Has anyone on here status post ileo-anal anastomosis-J Pouch, suffered from a complex ovarian cyst? I have a 12cm complex (meaning it is part solid mass) on my right ovary. My gyn referred me to an oncologist and said it has to come out asap. He also said that this was going to be "one big mess" of a surgery because of my previous surgeries...This will be my 5th surg. I had 2 surgeries for adhesion repair/bowel obstructions in the past. I am 16 years out from my J-Pouch.. Any input would be great. Not only am I scared that I have to go to the oncologist-I am more fearful of the surgery than anything. Thanks so much!

Hi Hot,
I think that adhesions, ovarian cyst etc come with the repeat abdominal surgery territory...a lot of us seem to get them...I had horrible ovarian cysts that enveloped my ovaries and needed removal (along with a nasty case of salpangitis)...they removed them, they came back and finally my obs/gyn put me on progesterone to suspend my period for 3 years so that the whole area could heal...I was in my 30's at the time and he just said that it was impossible to keep going in to remove cysts every year...it worked sort of, once the cysts were gone and the period too, they didn't grow back until I was off of the meds and by they it was almost too late...
Since I had had vaginal cancer (yup, it exisits! Nasty too) they followed me very closely and took it seriously...the surgery was not as bad as pouch surgery but it was no walk in the park either...a few days in the hospital and then a couple of weeks at home...but back then they did it as open surgery, maybe you can have it done through laporoscopy and save yourself some of the pain...good luck either way...it is always better to have it done and get it over with than to suffer.
Sharon

Hi,
I had my ovary and fallopian tube removed about 5 years ago. My pouch was about 10 or 11 years old at the time. It was a scary time. I was concerned about the chance of the tumor/cyst being cancerous (it wasn't) and of the surgery ruining my perfect pouch (it didn't). Thankfully everything turned out pretty well. The gyn oncologist was in contact with my colo-rectal surgeon so I felt at ease that he made sure she was around if things got tricky for him with my pouch.
Let me know if you want any more info.
There's always hope for a fantastic outcome!
CJ

Hotmama (love the name), did you do the surgery? I'm looking at the same thing and am scared!!!! My cyst has been monitored for a while, was complex, changed to not complex, grew, shrunk... Now it has some soft tissue growth inside of it. Because of the potential for cancer, I'm going to do the surgery. They say there's an 80% chance it can be done laproscopically with the robot. If so, then I have a 2 week healing and then back to work. I'm crossing my fingers.