Risks of Waiting for Your GYN Surgery

Risks of Waiting for Your GYN Surgery

Wait times have went up drastically over the years for GYN surgery.  This has left thousands of Canadians at sea on their own as they wait to get a surgery date. This can create major consequences if you experience long delays.  Let’s look at some reasons why waiting can make things worse:

1. Mental health
   

   – Let’s face it, winter months in Canada can be long.  Seasonal affect disorder (SAD) is a real thing and very well known to many.  If you have an ailment that causes stress or continued pain, it can create and/or exacerbate SAD making you have low energy, poor mood and cause you to sleep too much.  Worse yet, it can turn into a full blown depression. Feeling discouraged, hopeless, continue to experience excessive bleeding or in constant pain affects your focus, ability to function and can hamper your social interactions and outings with people.  Not being able to play with your children or grandchildren, staying home from parties, or not being able to work can all create more stress on your mental health. When your mental health decreases, your whole body reacts to the stress. 

2. Delaying Surgery for Fibroids or Tumors
   

   – Delaying GYN treatment can cause irreversible damage to the uterus in the case of large fibroids or masses (whether malignant or benign).  Women who have not had children yet and wish to, may affect their ability to get pregnant down the road, or worse yet, require a hysterectomy in their 20’s or 30’s if their issue is not dealt with in a timely manner.  80% of women will have a fibroid by the age 50.  Most will not have symptoms, however, for those that do, they will experience heavy bleeding, pelvic pain, or bloating.  If treatment for them is delayed, it can lead to long term complications such as anemia, infertility, and issues with kidneys, bowel, bladder and circulatory systems.  Having anemia can cause fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, headaches and possible heart problems.  In the case of kidney, bowel, bladder or circulatory problems, fibroids or masses can put pressure against the ureter, blocking drainage of urine into the bladder from the kidneys or take up space in the pelvic cavity which blocks the normal flow of these systems.  Getting pregnant can also be challenging depending on where the fibroid or mass is located.  Fibroids and masses can be large enough that they fight for space and blood supply, which can cause miscarriages or infertility.

3. Delaying Hysterectomy (Uterine, Ovarian, Cervical, Vaginal or Vulvar Cancer)
   

   – According to an International cohort study, approximately 4,000 GYN cancer patients worldwide were looked at during the first wave of COVID.  Nearly 20% of the patients experienced changes in their care management due to delays in surgery.  Overall, 8% of the women ultimately did not have a surgery that was meant to be curative and life-prolonging. 11% of the patients waited more than 8 weeks, including 16% of them who had ovarian tumors.  All of the delays and cancellations had an impact on morbidity and mortality with those women who had malignant tumors.  2.7% of patients who did not have a planned operation died within 3 months of the initial decision to have the surgery.  Women who had a delay in surgery had significantly higher risk of the composite adverse outcomes of unresectable disease or disease progression, emergency surgery or health compared to those who did not have a delayed procedure – 22.4% vs 18% respectively.

Like most things, this is not an end all.  You do have options.  The quickest way to get your GYN surgery is to go the private manner.  Health Vantis works with many facilities that can offer you a private GYN surgery without waiting months on end to get a surgery date that might be even another year down the road, which could alter many important facets in a women’s life.  Contact us at info@healthvantis.comor 877-344-3544 for more details to how we can help you.

Health Vantis

www.healthvantis.ca

877-344-3544

info@healthvantis.com