What is an SSG?

[TwoMums]

Hey girls

I had a SSG done in November and the sonographer first did an external ultrasound of my abdomen and she found 2 fibroids. She looked at my ovaries which looked a little sandy on the surface. She also looked at the arteries that supply blood to the uterus and the ovaries. Then she also looked at my kidneys as well as they actually affect your fertility as well if they are not fuctioning properly.

Then she did the internal ultrasound with the wand thingy and looked at the walls of the vagina, the cervix, the uterus from a different perspective and also the ovaries again.

Then i got the saline put into my uterus and then some more pushed through to clear out my tubes of mucous and debris. This part of the procedure could verify the shape of my uterus cavity and that my tubes were clear...but also the rate at which the saline runs through and the direction etc which is important as well.

With a HSG they can only verify the shape of the uterus cavity and if the dye spills out of the tubes and into the abdomen cavity. Once the dye has been put through the tubes and it has spilled into the abdomen cavity, they can no longer see anything else because the dye takes some time to be absorbed by your system, where as the saline doesnt dye your tubes as it is clear. That is why they take a series of xrays, to see the dyes progress.

Also the saline is warmed before it is used and the ultrasound is actually a doppler and is picking up the warmth of the saline not the colour...and it comes up a different colour on the ultrasound screen. So my radiologist was able to see that the saline was travelling through my left tube much slower then the right one, and so she directed the catheter toward that tube and pushed some more saline through that side which forced some debris out and cleared my tube completely.

Sorry for the long post, but i hope it is informative and helps.