About My Retained Tissue Experience

(to a woman dx with retained POC)

I had retained tissue for certain after my d&c, it was due to my uterus being wrapped around my fibroid so the RE had a hard time reaching all of the tissue on the far side of the fibroid. My doc left the clinic a week after my procedure and I had to have a different RE pick up my care. She said that we could do a repeat d&c but the risk was that they might overdo the scraping; methotrexate which would require taking a break for a few months (and it isn't like that's not a pretty hardcore drug on its own -- it affects all the tissues in your body), or wait it out.

Since my beta was dropping she and we decided to wait it out. It took forever and I was having cycle weirdness and finally my body got fed up and did some really crazy things like not letting me sleep for more than 3 hours for over two weeks and then when AF arrived I was hemorrhaging, losing at least 2 pints of blood in 2 days. And then the bleeding continued on and off for another month up until my repeat d&c. I even asked the RE about all the bleeding I was having and she didn't have anything to offer me. I did see my acupunturist during this time and he was a huge help with symptoms like feeling like I was full of cold water, and feeling like I was drinking 3 triple espressos a day.

The only thing that caused any changes though during that time though was that I went to a health spa with a friend at the end of October. The first day of classes I took Feldenkrais, trancendental meditation, qi gong and walked a labrinth. That evening, 3 months after my first d&c, I passed a large chunk of tissue. There had to be something to all that meditational-like movement practices that caused things to shift. Still there was more left, and it was due to the fibroid preventing my uterus from contracting it out properly on it own, so I still had to have the surgery.

Oh, and to just make things feel freakier, I think the retained tissue continues to grow inside of you, though slowly dying off at the same time. Hence you get a larger mass of tissue with slowly lowering beta levels.

Your doc might consider using a hysteroscope while doing the repeat d&c to better see what they are doing though this requires a visit to the OR under general anesthesia for certain. I used cytotec to dialate my cervix for the repeat d&c.

If you do in fact have retained tissue take care of it sooner rather than later to save your body a lot of struggle and your heart a lot of pain. You want to end this physical connection to the miscarriage as soon as possible.

Hope this helps.