Every word that turns up on an operative report, a consent form or a discharge sheet, in plain English, starting with the two that get mixed up most.
Total hysterectomy means the uterus and the cervix came out. It does not mean the ovaries did. "Partial" is worse, because different doctors use it to mean different operations. The label alone will not tell you what happened to you. Your operative report will. And if you are not sure what happened to your ovaries, start there.
Every term, A to Z
A–C: Abdominal hysterectomy · Adenomyosis · Adhesions · Adnexa · Bilateral · Bioidentical hormones · Blood clots (DVT and PE) · Bone density scan (DEXA) · BSO · Catheter · Cervical stump · Cervix · Cleared · Compression stockings · Consent form · Cystoscopy
D–G: D&C · DHEA · Discharge instructions · DPO / WPO · Drain · Early menopause · EBL · Endometrial ablation · Endometrial hyperplasia · Endometriosis · Endometrium · Essure · Fallopian tubes · Fibroids · FSH · General anaesthetic · Granulation tissue · GSM
H–L: Haematoma · Heavy menstrual bleeding · Hernia · Hormonal IUD · HPV test · HRT / MHT · Hyst · Hysterectomy · Hysteroscopy · Induced menopause · Infection and UTI · Laparoscopic hysterectomy · Laparotomy · LAVH · Ligaments · Local oestrogen
M–O: Menopause · Minimally invasive · Morcellation · Myomectomy · Oestradiol · Oestrogen · Oestrogen-only and combined HRT · Oophorectomy · Operative report · Opportunistic salpingectomy · Ovarian conservation · Ovarian remnant syndrome · Ovarian shock · Ovaries
P–R: Pap test · Pathology report · Pelvic floor · Pelvic rest · Perimenopause · Peritoneum · Pfannenstiel · POI · Polyps · Postmenopause · Pouch of Douglas · Premature menopause · Pre-op and post-op · Progesterone and progestogen · Prolapse · Radical hysterectomy · Released · Robotic-assisted
S–T: Salpingectomy · Salpingo-oophorectomy · Seroma · Shoulder-tip pain · Six-week check · Stitches, staples and glue · Subtotal hysterectomy · Supracervical hysterectomy · Surgical menopause · Surgiversary · Swelly belly · Systemic oestrogen · TAH / TVH / TLH · Testosterone · Total hysterectomy · Trachelectomy
U–Z: UAE · Unilateral · Ureters · Uterus · Vaginal atrophy · Vaginal cuff · Vaginal cuff dehiscence · Vaginal hysterectomy · Vasomotor symptoms · Vault smear · vNOTES · Yeeted
Types of hysterectomy, and what came out
Hysterectomy
Surgery to remove the uterus. That is the whole definition. Anything else removed at the same time, tubes or ovaries, has its own name on your report.
Total hysterectomy
The uterus and the cervix, both removed. The most commonly performed version. It tells you nothing about your ovaries, and many women have one and keep both.
Subtotal, partial, or supracervical hysterectomy
The uterus is removed and the cervix stays. Supracervical is the precise word, subtotal is the clinical one, and partial is the one to watch. If someone says partial, ask what they left in.
You can still get cyclical bleeding for up to two years, and you still have a cervix, so cervical screening may still apply.
Cervical stump
What the cervix is called once the uterus above it is gone. Only women who had a supracervical hysterectomy have one. It is why screening and light cyclical bleeding can both still happen.
Radical hysterectomy
The cervix, the tissue around it, the uterus, the fallopian tubes and the top part of the vagina, sometimes with the ovaries. It is a cancer operation, not a bigger version of a normal hysterectomy, and it is not done for fibroids or endometriosis.
Oophorectomy
Removal of an ovary. Unilateral oophorectomy is one, bilateral oophorectomy is both.
Salpingectomy
Removal of a fallopian tube. Tubes are often taken even when the ovaries stay.
Opportunistic salpingectomy
Removing the fallopian tubes during an operation being done for another reason. It is offered because many of the most serious ovarian cancers are now understood to start in the tubes, so taking them is done to lower that risk while the ovaries stay and keep working.
Salpingo-oophorectomy, BSO, USO
A tube and an ovary removed together on the same side. Bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO) means both sides, and losing both ovaries is what causes surgical menopause. Unilateral (USO) means one.
