Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos, M.D., Endometriosis Specialist, Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgeon
City: Athens, Greece
Philosophy: Even though endometriosis is a prevalent and unique disease, its pathophysiology stills remains a mystery. I believe that this disease is multifactorial. Moreover, I firmly believe in genetic and epigenetic factors contributing to endometriosis. Hopefully, with the progress in bioinformatics, we will eventually have more valuable information regarding the onset and course of that disease.
Medication: In my practice, I firmly believe that excision surgery is crucial. Complete excision of all the endometriotic lesions gives far better results in controlling pain or sustaining fertility and lower recurrence rates than medication use. I believe that suppression after excisional surgery is unnecessary unless the excision was incomplete. Medication like contraceptive pills, progesterone supplements, or GNRH analogs in my practice is reserved for women who want to control pain until the day of the operation or for patients that want to control pain but definitely avoid surgery. In cases of adenomyosis, I recommend the use of Mirena coil.
Approach to Persistent Pain After Surgery: Patients are followed up closely after operations.
That way, we can monitor their progress. If symptoms persist, evaluation for other causes of pain is undertaken, referral to the pain management team, and physiotherapy. Anti-inflammatory drugs and nerve blocks can be beneficial in situations where symptoms persist.
After years of suffering with endometriosis I finally found Dr.Kyriakopoulos.Like so many of his patients I cannot sing his praises enough!He is an amazing doctor with great sense of humor!I trusted him every step of the way and felt cared for the entire time.He’s an incredible specialist and very careful to preserve your fertility.Highly recommend a consult to anyone who even thinks they may have endometriosis!Superheroes don’t wear capes, they wear aprons and save us in our hard times.Thank you for your tremendous skill in performing my excision laparoscopy.Your talent and caring manner is a credit to the medical profession!
It’s hard to put into words how my wife and I feel unbelievably fortunate that we engaged Dinos to conduct surgery to remove her severe and advanced Endometriosis. His expertise and care literally saved my wife’s life – I will always be very grateful to him.
That’s our story – here is what our – and maybe your experience could be like…
After conducting extensive research and speaking with many, many consultants globally, we felt confident in our decision to engage Dinos’s expertise – which is second to none.
Aside from his vast expertise, his care and passion for his patients – and their partners was incredible, reassuring and completely surpassed our expectations.
He completely supported us in making arrangements before travelling from the UK to Greece, through and after the procedure.
My wife’s Endometriosis was severe to the extent that there were several potential life-changing complications. Thankfully, due to Dinos’s and his teams care, determination and expertise none of these came to pass.
Through the recovery period he kept in touch, offering support and encouragement that was at once incredibly useful – and truly appreciated by both my wife and I.
We cannot speak highly enough of Dinos – he is a genuinely special person who we will never forget, always be thankful to and will always welcome him to the UK.
David
I’d like to share my experience with surgery for endometriosis and adenomyosis with Dr. Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos.
I’ve had a few surgeries in the past. It’s an odd thing to say a major surgical experience was excellent, but this one was for me. I had a total hysterectomy (preservation of ovaries) for adenomyosis, adhesiolysis, and endometriosis excision with Dinos and his team.
Dinos has a very patient centric, detail oriented, compassionate approach. He is kind and funny and adjusts his approach according to your needs.
I felt that he heard my concerns and the things that were important to me and remembered and addressed them. He was able to calmly address my million questions and reassure my anxiety, especially before I made the decision to go.
It was important to me that he and his team wouldn’t just do things, especially around the genital area without talking to me and walking me through what they were doing. His exam and ultrasound was skilful, respectful and he explained and asked about each step.
He follows up consistently and is responsive to messages and emails. He is on top of even the little details, while coming across really laid back. He pays attention to pre and post op care, visited daily while I was in hospital and changed my dressings himself.
He allows you to have control and a say in decision making. For example, when I reacted to the morphine with itchiness, he explained and gave me a choice of flushing it (reduced itchiness but also reduced pain management) and I chose not to. When I was concerned about how I would manage pain once I was discharged he allowed me to actively participate in tapering it so I was able to taper it off myself with the knowledge that if I really needed it I could ask and get it. These things really helped me and gave me confidence.
I heard Dinos works with three anaesthesiologists. Mine was Marinos and he was excellent. I wasn’t sure when they said they would handle my pain management well in hospital, but they did. Amazingly so, and I think that really helped not to feel traumatized by the whole experience. Marinos is aware of ERAS and goes out of his way for patient comfort in close consultation with Dinos. I had an epidural for a few days – blessed pain management. I only had one moment where I woke up in the middle of the night in pain, I called for help and the nurses arrived shortly with something additional that helped.
Dinos is aware of and pointed out that hysterectomies are a trend in North America and worse that some uninformed ObGyn’s see it as a cure for endo (which it is not).
But I had adenomyosis and an enlarged uterus – he did my hysterectomy and did it well from what I can tell.
Even though he could have made his life much easier by cutting my belly open (my uterus was large) Dinos added time to the surgery first to remove fibroids/ myomas, then morcellate and remove the uterus before moving onto the rest of the surgery, all laparoscopically.
I felt he was extremely skilled; it’s reflected in his exams, care, neat incisions, follow ups, even the recovery of his patients.
Also his sense of humour is similar to mine and… He gave me very delicious chocolate cake to make up for starving me pre surgery.
Sometimes things don’t go perfectly as we hope and while this can happen with any surgery and surgeon, what impressed me again was how he dealt with it when I reached out post surgery to discuss. I don’t always know that my bladder is full. Dinos explained that it can be a common effect, to set a timer to go pee and that it usually heals with time.
I am in pain and have a long recovery to go through but it’s a different kind of pain than before. I honestly feel much better and tremendously hopeful just two weeks post surgery. I wonder why I didn’t get it done sooner rather than suffering so long hoping the Canadian healthcare system would do something for me.
I feel grateful for my experience overall, that lady luck was walking with me when I decided to go to Greece to Dinos for endo and adenomyosis surgery.
2 weeks post OP after endometriosis excision and bowel resection.
This man is a Greek God! Dr.Kyriakopoulos (Dinos) thank you for everything! So dedicated doctor and human being with great sense of humor. I don’t have enough words to express myself. The best decision I’ve ever done in my life.
After many years with terrible pain, fatigue, misdiagnosis I was operated in Norway in January this year and I finally got my diagnosis. I was even worse after my surgery, the pain was impossible, I was fainting from pain. I decided to contact dr. Kyriakopoulus. The communication was great and every question was answered. I was not scared and I trusted him every step. I did and MRI in Greece as well because as I was not allowed to get my surgery photos from Oslo for some reason. The moment I woke up from the surgery I felt lighter and I didn’t have any pain at all. He was there in the room after the surgery to see how we are doing and explained everything he had done during the surgery. My surgery was long and complex, I was even case of the month 😀
Other gynaecologists, and I had at least 20 of them, didn’t find anything wrong with me and surgeon in Norway didn’t find anything wrong either. They told me I have just a little bit of endometriosis and that was removed (it wasn’t) and some nodules on the bowels. My right ovary was stuck to the pelvis and no one even found it, every endometriosis specialist (as they call themselves) I visited didn’t see it and Dinos saw it on UL and palpated it, same with endometriosis on uterosacral ligaments before my surgery.
Thank you million times!!