Office Hysteroscopy with EndoSee

While modern medicine has many great ways to see what’s going on inside your body sometimes it’s necessary to get a closer look. In the past, this meant invasive surgery, but now we have a tool that can take a quick peek at your insides without requiring general anesthesia in a hospital.

Office hysteroscopy is one such technique. In order to examine your reproductive organs up close, namely your uterus, I use the EndoSee for in-office diagnostic hysteroscopy and treatment of uterine issues.

Why do a hysteroscopy?

If you have symptoms like heavy bleeding, pain, frequent miscarriages, or infertility EndoSee may be the right procedure for you. Blood tests and sonograms help give information but with EndoSee I can look inside directly, myself with my own two eyes, and see if there are any fibroids, polyps, or defects in the uterine cavity. EndoSee is also great for patients whose IUD has gone missing inside the uterus. Using EndoSee to find and remove the IUD saves you from having to undergo general anesthesia in a hospital.

To prepare for the procedure:

1. no sex 24 hours prior to procedure.

2. please take the pre-procedure medications as prescribed.

3. someone will need to drive you home after the procedure.

The procedure

Basically, I am taking a straw with a camera at the tip and putting it into the uterus up to the womb (where a baby would be if you were pregnant).

When you come in for your hysteroscopy, you may first be asked to do a pregnancy test. Then you’ll be made comfortable in our procedure room. My assistant or I will ask you to sign a consent form. Once you’re comfortable, I insert the EndoSee device into your vagina and pass it through your cervix to gain access to your uterus. The device is a tube with a light and a camera.

After inserting the hysteroscope, my assistant will inject saline through the tube, this fills the uterine cavity and allows me to see everything inside.

Depending upon what I see, I may take some tissue for a biopsy, remove any scarring or adhesions, remove a polyp, retrieve your IUD, or whatever else might be called for. I may see nothing and simply end the procedure. The whole thing will take less than 10 minutes.

Follow up

After your hysteroscopy, you can leave the office and head home. I would like for you to rest for the rest of the day. You should stay in bed getting up only for food or the bathroom. If you have cramping take Tylenol or Motrin.

If biopsies or tissue were removed, they will be sent to the lab. I will follow up with you with the results and plan for what to do next to treat whatever problem brought you in.

I suggest you check out the website, Endosee, and scroll down the page. There is a video, about 3 minutes long which shows you the whole process. It's a little science-y (this is a video for doctors, not patients) but it will allow you to see exactly what we plan to do.