears were completely swelled shut, he was in so much pain you couldn’t touch his ears without him crying. It’s now five days after surgery, with stitches still intact, he has no problem with me handling his ear to apply antibiotic ointment and it looks great. I want to give him plenty of recovery time before proceeding with his second surgery. . As far as BRUTUSES comment goes, The individual sounds like the type of person who would not hesitate to take his pet outside and end it’s life with a shotgun because it had fleas, but hey, that’s just my OPPINION. I would do anything and everything to help my furbaby because in my eyes, he IS my child, not some animal whose life isn’t worth saving. I was extremely hesitant about having this surgery, but now that I have witnessed how fast he’s bounced back and the pain he’s no longer in, with that particular ear, I’m not as upset to proceed with the second ear in a few months. We do what we can for our babies and sometimes when all other options have been exhausted, we have no other choice other than surgery.

Caroline, of course we can be "sisters". I had a successful kidney transplant in January 2012. But I kept having these several-times- a- day "hot flashes", worse than anything I had with menopause seven years ago. My urologist felt my throat and said he felt a one-centimeter nodule. I had no pain or other problems. I then went to a specialist, an endocrinologist. She also felt a nodule and sent me for a sonogram of my neck. It showed seven nodules, five big and two small, the small ones under 2 centimeters. A few days later (last Tuesday) she did the biopsy. I was quite fearful, took a Zanax before, which relaxed me. The assistant had me lie back in a chair and tipped me back, like at the dentist. She cleaned my neck. Then the doctor came in with her needle and a jar for the tissue samples. She nick-named the nodules "The Twins" and "The Triplets" as there were three on the left side and two on the right. The thyroid is in the center front of your neck, just below your adam's apple. She had the assistant spray my neck with something to numb the skin, but I felt every jab. She would stick the needle in , then stir it around and push deeper to get enough tissue. I stopped counting at ten jabs. They told me not to talk or swallow when the needle was in. That was hard.It hurt a lot and I felt a tear roll out of one eye. Finally it was over. She put a couple bandaids on my neck and I was allowed to go home. I took Aleve tablets and kept a bag of frozen peas on my neck for most of Tuesday evening. The next morning I had no pain whatsoever. The tissue samples were sent to a lab that does extensive testing, including Genetic and "Genomic" testing, whatever that is. But the downside is it takes two and a half weeks for the results, so I'm still worrying and waiting. Best case scenario, everything will be benign. Worst case, I will have to have my thyroid removed, but at least I'll be under anesthesia for that. I've been assured one can live a long life without a thyroid, and thyroid cancer is the most curable kind to get. So it could be worse... Good luck, Caroline. Let us know when you get the results. I'll be posting when I know more. This post was edited by jannie on Mon, Sep 2, 13 at 17:38

I have A fib and they attempted this procedure on me a few years ago. The procedure is not bad. Your leg will be sore for a few days and if they do like mine they will use a plug to plug the artery so it does not bleed instead of sitting with the darn sand bags on your legs for hours. Which I have had done before as well. I don't want to scare you but I also want to let you know what happened in my case which I will stress (IS NOT TYPICAL) My doctor suggested the procedure to me because they could not get my A Fib and other arrhythmias under control she told me it has a 98% success rate and they believed it would be a good option for me. I had this done at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston so a pretty good hospital I went in for the procedure and just be warned ( I was not prepared for this) they may shave your nether regions. I only say this because it caught me off guard but once they explained it I understood why but was still a bit of a OH moment lol. Anyways I went in to the procedure at 12:00 pm. They gave me some sleepy meds and put a bunch of monitors on me including what I thought at the time was 2 giant heart monitor pads on me one on the front of my chest and one directly behind it on my back both left side. They explained to me they would be doing the mapping and I may feel my heart rate go up and down if I was not completely asleep so not to worry. I was actually zonked out! They woke me up at 1:30pm and told me they had mapped out the areas they needed to and were about to start the ablation portion of the procedure. That is the last thing I remember until 4 pm when I woke up coming out of the procedure room. They took me back to the recovery room and my doctor was sitting there waiting for me. She kept lifting my gown and looking at my chest. I kept wondering why she was looking at my chest when they went through my legs. My husband came back to the recovery area and his hair was standing straight up and I could tell he had been crying. By that point I was talking, eating having a drink and everyone around me was acting really really strange. My doctor didn't leave my side, the nurses were fawning over me and my husband was loving on me like I had never seen. Something was up! I finally ask ok what is going on? Why do you keep looking at my chest??? The doctor then explained to me that I went into an A Fib attack on the table during the procedure and they could not get my rate until control and it had shot up to over 600 bpm and chemical conversion did not work and they had to Cardiovert ( use the DeFibber) on me 6xs to bring my rate back and they had had a really hard time stabilizing it even after that. I was like Ohhhhh ok now I understand. I had at that point never been cardio verted outside of using drugs. I still honestly didn't understand how bad it was until I got up to move. I found out they had went through both legs and what I thought was an IV bandage my other arm was actually where they had also went through my arm for something. I felt like I had been hit with a semi in the gut. I could barely walk I assume it was from the DeFib jolts. I was actually on my way home by 5:30-6:00pm after that. Once they watched my heart rate for a bit and made sure I wasn't bleeding they sent me home which shocked me. At that point I was a bit nervous to go home but they assured me I'd be fine (which I was) On the way home I asked my husband why he was so upset, I was fine, I felt fine when I woke up he explained to me then that he had heard the code called to the procedure room, right after the code was called they called him on the phone in the waiting room and told him there was a problem and poor guy had to sit there alone waiting to hear what happened to me all alone. I felt so bad for him. On the hour drive home I was sore but doing ok. When I got home by back and chest started to burn terribly. I hadn't taken my shirt off since I got dressed at the hospital but I kept telling my husband it was burning really bad. I finally went and got changed and when I took my shirt off my chest and back were burnt really badly in the shape of those big giant what I thought were heart monitors. They were apparently stick on defib paddles. I had 3 of them on my chest and back so each one must be good for 2 cardioversions. That night I was in so much pain, that the next morning I had to go to Urgent Care. They told me I had 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my back and chest from that. You don't ever see on TV when they use the paddles on people that they complain of burns or feeling like they have been struck by a semi. My doctor never explained to me that this was a possibility. As far as I knew I was going in for a simple procedure (which it is) but there can be issues. I wanted to let you know about them so that you aren't caught of guard like I was. After all of that they ended up aborting the ablation as they said I had too many bad areas in my heart and they would have to burn too many areas. So for me the procedure was not successful, My next option is a pacemaker/Defib combo which I am waiting for awhile to get. As I said please don't think I am trying to scare you. The catheter part in the legs and the procedure recovery is pretty easy. You do need someone to drive you home and you maybe sore in your legs for a few days, do not lift anything heavy until they tell you you can due to the entry site for the catheter it needs to heal and you need to watch it for bleeding. I was told before I had my procedure that after the procedure I may have a few fluttering episodes but not to worry about them it was normal. I wish you the best and a speedy recovery.