"Total abdominal hysterectomy with BSO" means uterus, cervix, both tubes, both ovaries. "Total laparoscopic hysterectomy with bilateral salpingectomy" means the tubes went and the ovaries stayed.
Bilateral and unilateral
Both sides, and one side.
Ovarian conservation
Keeping the ovaries. The usual approach when the surgery is for a non-cancer reason and you are premenopausal at average risk of ovarian cancer.
You do not wake up in menopause, but a 2011 cohort study found early ovarian failure more common after a hysterectomy than without one. Nobody has untangled whether that is the surgery or the condition behind it. Both paths are laid out in hormones after hysterectomy.
Surgical routes and their abbreviations
Abdominal hysterectomy
The uterus is removed through a cut in the lower abdomen, about 10 cm, usually horizontally along the pubic hairline, sometimes vertically from the navel down.
Vaginal hysterectomy
The uterus is removed through a cut at the top of the vagina, with no abdominal incision. If keyhole instruments were used to help, it is an LAVH and there are small abdominal cuts as well.
Laparoscopic hysterectomy
Keyhole surgery. Small cuts in the abdomen, and the uterus comes out through the vagina or through one of the cuts, sometimes divided into smaller pieces first.
Robotic-assisted hysterectomy
Keyhole surgery where the surgeon works the instruments from a console instead of by hand. A surgeon is doing your operation the whole time.
LAVH
Laparoscopically assisted vaginal hysterectomy. Part keyhole, part vaginal.
vNOTES
Vaginal natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery. Keyhole-style surgery done entirely through the vagina, camera and instruments included, so there are no abdominal cuts at all. Newer, and not yet offered everywhere.
Minimally invasive
An umbrella term for laparoscopic, robotic and vaginal surgery. It describes the size of the cuts, not how your recovery will go.
Laparotomy
Open abdominal surgery, meaning one larger cut instead of the several small ones used in keyhole surgery.
Pfannenstiel incision
The horizontal cut along the pubic hairline. Most people call it the bikini line.
Morcellation
Cutting tissue into smaller pieces so it can come out through a small opening. A large fibroid uterus sometimes will not fit through in one piece, so it is divided first, either through the vagina or through one of the keyhole cuts. Contained morcellation means the same thing done inside a sealed containment system.
The abbreviations
Most of the letters do the same job every time. T is total, V is vaginal, L is laparoscopic, S is supracervical, and the final H is always hysterectomy. A is abdominal, except in LAVH and LASH, where it means assisted.
- TAH total abdominal hysterectomy
- TVH total vaginal hysterectomy
- TLH total laparoscopic hysterectomy
- LSH laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy
- LASH laparoscopically assisted supracervical hysterectomy
- LAVH laparoscopically assisted vaginal hysterectomy
- TAH-BSO or TLH-BSO either of those, with both tubes and both ovaries out
The anatomy named on your report
Uterus
The womb.
Cervix
The lower end of the uterus, opening into the vagina. Sometimes called the neck of the womb.
Whether yours came out decides whether you have a vaginal cuff, and what happens with screening. ACOG's rules, which are American guidance: removed with no history of cervical cancer or moderate-to-severe changes, no screening needed; removed with that history, screening for 20 years; cervix kept, you may still need it. Canadian provinces set their own schedules, so know which one is yours.
Fallopian tubes
The two tubes running from the ovaries to the uterus.
Ovaries
The two organs that produce oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone, and release eggs.
Endometrium
The lining of the uterus. The part that used to build up and shed each month.
Vaginal cuff, or vault
When the cervix is removed, the top of the vagina is closed with stitches. That closure is the cuff, and once healed it is a scar at the top of the vagina. If you kept your cervix, you do not have one.
Adnexa
The region on each side of the uterus holding the ovary and fallopian tube. "Adnexa unremarkable" on a report means that area looked normal.
The ligaments
The bands of tissue that held the uterus in place, cut during the operation and named one by one on operative reports: the round ligaments, the broad ligament, the uterosacral ligaments. Seeing them listed does not mean anything extra was removed.
Pouch of Douglas
The space between the uterus and the rectum, also written as the cul-de-sac. The lowest point of the abdominal cavity, which is why reports mention fluid or endometriosis found there.
Peritoneum
The thin tissue lining the abdominal wall and covering most of the organs inside it.
