I’ve had more than one person today ask me about getting my tubes tied because of their fear of getting pregnant in a trump presidency, and so I’m gonna provide some information about my experience sterilizing myself in case anyone is curious.
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First off I didn’t get my tubes tied (a ligation), I got a salpingectomy which is a total removal of your fallopian tubes. The benefit is that it has a lower failure rate, and it also lowers your ovarian cancer risk (did you know a lot of ovarian cancers actually start in the fallopian tubes?)
The downside of a salpingectomy is that it can’t be reversed (technically a ligation is reversible with a decent success rate). To me this is a feature, though.
My doctor was super cool, and suggested I keep a secondary form of birth control for period control. I had gotten an IUD 5 years prior so it had been a while since I’d had to deal with regular periods. She gave me 2 options. The first was to replace my IUD during surgery(it was due for replacement)
Option 2 was an ablation. An ablation is a procedure where they use heat (or cold!) to destroy your uterine lining. Her preference was for option 1 but she was willing to do either as long as I was informed of the risks (I know. IN SOUTH CAROLINA NO LESS).
Full disclosure, this is what she told me, I trust her and I didn’t look it up myself: she said that ablations have a non-trivial rate of failure after about 10 years and once they fail the only real option is a hysterectomy.
I was only 37 at the time and her preference was to do ablations on people less than 10 years from menopause because of the complications if the ablation failed. I agreed with her and went for replacing my IUD. So I currently am doubled up on birth control 🤣🤣 I LOVE IT.
As a side note, I met a nurse who got an ablation and it didn't work. So I don't know the stats on that, but sometimes our uterii WANT TO LIVE. Just be aware!
Standard procedure for the ligation is to put clips on your tubes. Then, if you want to reverse it later, the clips can be removed. Clips fail. You have to tell the dr you want your tubes severed.
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