My mom had a hysterectomy over 25 years ago - she had uterine fibroids ALL over the outside of her uterus, ovaries, and even her appendix to the point that the Dr removed that too when he did the surgery. It did take her a long time to recover but she had been dealing with heavy bleeding and pain for most of her life and she swears that the moment she woke up from the surgery she felt like a new person. She had a wonderful Dr and a wonderful recovery.

Like the previous poster said, though, this is a MAJOR surgery and there may be other options that would be more suited to you if the pain is not completely taking over your life like my mother's was. If it's more than what you can handle, then it's completely up to you whether you want to go through with it. If you have your ovaries removed you will have to go on hormone replacement. My mom was on premarin (which she did GREAT on) until she found out that they take it from horse embryos...she stopped using it and everything else she's tried made her gain a lot of weight, she's also tried herbal supplements but when using those she still gets hot flashes, etc etc. Good luck with whatever you decide to do