Ureters
The two tubes carrying urine from the kidneys to the bladder. They run close to the uterus, which is why consent forms name them: injury is rare, and usually repaired during the same operation if it happens.
Pelvic floor
The sling of muscle across the base of the pelvis holding up the bladder, bowel and vagina. Heaviness, dragging, a bulge or new leaking are all reasons to ask for a referral to a pelvic health physiotherapist. A sudden feeling of something protruding in the first weeks after surgery is a different problem: see vaginal cuff dehiscence.
Your paperwork and appointments
Operative report
The surgeon's written account of what was actually done, including every organ removed and the route used. You can ask the office for a copy, and it is a routine request.
Pathology report
What the lab found in the tissue after it was removed. It confirms the diagnosis and sometimes changes it.
Consent form
The document naming what you have agreed to. Anything you have decided about your ovaries belongs on it in writing, before the day of surgery.
Discharge instructions
The sheet you go home with: wound care, warning signs, what not to lift, who to call. Where its numbers differ from anything you read online, including here, follow the sheet.
Pre-op and post-op
Before and after the operation. The pre-op appointment is where health checks and consent happen; post-op describes everything on the recovery side.
The six-week check
The follow-up where healing and symptoms are reviewed and you talk about what you can resume. Six weeks is the common timing, not a rule: plenty of surgeons book it at eight. Ask what was examined and what exactly you are cleared for. The weeks in between are their own subject: recovery week by week.
EBL
Estimated blood loss, in millilitres. A routine line on operative reports, not a red flag.
Cleared
Your surgeon saying you can resume something. It is specific to the activity, so being cleared to drive is not being cleared to lift or to go back to training.
Pelvic rest
Nothing in the vagina while you heal: no sex, no tampons, no douching. It applies whether or not you have a cuff. The window varies by country and by surgeon, and yours is the number that counts.
Surgery day, and the first days after
General anaesthetic
Medicine that keeps you unconscious through the operation. Keyhole hysterectomies are usually done this way; a vaginal hysterectomy can sometimes be done under a spinal instead, where you are awake but numb from the waist down.
Catheter
A soft tube placed in the bladder to drain urine, usually taken out within about a day of the operation.
Drain
A small tube sometimes left through the abdominal wall, so any blood or fluid that collects right after the operation has somewhere to go.
Stitches, staples and glue
How the cuts are closed. Stitches inside the vagina dissolve on their own. Abdominal cuts are closed with dissolvable stitches, glue, or stitches, clips or staples that are taken out about five to seven days later.
Compression stockings and blood thinners
Clot prevention. Tight stockings worn day and night around the operation, often with daily blood-thinning injections.
Blood clots (DVT and PE)
A DVT is a clot in a deep vein, usually the leg; a PE is a clot that has travelled to the lungs. They are why the stockings and injections exist. A painful, swollen, hot leg, or sudden breathlessness or chest pain, is emergency territory, not watch-and-wait.
Shoulder-tip pain
Pain felt at the top of the shoulder after keyhole surgery, a common side effect of the gas used to make room to operate. Expected, and temporary.
Cystoscopy
Looking inside the bladder with a thin camera. On a hysterectomy operative report it means the surgeon checked the bladder during the operation.
Menopause, hormones and HRT
Menopause
The final menstrual period, confirmed once twelve months have passed without another one. If your uterus is gone there is no reliable period to mark it by, which is why the date is often unclear after a hysterectomy.
Postmenopause
The time after menopause, counted from the final period once twelve months without one have confirmed it.
Perimenopause
The run-up to menopause, starting with cycle changes and ending once menopause is confirmed, twelve months after the final period.
Surgical menopause
Menopause caused by having both ovaries removed. If you had not already been through menopause, it starts immediately, and it tends to arrive harder than natural menopause because there is no gradual decline in front of it.
Induced menopause
Menopause brought on by surgery, chemotherapy or radiation rather than by time. Surgical menopause is one kind of it.
Premature menopause
Menopause at or before 40.
Early menopause
Menopause after 40 but before about 45. The usual age is around 51 or 52.
Primary ovarian insufficiency (POI)
The ovaries stopping before 40. It overlaps with premature menopause, and it is the term guidelines use when they set out advice specifically for women under 40.
Oestrogen
The main hormone the ovaries produce. It acts on far more than the reproductive organs, which is why losing it affects bones, skin, sleep, mood and the bladder as well.
