Who knows about Hymenotomy?

When I was 18 I did a hymenotomy with a global anesthesia.

Does anyone now about this procedure, and if this is the right way to do it? I never really understood what have the doctors did to me...

A hymenotomy is a minor medical procedure involving the surgical removal or opening of the hymen. It is done to treat imperforate hymen or other situations where the hymen is unusually thick or rigid. In the case of a person who has a hymen which has no opening, an opening may be created in order to facilitate menstruation. In situations where the opening is small, the individual may elect for hymenotomy to allow for sexual penetration of their vagina.

It was my case, I couldn´t go on intercourse... >😢

The thing is that I don´t understand why did they gave me a global anesthesia to do so...

maybe they did something else to my vagina!!

They probably used a general anaesthetic to spare you the pain / trauma of the procedure, although it is often done using a local anaesthetic.

Yes, I've read that doctors often do general aneasthetics, to protect the patient from knowing exactly what is happening. With a local you are aware of what is being done, and to avoid knowledge of it, can be a major psychological advantage to getting over it, and getting on with the healing process... emotionally.

I believe most docs will refuse to do a minor procedure such as hymenectomy with general anesthesia. The complications from general are too great relative to the procedure. Insurance comapanies will also balk at this combination of CPT codes. And if I were self paying for the procedure to my daughter, I would have to think long and hard about biting off several thousand dollars of added out of pocket expense.

If Miss Dallas had general anethesia, she may be right in thinking there was something 'else' done. You're the patient and an adult...it's your right to get in touch with the doc(s) and hospital and ask for your records.

I can't speak from personal experience but I know a friend who got something like a hymenectomy from what I understood. Something was making it impossible for her to insert tampons, so her gyno told her she would remove that. From what I understand there was no anesthesia involved whatsoever since it would have involved more pain than the actual procedure ( or something like that). I still found it quite shocking considering that part of your body must be quite sensitive.

Anesthesia is the choice of the anethesieologest and they use sedation to make the patent more comfortable

I was completely out for my mine when I had to have it done age age 15. I was very sore and had problems using the bathroom.....and just sitting down, for over a week. It may be a minor procedure, but it's an extremely sensitive part of the body and can take a while to heal.

I don't know a lot about the procedure itself and whether usually general or local anaesthetic but It can be very important operation.

Many years back now my eldest niece had it done or something similar due to imperforate hymen where by there was no opening for passage of menstrual blood.

There for whilst famy assumed se had not started periods she had and got the monthly pain cramps etc but the blood would just build up in vagina. Went into accident and emergency with suspected appendicitis and the ultrasound showed it.

Minor but important surgery

This procedure could be done in office with lidocaine local or as an outpatient with a general anesthesia. It all depends on the situation and what the surgeon anticipates. It could have been a simple incision or perhaps they thought it might involve cauterization.....or even turn into a hymenectomy instead. I wouldn't assume one way or another without looking at the actual medical record of what took place. In comparison endometrial ablation is sometimes performed in the office, but may also be performed under general anesthesia in case a biopsy is taken at the time, etc. You can always inquire about specifics of a procedure....the informational videos and explanations cover the basics but your particular situation may be slightly different.

@ doc4u72,

Wonderful reply. Though unfortunately, some patients, and the parents or guardians of minors do not speak up and ask the questions they need to ask their physician about all options and the why and what and how. Even fewer seek out another opinion. This can vary greatly among countries, culture, socioeconomic classes, religious influence etc etc etc.

I ruptured mine to bits growing up during gymnastics falling on the balance beam, the bars, during floor routines. No, I was not a clutz. My knees liked to dislocate and my ankles liked to sprain and strain. I finally was forced to quit after my orthopaedic surgeon said NO MORE unless I wanted to end up in a wheel chair and on crutches the rest of my life. I was 11 yrs old at that point. I finally swallowed my ego and pride and took the advice of my surgeon to heart and stopped gymnastics and the other sports I relished playing that involved twisting, deep knee bends, etc etc etc. All the constant, endless strengthening and rehab was not enough for my extreme hypermobility to avoid continuous instability and constant subluxations from the hypermobility. Reading about all of this, I wonder if I would have had any hymen issues if I had not ruptured and injured mine countless times.

Silly question, how do they diagnose imperforate hymens? Simply by waiting for the girl to have her period then complaining about ache in the tummy or vagina?

