Christina previously underwent a tubal ligation procedure with Filshie tubal clips and she started having symptoms after her procedure.
She recently underwent tubal reversal and has fully recovered from her reversal surgery.
Her story was adapted from a letter she wrote to Dr. Monteith and Christina agreed to share her letter for the benefit of others.
Part one of her story is Tubal Ligation Side Effects: Does Reversal Help?
This is part two of Christina’s story…
Painful Sex After Tubal, Decreased Libido
I completely lost my libido. Sex was painful and burned, every time. My vagina constantly felt itchy and raw, without the presence of any infections. I also felt a constant vaginal pressure, that I can only describe as being 40 weeks pregnant and having a baby pushing down. I developed large, quarter sized, swollen lymph nodes, only in my groin. My skin itched and crawled all over, constantly. I developed severe dandruff on my scalp in the form of large white ‘scabs’. My breasts were always tender, and I had lost all of my breast tissue, even while breastfeeding. My body order changed, for the worse, and nothing seemed to help. I had no energy anymore.
Mental Confusion And Brain Fog
To me, my worst symptom, was the extreme mental confusion, or ‘brain fog’. At first, it was putting things where they didn’t belong. I found my keys in the medicine cabinet. I was putting refrigerator items in the cabinets, and odd things in the refrigerator that did not belong in there. As time went by, it got worse. I read my sons medication, read it was his night time one, yet still gave it to him in the morning. I have taken frozen bags of vegetables out of the freezer at the store, saw that it was open, and still bought it. I saw a red light, I know red means stop, but my brain seemed to think it meant go…I could go on forever with this. My brain was malfunctioning.
Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome?
About two months after my tubal ligation, when I was not feeling any better, but worse, I Goggled ‘pain after tubal ligation’. There it was: POST TUBAL LIGATION SYNDROME, PTLS. It made so much sense, I was being described! I went to my regular doctor.
She had never heard of PTLS, but said she keeps an open mind. I had blood work done and an abdominal ultrasound. Everything came back negative and normal. I was sent back to my obgyn that had seen me through my pregnancy. I was laughed at. Basically told PTLS was not real, maybe I was just depressed, or just had 4 kids and it was ‘normal’. She suggested I go on hormonal birth control and have an ablation to help with the menstrual issues. I left there, cried in my car for an hour, and decided doctors only know what they know, and can not know everything. I was not crazy. This was not in my head. Going from 3 kids to 4 kids was a piece of cake, so that was not the issue either. I had Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome and needed to get help on my own.
PTLS Support Groups Helped
I joined support groups and made friends online all around the world that have exactly what I had. Some had tubal reversals, and said by 6 months, they were PTLS free! I went back and forth for months, I could just have the clips taken out, maybe they were causing all of my problems, but what if it wasn’t the clips? What if I have my clips and tubes removed and find no relief? Should I spend that much money on a reversal? What if it didn’t help me? March of 2013 I went to sign my name on the back of my husbands check, and didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t remember how to sign my name!
Removing Filshie Clips
After crying for a while, I picked up the phone and called A Personal Choice and scheduled my surgery as soon as I could, with you. I used all of our money and got help from my grandmother, and wired A Personal Choice everything. April 2, 2013, 10 ½ months after my tubal ligation I went into surgery to have these Filshie clips removed, and have my tubes untied. I woke up from surgery feeling great! In pain from surgery, but the stabbing burning pain was gone and replaced with a new, different pain, from surgery. The itching was gone too.
Tubal Ligation Recovery
You came to tell me surgery went well, I had a lot more scar tissue than usual that you had removed, but everything looked good. We drove home the next day, and I quickly began to feel like myself. I am 6 weeks post tubal reversal and my headaches are no longer constant, and less severe. My joints have not locked up once since surgery. The abdominal pain is gone! My libido is slowly coming back, and sex doesn’t hurt or burn at all anymore. The swollen lymph nodes in my groin are gone. The all over itching is gone. The scalp issues are gone. My joints are not as bad. I have so much more energy. I am still healing from PTLS, and still have some symptoms to deal with as of now, but it has only been 6 weeks, and if this is as much healing as my body can do, I will take it!
I could never thank you enough for giving me my life back! I feel like me again, and it feels amazing.
Sincerely,
Christina K.
Submitted by kocsischristina22@gmail.com