Oestradiol
The strongest of the natural oestrogens and the main one your ovaries made before menopause. It is also the oestrogen in standard HRT, so it turns up on prescriptions and patch packets.
Progesterone and progestogen
Progesterone is the hormone the ovaries release after ovulation, which prepares the lining of the uterus each month. Progestogen is the umbrella word covering progesterone itself and the synthetic versions used in HRT and contraception.
Testosterone
Not only a male hormone. Women produce it in the ovaries and the adrenal glands, and removing both ovaries drops it by roughly half. That fall does not happen in natural menopause, which is one of the things that makes surgical menopause different.
DHEA
An androgen made mainly by the adrenal glands, and one of the raw materials the body turns into testosterone and oestrogen.
FSH
Follicle-stimulating hormone, made by the pituitary gland. It rises when the ovaries slow down, which is why it is the blood test used to work out where you are when there is no period to go by. Guidelines lean on it mainly under 45; at 45 and over, symptoms alone usually answer the question.
HRT and MHT
Hormone replacement therapy and menopausal hormone therapy. Two names for the same treatment. Which guidance applies to you depends heavily on your age and on whether your ovaries came out.
Oestrogen-only and combined HRT
The NHS position is that oestrogen-only HRT is recommended once the uterus has been removed. Women who still have a uterus take a progestogen alongside the oestrogen, to protect the lining from the effect of oestrogen on its own. This is the practical reason the two groups get different prescriptions. If you kept your cervix, ask your doctor which group you fall into.
Systemic oestrogen
Oestrogen treatment that circulates through the whole body. Patches, gels, sprays, tablets.
Local, or vaginal, oestrogen
Oestrogen applied in the vagina, acting mainly on that area rather than circulating through the body.
Bioidentical hormones
Hormones with the same chemical structure as the ones your body makes. Standard regulated HRT already includes them: oestradiol patches and gels, and micronised progesterone. The word to watch is compounded, custom-mixed "bioidentical" products sold outside normal drug regulation, which have no outcome trials behind them and can vary in dose and purity.
Vasomotor symptoms
Hot flashes and night sweats.
Genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM)
The changes caused by falling oestrogen that affect the vulva, vagina, urethra and bladder: dryness, discomfort, urinary changes. Older writing calls it vaginal atrophy.
Bone density scan (DEXA)
A low-dose X-ray that measures how strong your bones are, used to assess osteoporosis risk. It comes up after surgical menopause because bone loss speeds up when oestrogen falls early.
Healing, complications and follow-up
Vaginal cuff dehiscence
The cuff coming open. It is uncommon and it is treated as an emergency. The symptoms to know are sudden severe pelvic pain, a gush of fluid or bleeding, or a feeling of something protruding. It is in the urgent tier of when to call your doctor.
Granulation tissue
Fragile new tissue that can build up where the cuff is healing, and it bleeds easily. It shows up as discharge, sometimes bloody, or as bleeding after sex, and it can also cause no symptoms at all. Small patches often settle on their own; the usual treatment otherwise is cauterisation with silver nitrate, which can take more than one visit. New bleeding or discharge has more than one possible cause, so get it looked at rather than assuming this is it.
Haematoma
A collection of blood. After a hysterectomy it can mean a small one at the top of the vagina, a vault haematoma, but it can form at the abdominal wound too.
Seroma
A collection of clear fluid rather than blood, usually near a wound. Small ones are reabsorbed on their own; larger ones are sometimes drained.
Infection and UTI
An operation can leave behind a wound infection or a urinary tract infection. Increasing pain, spreading redness, smelly discharge, burning when you pee, or fever are the call-your-doctor signs.
Adhesions
Scar tissue forming between organs that are not normally joined. It can develop after any abdominal surgery and is not a sign that anything went wrong. Most cause nothing; occasionally they cause pain or bowel trouble years later.
Hernia
Tissue pushing through a weak spot in the muscle wall. After surgery the weak spot can be the scar itself, an incisional hernia, and that includes the small keyhole cuts. A new bulge at any scar is a see-your-doctor item.
Prolapse
When the womb, bladder or bowel bulges into the vagina. After a hysterectomy where the cervix was removed, the top of the vagina itself can drop, which is called vault prolapse. Pelvic surgery is one of the things that can lead to it. Prolapse develops gradually; a sudden bulge or gush in early recovery belongs under dehiscence instead.
