Anyone have/had fibroids?

[Iwasjustabouttosaythat]

Has anyone had fibroids then had them treated? I think I have them. I have an appointment to see a Doctor on Thursday but would love some advice before then.

It all started when the sweeps during labor with my first child were incredibly painful. The Dr said that was unusual and maybe fibroids were an issue. I never got that checked out for various reasons.

I breastfed my baby so I didn’t have a period again for over two years, then I only had two periods before I got pregnant again. I don’t remember anything being weird about them but if it was I would have just put it down to the big gap between periods.

I got pregnant and had twins via csection so no horrible sweeps or labour. During my fortnightly ultrasounds through the entire pregnancy no one mentioned fibroids but they weren’t specifically looking.

So then no period again for 9 months but when it finally came back it was awful. Really, really heavy, so painful I thought I would pass out - it felt like labour. I took some painkillers but they didn’t help at all.

I went to see a Doctor and she did a pelvic examination and a pap smear. Both were fine but she said I had a big scar (due to a fistula during labour) and that the scar was probably responsible for the pain. She said the heavy bleeding was probably due to a hormonal imbalance and gave me a choice between the pill or agnus castus. I chose to try the latter and went on my way.

A few months down the track the pain isn’t as awful but the bleeding is still incredibly heavy, lasts for weeks, and is now occurring after intercourse. Still, when it is painful I can’t sit down, it hurts even to pass wind and urinating takes a long time.

Has anyone been in this situation? What did you do? I read there are lots of different treatments though an ablation sounds the best to me.

And if anyone has had an ablation, has that helped with PMS? I’m beginning to wonder how much of my PMS is just sheer bloody (no pun intended) exhaustion from the amount of blood I’m about to lose. Surely with an ablation this is better?

Thanks so much to anyone who can share their experiences. I’m so sick of medical stuff and I’m scared it’s actually going to be something worse like some kind of cancer. Or that I will need lots of surgery and recovery time. I’m over being a woman right now.

Hi there,

I have quite a few fibroids with the largest being 3.5cm. Started off by getting a lot of swelling and discomfort back in January and was diagnosed with them after an ultrasound back in March.
My GP advised that the first step of treatment would be to try the Merina coil which I had fitted in July. This has dramatically reduced my heavy periods but I have still been getting the discomfort.
Last week I had another ultrasound to check that the coil was still in place as they couldn't find the threads and by chance they found that I now have a 4cm cyst on my left ovary.

I would imagine that your GP will want you to have an ultrasound to assess the situation first. Mine also did the CA125 blood test to rule out cancer.
Try not to worry too much (ha, much easier said than done, I know!)

Hi I had a large one which was discovered after they could not manage to remove my Mirena. It pressed on my bladder a lot and caused heaviness down below and kind of ‘pulsed’ a lot, possibly because it was sitting on a vein. Very uncomfortable - I didn’t have bleeding issues. I saw a good surgeon (NHS) and he offered me a partial hysterectomy which I opted for.

Thanks for the responses. I will ask for the test for ovarian cancer while I’m at it. I think I’m anaemic from all this bleeding anyway so I’m sure they will want to test that at the same time. It’s hard because I’m so tired from having twins who still don’t sleep through the night so I don’t know if it could be that or anaemia or PMS making me so exhausted.

Did you feel really tired too?