Fertility: S01 E13 – Tubal Reversal Surgery – Dr. Whitten

Thank you for joining me today for our next video informational series today I’m going to be talking to you about tubal reversal surgery my name is Scott Whitten and I am at the Nevada Center for Reproductive Medicine here in Reno and I’m a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist. One of the most common request that we get from patients is asking us about the feasibility of tubal reversal the other common name for that is called microscopic tubal reanastomosis tubal reversal is obviously a little bit easier to say so we will stick to that for the sake of the video today. Tubal reversal is where you’re going to return a woman’s fallopian tubes back to normal after she’s had their her tubes tied so a common form of contraception for women in the United States is called a tubal ligation which is a surgical procedure that she undergoes where there’s an interruption of the fallopian tubes either a clip is placed on there a segments removed part of its burn the point is to disrupt the fallopian tube so that the sperm and the egg cannot reach one another anymore and when that happens then you have a good contraceptive. Now there are some patients who undergo this procedure that later on have regret and they decided they want to have more children and so when they contact us they’re asking about what can you put my tubes back together so that I can get pregnant again and that’s actually a complicated question to answer because it’s not simple a answer to it it really depends upon multiple factors to depend on whether a patient is a good candidate to have their tubes put back together not if we can do it we can do it but are they going to have good success and outcomes from that procedure. We look at multiple factors for them for example the females age if she’s older and doesn’t have a lot of time to get pregnant tubal reversal probably not the best procedure for her if her husband has no sperm or has low sperm and she needs other in fertility services probably not a good candidate, if they removed a large section of the fallopian tube or she’s had multiple pelvic surgeries and scarring and inflammation endometriosis those kind of things that’s not a good environment to put tubes back together either so an ideal candidate is somebody who is young healthy as regular cycles lots of fallopian tube left and her husband has lots of sperm in and she wants more than one child that’s probably a good candidate to do a tubal reversal on when you do a tubal reversal that procedure it takes about two sometimes even up to three hours depending upon the patient and it does involve an incision and involve surgery underneath a microscope were using thread that is the same finest as your hair and we put those tubes back together line them back up so that the sperm and egg can reach one another once again and an embryo can be transported down the tube into the uterus to grow in the right location. After the surgery is done usually patients if they’re going to have success or going to have success within 6 months if my patient doesn’t we are usually checking to see if the fallopian tube stayed open or if they need some assistance at that time now the cost of a tubal reversal can be quite expensive so it’s important to know are you doing the right procedure you don’t want to invest a lot of money into a procedure that’s not going to give you a good outcome or good success so the most important thing to do if you’re inquiring about a tubal reversal is to come in and sit down and talk about your individual case compare it to alternative methods which be like in vitro fertilization which IVF is an option because you bypass the tubes in IVF you don’t use the tubes in the entire process so if you had your tubes tied or the tubes are missing or you’re not a good candidate for a tubal reversal IVF might be a better option it’s really important to sit down and go through this discussion with your provider to make sure that you’re getting the right treatment that you need so that you have success that you deserve if you’d like to hear more information about tubal reversal surgery or any other procedures we do here at NCRM please feel free to contact our office we’re happy to help you