Ovarian remnant syndrome
When a small piece of ovarian tissue is left behind after the ovaries were meant to be fully removed, and it keeps working. The usual sign is pelvic pain, sometimes cyclical, months to years later. Rare, real, and something to name to your doctor if removed ovaries are still making themselves felt.
Vault smear
A screening test taken from the top of the vagina instead of the cervix, for women who no longer have a cervix but still need surveillance.
Pap test and HPV test
The two cervical screening tests. A Pap test collects cells from the cervix to look for changes; an HPV test checks a sample for the high-risk virus types that cause most cervical cancers, and some provinces now use it as the main screening test. Which applies to you after a hysterectomy depends on whether your cervix came out and why: see the cervix entry.
Words you will only hear from other women
None of these appear on an operative report.
Swelly belly
Post-surgical abdominal swelling. It comes and goes, gets worse when you overdo it, and can last months. Doctors will call it swelling or oedema. Telling it apart from weight gain is its own problem.
DPO and WPO
Days post-op and weeks post-op. "3wpo" is three weeks out.
Hyst
Hysterectomy, shortened the way the forums have always shortened it. "My hyst date" is a surgery date.
Yeeted
Removed. Used about an organ, affectionately.
Released
Cleared. "Past my release date" means past the follow-up where restrictions were meant to lift.
Surgiversary
The anniversary of your surgery date, marked the way the forums mark everything: counted, compared, and usually celebrated.
Ovarian shock
The community's name for menopause-like symptoms arriving in the weeks after surgery even though the ovaries stayed. It is a description, not a diagnosis. The clinical conversation behind it is about ovaries slowing down or failing early, and sometimes they settle again.
Reasons for the surgery, and what came before it
Fibroids
Non-cancerous growths in or around the womb.
Endometriosis
Where cells similar to the lining of the womb grow in other parts of the body.
Adenomyosis
Where the lining of the womb grows into the muscle of the womb wall.
Heavy menstrual bleeding
The clinical name for periods heavy enough to run your life: needing fresh protection every hour or two, bleeding lasting more than a week, clots bigger than about 2.5 centimetres. Older paperwork calls it menorrhagia. It is the symptom behind many of the diagnoses on this list.
Endometrial hyperplasia
The lining of the uterus grown too thick or in a disordered way. The pathology report splits it into without atypia, watched or treated with progestogens, and atypical, where the cell changes carry a real cancer risk and a hysterectomy is usually advised. The word atypia is doing all the work in that sentence.
Polyps
Small finger-like growths on the lining of the uterus. Usually benign, removed during a hysteroscopy or a D&C, and one of the things doctors look for when bleeding turns up between periods or after menopause.
Essure
A permanent birth control device: two small coils placed in the fallopian tubes, designed to make them scar shut. Bayer stopped selling it in the US at the end of 2018, and it was never formally recalled.
The coils are built to grow into your tissue, which is what makes them hard to remove. Getting all of it out can mean taking the tube with a wedge of the uterus, or the uterus itself. That is how birth control ends in a hysterectomy, and why this site exists.
Endometrial ablation
A procedure using heat to remove the lining of the womb. Something some women try before a hysterectomy.
Myomectomy
Surgery to remove fibroids and leave the uterus in place.
UAE
Uterine artery embolisation. The blood supply to fibroids is blocked so they shrink. Another of the options that sits before hysterectomy on many treatment paths.
Hormonal IUD
A small T-shaped device placed in the uterus that releases a progestogen. Prescribed for heavy bleeding as well as for contraception, because it can make periods much lighter. Mirena is the brand name most women know.
Hysteroscopy
A thin telescope passed through the cervix to look inside the uterus. How heavy bleeding gets investigated, and how polyps and small fibroids get removed.
D&C
Dilation and curettage. The cervix is opened and the lining of the uterus is sampled or cleared, usually for testing. Often done alongside a hysteroscopy.
Trachelectomy
An operation that removes most of the cervix, the tissue around it and the top of the vagina, while the uterus stays, done for some small early cervical cancers so pregnancy stays possible. The near-mirror-image of a supracervical hysterectomy.
Get your operative report. Every word here is a general definition until you are reading the version written about your own body.