Fibroids

If you are experiencing menopause your hormone levels are changing, causing ovulation and your periods to become irregular. If you bleed too early, you may be getting too much progesterone or not enough estrodial. If your bleeding has become increasingly heavier, you may be getting too much estrogen and not enough progesterone. In either case, you need to have your hormone levels checked and evaluated.

It is also helpful to know if your bleeding is heavier than it should be.  Here are a few questions to ask yourself.*

1. Do you change your pad every hour?
   
2. Does the bleeding last for more than a week or weeks(s) at a time?
   
3. Did you stop bleeding all together months ago, and has it started up again?  (If you started hormone replacement therapy during that time, the bleeding may not be cause for concern.)

*Please let the doctor know if you answered yes to any of these questions.  You may not want to rule out other serious conditions of the uterus and reproductive system that cause heavy bleeding.  Bleeding during the perimenopausal and menopausal years can also be caused by fibroids.

Uterine fibroids are benign tumors in the middle layer of the uterus, the muscular layer that causes contractions during labor. They are made of nodules of smooth muscle cells and fibrous tissue that develop in the wall of the uterus. Fibroids may grow as a single nodule, or in clusters. They may range in size from 1/10 of an inch to 8 inches in diameter (the size of small seed to a small melon). Uterine fibroids may grow in the wall of the uterus, or they may project into the interior cavity or toward the outer surface of the uterus. Although fibroids are called "tumors," they are not cancer. They are smooth muscle growths. These muscle tumors, originating in the wall of the uterus, grow under the influence of estrogen, the hormone all women produce everyday of their reproductive lives.

Approximately 40% of women have fibroids. Women approaching menopause may develop fibroids due to a growth spurt in response to a change in hormone balance. At this time in the menstrual life, the body often produces more estrogen than normal, because progesterone, the ovarian hormone that inhibits the effects of estrogen, is diminished. Some doctors see this common fibroid growth as an indication for surgery and needlessly alarm patients.

Remarkably, one out of every four women enters menopause as the result of medical treatment. In the great majority of cases, that treatment is a hysterectomy. Uterine fibroids are the single most cause for performing hysterectomies in the United States; however, most women with fibroids need no surgery at all. Even those who do require surgery certainly do not need hysterectomies.

The controversy in recent years over whether hysterectomies are necessary tends to conceal a disturbing trend:  More and more women are developing fibroids.

Natural hormone therapy balances hormones to control the production and severity of fibroids and assists in the reduction of excessive bleeding.

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