What is the Uterine Fibroid Embolization (UFE) procedure like?

 

ufe is a relatively quick and less invasive treatment, and often you are sent home the next day, depending on where you have the procedure. Dr. Suzanne Slonim, M.D., describes the process from the patient’s perspective.

“So from your perspective, you’re going to come into the hospital, in the morning, the nursing staff is going to do a whole lot of things, they’re going to start an IV, they’re going to give you some medicines, they’re going to draw some blood, we’re going to check you out the morning of the procedure, we’re going to take you into the procedure room and put you to sleep. They will put a catheter in your bladder, and then I’m going to do the procedure, you’re not going to have any awareness of it. You’re not going to remember it at all.”

“As soon as the procedure is done, we’re going to bring you back into the holding room, and I’m going to hook you up to the pain pump. I’m going to stand at your bedside and make sure that you’re comfortable and not in pain, and hook you up to the pain pump, then the nurses will watch you. I will always be hovering around close by so that if there are any issues I usually tell, women usually bring their mother or their husband with them, and I usually tell them if there is any problems that are not being addressed please come and find me, and I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ll stay in my holding room until late in the afternoon. I do that for two reasons. One is my nurse is going to watch you a lot closer than the nurses upstairs. Two, is that most of these are done on a 23-hour admission, that 23 hours starts when you get up to the unit, up to the floor, and I don’t want tomorrow for anyone to be saying, listen Dr. Slonim, it’s time for her to go.”

“I want to make sure you’re ready to go before you leave. So, you’ll stay in my area until late in the afternoon, you’ll go up to the floor, and you’ll be in the hospital room overnight.”

See Dr. Linda Hughes’ answer to this question.

 

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