I've heard of hymen removal for young adults who simply cannot have sexual intercourse due to a very thick hymen (pain, thus contractions, thus more pain...). Has it occurred to somebody here? How did you explain that to the doctor?

^^^^ You diagnose and explain it exactly how you said it.

My mom had to have a hymenotomy when she couldn't have intromission on her wedding night. She said it was done by her GYN doctor in his office and it was no big deal. I should talk, I've never even had a hymen!

Minor surgery is surgery on someone else. Surgery on you is never minor. It may be quick, it may be done in office, it may require just a local, but if it is on any of your body parts, it is not minor to you.

I know Quincy I know. I just don't consider having lacerations sutured as major and I've had a lot of them done. Now bone marrow biopsies that was indeed a bitch and something I don't ever want to repeat! I do tend to be stoic as having been on the other end I know that hysteria and wincing doesn't help the doctor either. As I said, I'm not a woman so I can't know what it's like. I certainly hate doing I and Ds on bartholins gland abscesses. It is terribly painful.

Depends on the pt., whether it's local or general anesthesia. I don't like to have my pts have pain, so I would prefer my younger pts to have sedation or general. After the area heals I have the pts use a set of vaginal dilators, gradually increasing the diameter of the introitus

Does anyone now about this procedure, and if this is the right way to do it?

I had hymenectomy at 16 because of a hymen cribiformis. Nothing could have been inserted into my vagina. At first I thought that I was just too tight for a tampon. At 16 my mom and I went to a gynecologist to talk about the problem. He sent me to the university clinic, where I was also examined and they decided it would require surgery. I had two options: general anesthesia oder spinal anesthesie. I prefered spinal anesthesia.

There are girls whose hymen is imperforate, this is, as far as I know, generally diagnosed when their menstrual blood cannot exit the vagina. They need it to be opened surgically.

There are girls whose hymen makes it difficult or even impossible to use tampons. A friend of mine said that she would use tampons only when coerced to. I had a girlfriend whose vagina could not accommodate a finger. Perhaps she had to get surgery because she could have intercourse.. we broke before that.

There are women whose hymen is too tight to allow intercourse. In the book Le consentement, Vanessa Springora, who was the victim of a pedophile when she was a teenager, recalls how the man tried to have vaginal intercourse with her, to no avail, and settled for anal intercourse. She later had a hymen surgery to allow intercourse.

There are women whose hymen allows intercourse but it's uncomfortable. A friend of mine had to have a minor procedure because sex was uncomfortable for her.

Its not rarely situation and many girls had issue as that. Are few kinds of hymens. Some womens easy to perforate, like during some more advanced exercises, some just have problem because this part have blood vesels. And that's why some docs prefer fully sleeping patients but to not scary girls (plus vesels are electrocoagulated which smells like grilled meat). Often are made after procedure classic gyno exam to check up against infections or inside gyno build up problems.

@miss_dallas I rmember that! I was twenty years old when your dr. put me to sleep with the rest of the globe.

Typically this is done after puberty, unless there are symptoms at play, since the hymen may open up on it's own as a result of estrogen impact on the tissue. First you verify via physical exam and imaging that blockage is not something more complicated. If there is a backup of menstrual blood things are most likely going to change from a simple incision and drainage procedure to a surgical procedure. The concern is always going to be risk of ascending infection - where infection backs up to a higher level through the cervix and beyond to the point of sepsis. Outpatient procedures in the office are a bit of a balancing act. If you have insurance or pressures from above trying to dictate and influence the decision process then you toss it right back at them with overjustification that results in a much costlier outcome for them and force them into a game of escalating costs. They like to talk tough but run and hide when they run into someone who will confront and not conform to their demands.

( @Sarahgyn It's always weird, from the point of view of someone from France, that a doctor would need to discuss with insurance about options, at least for something as mundane as the issue described.)

@Jacana I used that more as an example than a specific instance - although its' entirely possible that you might decide a simple incision is not the best path and the insurance reviewer opposes that viewpoint and so you have to go back and forth with an appeal, it does happen and creates wasted effort. Not to get off topic but let's say you are dealing with psoriatic arthritis - you know darn good and well that Methotrexate may be a good option for skin condition psoriasis but not so good at all for complex joint problems. But nearly every insurance review in the US will demand a methotrexate interval before you can get to a biologic approval such as Humira or Taltz. You have to worry about the use of AI making these type of absurd flowchart approval decisions vs an actual application of logic by a human reviewer in the future - it's just plain stupid to drag out a patient's struggle longer than need be.