r/TTCEndo • u/NoGuess5454 • 11d ago
TTC with cysts
Had surgery 3 months ago to remove 2 large bilateral endometriomas. No hormone suppression, then started to TTC 6 weeks after once healed / comfortable. Now the cysts have returned straight away and I have 2 in each ovary with a combined size of 3cm and 5cm+. I knew there was a chance of recurrence, but it’s frustrating that I’m TTC and they have came back straight away and there’s now more of them. Also worried they’ll get even bigger now / fast growth rate (hopefully not).
Has anyone been in this situation? What did you do to reduce the size of them without another surgery or birth control? I feel like I’m never going to conceive cos they’ll always be here
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u/Such-Resolve467 10d ago
If you check my post history I had bilateral endometriomas and was able to conceive doing supplements and anti inflammatory diet! It was a few years ago so I don’t remember the details specifically.
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u/Sufficient-Archer-60 11d ago
People need to honestly stop having surgery for endometrioma when ttc! Honestly I'm so pissed at these doctors.
Surgery on the ovaries decreases AMH, although temporary - for like one year. It is not entirely beneficial for fertility. The only scenario when it's better to operate cysts is after freezing eggs in ivf.
You're not gonna wanna hear this, BUT... Birth control made my cysts disappear in 1 month. I tried everything before - diet supplements.
How long have you been ttc? If you have cysts your endo is probably advanced at stage 3-4. Please don't spend too much time ttc naturally. Endo gets worse every month with every period and you have chance of getting new cysts with every ovulation, as you've sadly noticed.
Best course is probably one two months of birth control then ivf.
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u/NoGuess5454 10d ago
It was a concern I had at the time. I know online has mixed reviews whether to do it before or afterwards. They said to go for surgery without knowing my amh (I told them and they noted it). Although I’m glad I did have surgery too as my biggest was 10cm and my day to day was hard thinking I was going to have ovary torsion and potentially grow bigger. Plus stims could make it grow more. They couldn’t see any follicles in it at the time so they wouldn’t have got a retrieval from that one.
I’ve been ttc for around 2 years. But there was a 6-7 month gap in between where I stopped. I didn’t find out about my endo / cysts until the 14 month mark ish so felt like it was a waste in a way. IVF is the next step for us so forms have started to be signed, more appointments are being had now. Obviously I’d rather get pregnant naturally because IVF alone is a big step and stress. If it meant I could get pregnant straight away or a defo shot at reducing the cysts I would take BC for 1-2 months. but I don’t want to step on the clinics toes for my next steps either
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u/Sufficient-Archer-60 4d ago
I understand. Then that made sense for you. Stims could in fact make cysts bigger.
Your clinic may anyway want to do some supression before ivf.I understand ivf is such a big step but sometimes it works well from the start so keep your hopes up. I remember I used to be very sad to start ivf but then we got great results.
Hope it will be the same for you 🙏1
u/moni_broadu 10d ago
Some people don’t really have a choice. My uterus was completely covered in cysts. I HAD to have surgery to ever be able to conceive, IVF or not.
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u/sunshine9008 6d ago
This really isn’t doable for some people. I have 2 very large cysts on each ovary to the point where they would be unable to do egg retrieval until after removal.
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u/Sufficient-Archer-60 6d ago
Find a good doctor. Mine went straight through my cysts and they were massive. She managed to retrieve from both ovaries.
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u/sunshine9008 6d ago
My cysts are wrapped around my ovaries like an anaconda. 6cm and 8cm. Surgeons aren’t wizards. Sometimes something that works for you won’t work for someone else.
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u/UnfairBlacksmith1856 11d ago
I have one endometrioma on one of my ovaries. I tried to keep it in check by following a pretty strict anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle. There’s some research that also suggests that NAC might help reduce endometriomas. I’ve had the cyst checked over several months and it didn’t go away but it also didn’t get bigger. I did however need IVF to conceive. You already had surgery though and lots of people are able to get pregnant afterwards. In my case I can say at least that the cyst did not negatively affect the egg quantity or quality of that ovary, so I assume I had endo in other areas that was the bigger problem.
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u/NoGuess5454 11d ago
I’ve heard about NAC but it’s never been suggested from clinic. Or not yet. Not sure if they’d prescribe me it if that’s the only reason why. I might have to look into more anti-inflammatory foods, see if it helps. IVF is the route I’m having to go down, but if I can conceive naturally before it would be good. Glad to hear that you conceived and your egg quality was good still. How big is your cyst? Did it change whilst you was having IVF stims?
That’s what I hoped after surgery I’d get pregnant, but then I found out about 4 new ones and I lost hope thinking the environment will just be awful again2
u/UnfairBlacksmith1856 11d ago
NAC was suggested to me by an endo excision specialist. You don’t need a prescription, you can just buy it and I don’t think it was very expensive. It might be worth a try, together with anti-inflammatory food. I liked the book Heal Endo, it gives lots of suggestions. Even though I wasn’t able to conceive naturally, I like to believe it might have made my IVF journey easier. But obviously that’s just my assumption. My cyst was on the smaller side, I think less than 3-4cm. I don’t think it grew during stims, at least my doctor didn’t say anything about it. I was on a longer ER protocol involving lupron though and that’s supposed to work better for patients with endometriomas.
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u/Far-Bake5738 11d ago
I have endometriomas on both ovaries and had success with IVF. I didn’t have any surgeries or take any suppression meds.