Which Ovary is Your Better One?
We have two ovaries, one will ovulate more regularly than the other.
Removal of the ovaries at the time of hysterectomy for a woman who is still ovulating puts a woman at risk for certain diseases, while reducing the risk of ovarian cancer by about 98%.
Losing both ovaries will have various negative neurological consequences including increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, increase risk of declining cognitive function and increase risk of fatal coronary artery disease, decrease her quality of life, and increase her risk of all-cause mortality.
No matter which ovary is better, as we age neither will function as they did when you were in your 20s or 30s.
The risks of conditions caused by low estrogen can be avoided by not removing either ovary at the time of surgery, but surgery of even one ovary can decrease risks of ovarian cancer.
Dr Douglas Brown from Mass General Hospital, published in Menopause Vol 21, 2014, has proposed the idea of keeping just one ovary instead of two at the time of hysterectomy.
The questions are many, we don’t usually discuss whether a woman will need hormones after keeping just one ovary, and we don’t discuss whether one ovary is superior to the other, or whether one ovary is more likely to get cancer than the other ovary.
We may not know, and even our gynecologist may not be able to test which is your good ovary.
In the study he discusses, it showed that the right ovary is just a bit more likely to get ovarian cancer, but endometriosis is a bit more likely in the left ovary than in the right. The right ovary ovulates more than the left, about 65-80% of the time is a woman ovulating on the right alone.
And fertility clinics report, according to Dr. Brown, more pregnancies from right sided ovulations, especially with IVF, at over 3 times the rate of pregnancies.
The final conclusion regarding which is your personal better ovary, is that we may not know, but it is something you should consider, just as you should discuss all medical decisions with your gyno as there may be particulars of your personal case to discover.
