From The Gynocologist's Second Opinion Website---

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED A HYSTERECTOMY
Edited excerpts from our book A Gynecologist's Second Opinion by William H. Parker, M.D.
Hysterectomy, the surgical removal of the uterus, is a procedure surrounded by controversy - and for good reason. Hysterectomy is the second most common major operation performed in the United States today, second only to cesarian section. Approximately 600,000 American women have a hysterectomy every year, at a cost of almost 5 billion dollars. By the age of 60, one out of every three women in the U.S. has had a hysterectomy. Read the rest of the article here....

I'm editorializing here, and I guess I can do that since I own the blog------I went out to lunch with a group of five friends about a month ago, and somehow the subject of hysterectomies came up. We went around the table, and 5 of the 6 women (including me) had had their hysterectomies by the time they were 45. That's frightening, and I wonder how much could be avoided by balancing the hormones. I am virtually certain I could have avoided surgery if I had known ------ and I ended up with the hysterectomy from hell, a second surgery to control bleeding, a urinary tract infection that shot my temperature to over 103 degrees, 8 days in the hospital for what was supposed to be a 23 hour stay. I know we can do better!