ESSURE STERILIZATION
EXPLAINED IN DETAIL
Essure is the newest form of tubal sterilization. The purpose of Essure is the same as tubal ligation: providing permanent birth control by causing blockage of the fallopian tube. Essure sterilization is technically not a tubal ligation, but, more appropriately, an internal tubal occlusive technique.
The more correct name for the type of tubal blockage caused by Essure is transcervical hyteroscopic tubal occlusion. This term translates into a sterilization procedure performed through the cervix (transcervical), using a camera (hysteroscopic), and causing permanent tubal blockage (tubal occlusion).
Essure is unlike any other type of tubal ligation because it causes the tubes to become blocked from the inside by causing scar tissue on the inside of the tube. This scar tissue results in complete and permanent blockage of the tubes.
How does Essure work?
The Essure procedure is commonly performed in the doctor’s office and with minimal sedation. During the procedure a small camera is placed through the cervix and into the uterus. An Essure micro-insert device is placed inside the opening of each fallopian tube. This device causes the tube to gradually heal closed by causing the formation of scar tissue around the coil and inside the tube. This blockage only occurs in the very beginning of the fallopian tubes.
Once the coils are inserted patients are instructed to use another form of birth control while the scar tissue is forming to cause tubal blockage. Permanent tubal blockage usually occurs by the third month after the Essure device insertion procedure and is confirmed with a hysterosalpingogram x-ray (HSG). This is often referred to as the HSG confirmation test.
Reversing Essure
Is it possible?
Essure is intended to be permanent but we have proved otherwise. We can remove the Essure coils and the permanent scar tissue can be bypassed by re-introducing the tubes into the uterine cavity. This procedure to reverse Essure is called tubouterine implantation.
Tubouterine implantation can provide women with the chance to become naturally pregnant again after Essure sterilization.
