A little off topic

About a year ago I was introduced to Dr. Lee's book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Premenopause. I read it, cover to cover and then went back and re-read the portions about fibroid tumors.
 
I'd not yet been to the doctor to confirm the fibroid diagnosis. I didn't have any other peri-menopausal symptoms. My bleeding was heavy, but had always been since I went off the pill when I was 22. My cycles were rather regular (a few hiccups, but usually attributable to illness or jetlag). The only thing that lead me to believe I had a hormone imbalance was the large mass that was amassing in my abdomen. So I tried progesterone cream for about six months, in hopes that it would do something about the largeness of my belly and perhaps make weight loss easier.

 
It did neither. I put on weight in January and February when I got a very bad case of bronchitis and kept on the cream until March when I started looking for a new doctor.
 
The thing about Dr. Lee's books is that I didn't care for the hyperbolistic style. I don't like how it seemed to make judgments about women who followed their doctor's recommendations. The book suggested that hormone creams and hormone balancing were a cure all. I don't think that's true. I'm not sure all of modern women's ills are caused by hormone imbalances that we can control.
 
Surgery is very serious and though we know a lot more about hysterectomies and the removal of ovaries, I'm not quite comfortable just tossing aside my uterus just because it has these abnormal and invasive growths. But how much time and effort can I invest in a therapy that takes so long and has such a low incidence of helping? The point really becomes, what caused these fibroids to grow in the first place? As far as I can tell, it's a genetic pre-disposition. My maternal grandmother's largest fibroid was the size of a grapefruit when it was removed, when she was five years older than I am now.

That was 35 years ago. Was she a victim of modern living, chemicals and hormones invading her body? Or is it just the way our family is built?

My grandmother lived to be 79 years old, died from congestive heart failure. Her first heart attack was only a few years after her radical hysterectomy. She was overweight and smoked. Do we blame the hysterectomy for her heart attack? No, we point the finger at genetics and her weight.

So why not point the finger for fibroids where it belongs. I'm just built to make them. Some women make ovarian cysts. I make fibroids.

And I've made the choice to stop making fibroids and remove my fibroid factory and only my fibroid factory.

Any questions or feedback? Feel free to email me.

Posted by Elizabeth M. on July 21, 2004 03:09 PM

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