During your initial visit, we will dive deeper into the details of your symptoms, discuss what’s been done in the past, and do a very detailed physical exam in order to have the best idea possible of what’s causing your pain prior to surgery. If you have pain with bowel movements Dr. Mosbrucker may need to do a rectal ultrasound in order to determine if there is endometriosis within the wall of the distal sigmoid colon or rectum. Most of the time you will be advised of the need for this after the records review so it won’t be a surprise. For local patients the rectal ultrasound if necessary may be scheduled on another day to allow for a prep.
If it is determined that you may need a bowel resection, we will arrange a consult with Dr. Linda Pai, Dr. Mosbrucker’s general surgery colleague who is an essential part of our team and who will counsel you about that part of your surgery. If you have only a small area of endometriosis on the outer aspect of the colon, then most often it can be addressed with a partial thickness resection which is done by Dr. Mosbrucker and won’t require a longer hospital stay after surgery.