I've had 2 surgies to remove them. the 1st surgery, I had 4 of them & the largest was the size of a cantalupe, the smallest the size of the top of a soda can. The second surgery was 3 yrs later, & I had 6. the largest was the size of the top of a soda can & the smallest was the size of a golf ball. There are different types. Mine are just like water balloons & my sister had the ones that were twisting. They were able to remove the cysts for me both times & yes I am on birth control to contain them. If I need another surgery, it will be a total hysterectomy because I have stage 4 endometroisis. My sister had the same thing, however she had the twisting kind and they removed 1 of her ovaries. Even though they did that, she has 2 lovely kids after that.

Wow...a VENT!!!


Yeah I'm like you Roe, had always heard 20's so this took me by surprised but I knew something was up. "Substantial size" and TWO of them..no history of endometriosis here so...likely age. He said lol "Your ovaries aren't doing what they used to be doing, but they still are trying to do Something." Funny guy my doc!

You def. have my sympothy on that, both are very painful. Cysts are caused by many factors, and it's not the same for anyone.

The only real correlation I have heard is that normal cysts that you would get anyway can become chocolate cysts more easily under the conditions of endometriosis.

Anyone who ovulates has had cysts...they commonly form when the egg leaves the ovary for it's journey south. They usually heal rapidly and you never become aware of them...then sometimes they go haywire and never heal.

Yes, and almost every woman gets cysts from time to time and never know it, it's when the body doesn't take care of it that they become enflamed and enlarge.

If you have both endo and cysts...Endo acts up around your "time" as do cysts for the reasons you stated, it's not a nice combination.

I know it's a hassle, but try to look at it this way if you get anxious...this is something a huge number of women go through at least once in their lives and there are very few issues that could lead to complications. Most surgeries last less than an hour for this kind of thing. My first surgery only took 10 minutes with my first cyst that I had to have removed. It is very much a common procedure and the recovery is incredibly fast. I hope it doesn't come to that...but if it does don't sweat it too much.

Thank you!

I have 2 of them. They are small, like pinheads, benign, have cause acne in my 40's!! They are nothing for me to be concerned with.

But, my friend had one grow to the size of a grapefruit and caused her much pain and grief. She had it removed and had a hysterectomy. It's been a year and a half, she takes hormone pills, but she is so HAPPY and pain-free now, plus no longer has to fuss with "time of the month" and bloating!!

Yeah and at my age that wouldn't altogether be a bad thing!

thanks. the endometriosis is so painful now, ive got to start injecting myself with demerol 4 times a day and its looking like ill be on morphine 4 times a day to, for life, as its damaged my bladder and bowells to. when i had septicimia last year, they thought that could have been cased by a ovarian cyst bursting, i was lucky to survive that, i was told i might not live, but they would do all they can.

ive had a massive choclate cyst before but that was from the endometrosis defintly, its a build up from the endo. it took them 3 hours to remove the choclate cyst i had. and believe me the pain of a large choclate cyst and endometriosis and scaring and adhesions is agony, luckily i was operated on within a week, so i was only in agonising pain for a week until they reoved the choclate cyst. they did cancer tests first because they didnt know what it was. it turned out to be a choclate cyst luckily

No1sLove is correct, I'm sure it is a pretty common surgery. Dr's deal with this quite a bit.
My daughter's case was one of the "extremes".

Well, must run. Thanks all for the input! I appreciate it!

wow thats great, it took them 3 hours to remove my choclate cyst, but it was big, and it was dectected by a internal ultrasound.

Extreme and terrifying! I have heard horror stories of ruptures that make me shake in my shoes. I am so glad she came through it ok. No fun at all I'm sure.

That's about how long it took them to get mine out too...it was not so big...only about a softball, but was so solid that dissecting it to pull through the scope was time consuming. A normal cyst can be collapsed and pulled out, but chocolate cysts grow solid masses inside them due to the blood supply they collect feeding any growth that is willing to set up home there. Yucky! Did you know that they have even found teeth and hair inside those things? Cells don't know what to become in there and so make their own call I guess.

to all the lovely ladies, who are suffering with these naughty womens problems

If you took Depo=provera shots one every three months you would have no pain from it at all, why don't you're doctors put you on that?