Endo Battery
Welcome to Endo Battery, the podcast that's here to journey with you through Endometriosis and Adenomyosis.
In a world where silence often shrouds these challenging conditions, Endo Battery stands as a beacon of hope and a source of strength. We believe in the power of knowledge, personal stories, and expert insights to illuminate the path forward. Our mission? To walk with you, hand in hand, through the often daunting landscape of Endometriosis and Adenomyosis.
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What to expect from Endo Battery:
Personal Stories: We're all about real-life experiences – your stories, our stories – because we know that sometimes, the most profound insights come from personal journeys.
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Join us on this journey, and together, we'll light up the darkness that often surrounds Endometriosis and Adenomyosis. Your story, your strength, and your resilience are at the heart of Endo Battery. Tune in, listen, share, and lets charge forward together.
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QC: Pediatric Gynecology: When and How to Perform Safe Pelvic Exams for Young Patients
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Dr. Megan Wasson from Mayo Clinic explains how pediatric gynecological exams can be performed without causing trauma to young patients. She shares expertise on using external examinations and imaging techniques as alternatives to traditional speculum exams for diagnosing pelvic pain in adolescents.
• Speculum exams generally aren't appropriate for pediatric and adolescent patients, especially those who aren't yet sexually active
• External inspection of the vulva and introitus can identify conditions like imperforate hymen without invasive procedures
• Abdominal ultrasounds can effectively check uterine and ovary structure without internal examination
• Healthcare providers should avoid CT scans for young patients due to radiation exposure concerns
• MRIs should be used selectively as the lengthy, noisy procedure may cause trauma for children
• Physicians must balance diagnostic benefits against potential physical and emotional harm
Send your questions to contact@endobattery.com or visit endobattery.com/contact to get expert answers on future episodes.
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Life moves fast and so should the answers to your biggest questions. Welcome to EndoBattery's Quick Connect, your direct line to expert insights. Short, powerful and right to the point. You send in the questions, I bring in the experts and in just five minutes you get the knowledge you need. No long episodes, no extra time needed, and just remember expert opinions shared here are for general information and not for personalized medical advice. Always consult your provider for your case-specific guidance. Got a question? Send it in and let's quickly get you the answers. I'm your host, alana, and it's time to connect.
Speaker 1:Today's guest is someone who brings a deep expertise, compassion and innovation to the field of gynecology. Dr Megan Wasson is the chair of the Department of Medical and Surgical Gynecology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Whether it's in the operating room, at the podium or shaping global surgical standards, dr Wasson is helping redefine what care can look like for patients around the world. Please help me in welcoming Dr Megan Wasson. How early can a pelvic exam be safely and ethically performed, especially in these young patients and those experiencing chronic symptoms?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my gosh. I love this question so much because we can do a lot of trauma to individuals if that first pelvic exam is not done very thoughtfully and very deliberately. So pelvic exams and physical exams in general can be incredibly beneficial because not all pain is endometriosis and we need to make sure that we're not missing alternative sources of pain. But there's a subspecialty within OBGYN and it's called pediatric and adolescent gynecology and they've really perfected how we can do these exams and not do trauma.
Speaker 2:Speculum exams really don't have much place at all in the pediatric, adolescent population, especially in someone who has not been yet sexually active. There's a lot of trauma that we can do with that. But we can inspect the vulva, we can inspect the introitus and make sure there isn't something like an imperforate hymen that someone may truly be cycling but the blood just can't get out and that's where their pain is coming from. So we can do physical exams, especially in those with pelvic pain. But that doesn't necessitate doing what most individuals would think of as a pelvic exam. You don't need to do a speculum exam. You don't need to do that by manual exam where we're feeling the uterus, feeling the ovaries. A lot of just inspection is adequate to get the answers we need.
Speaker 1:Is it necessary to do that to be able to potentially diagnose or know next steps, or is imaging, mri or ultrasound beneficial in those cases where you?
Speaker 2:don't really want to do an exam like that. Yeah, so that external inspection is incredibly helpful, specifically to make sure there isn't that outlet obstruction. So the imperforate hymen, okay, but that isn't the point that we stop. So we absolutely can benefit from doing a ultrasound, but again, it doesn't have to be an internal ultrasound, doing a screening ultrasound with just the probe on the abdomen, looking at the structure of on the abdomen, looking at the structure of the uterus, looking at the structure of the ovaries to make sure there's no mass, make sure there's no big cyst on the ovary. That's the source of this discomfort. If someone does have that outflow obstruction that even if the cervix is blocked and they're not able to bleed through the cervix, you'll see the uterus being filled with blood and you'll be able to see that on the ultrasound.
Speaker 2:So very commonly in younger individuals who are struggling with pain, we do lean very heavily on just that extra inspection of the vulva and the opening of the vagina, but then also ultrasound. We really don't like to do CAT scans, especially because that's radiation exposure for young individuals. And then MRI absolutely we can use it in very select patients, but we don't want to do that on everyone either, because that's a 45 to an hour long exam very commonly that you're asking a 10 year old to lay on a table and hear this clanging, banging like. How much trauma does that induce? So we just need to be very deliberate and very thoughtful about what we're putting these young individuals through and making sure that there is truly the benefit on the other side of it and we're not doing more harm than good.
Speaker 1:That's a wrap for this quick connect. I hope today's insights helped you move forward with more clarity and confidence. Do you have more questions? Keep them coming, send them in and I'll bring you the expert answers. You can send them in by using the link in the top of the description of this podcast episode or by emailing contact at endobatterycom or visiting the endobatterycom contact page. Until next time, keep feeling empowered through knowledge.