| Help for Women with Fibroids |  |
Wise Woman herbal and home remedies are simple, safe ways to help yourself
when you have a diagnosis of uterine fibroids.
Uterine fibroids are solid muscle tissue growths in the uterus. They are
also called fibroid tumors, myomas, or leiomyomas. Fibroids occur so
frequently (in up to half of all women over forty) that they could be
considered a normal irregularity. The occasional fibroid can become enormous
(medical literature reports one that was 100 pounds!), but the majority
(80%) remain as small as a walnut.
Fibroids are the number one reason American women have hysterectomies.
The causes of uterine fibroids are unknown, but estrogens, especially
estradiol, promote their growth. After menopause fibroids disappear. But
because estrogen levels can rise during the early menopausal years,
previously asymptomatic fibroids may grow in the years just before the
cessation of menses, resulting in symptoms such as feeling of heaviness in
the belly, low back pain, pain with vaginal penetration, urinary frequency
or incontinence, bowel difficulties, or severe menstrual pain and flooding.
Women of color are three to nine times more likely to have fibroids than
white women, and theirs will grow more quickly.
Fibroid tumors are not cancer, not malignant. Tumor means a swelling or a
growth, not a malignancy, not cancer. Less than 0.1% of all uterine fibroids
are malignant.
Small fibroids often disappear spontaneously. Larger fibroids are more
difficult to resolve, but not impossible to control with natural measures.
² The "root chakra" (lowermost energy center in the body, which
includes the uterus) said to store unexpressed anger. It is believed that
any unwanted growths in these organs can be countered by allowing the anger
to safely discharge.
² One woman's fibroids (and menstrual cramps) disappeared within three
months of beginning a vigorous exercise program. Exercise helps insure
regular ovulation, and irregular ovulation seems to worsen fibroids.
² Consuming three or more servings of whole grains or beans daily not
only reduces the size of fibroids but offers protection from breast and
endometrial cancers as well.
² Red clover flowers (Trifolium pratense), are one of my favorite
infusions, but use during the menopausal years may increase difficulty with
fibroids.
² Strengthening the liver with herbs such as dandelion, milk thistle
seed, or yellow dock root helps it metabolize estrogen out of the body, thus
reducing fibroids.
² Vitex or chasteberry tincture, 25-30 drops two to four times daily,
often shrinks small fibroids within two months. But results come from
long-term use - up to two years.
² Ask someone to burn moxa over the area of the fibroid while you
envision the heat releasing the treasures in your uterus. What is locked up
in this fibroid? What can you give birth to?
² Acupuncture treatments can shrink fibroids.
² Poke root (Phytolacca americana), used internally as a tincture
(1-10 drops per day; start small) and externally as a belly rub oil, has
gained a reputation as a profound helper in relieving pain and distresses
from fibroids. CAUTION: Poke is considered poisonous; it is not often found
for sale. This is one remedy you may have to make yourself to try.
² Warm castor oil packs on the belly, or ginger compresses (soak a
towel in hot ginger water) relieve pain and help shrink the fibroids.
² The use of progesterone to treat women with uterine fibroids is
hotly debated. One side holds that fibroids are created by lack of
progesterone. The other side makes, to my mind, the better case: that
progesterone increases fibroids. Evidence? Fibroids increase in size during
pregnancy, when progesterone production is high, and atrophy after
menopause, when progesterone levels decrease. Whichever side is right,
eating more whole grains and beans usually changes estrogen/progesterone
ratio for the better and shrinks fibroids.
² Reduce fibroids by reducing your exposure to estrogen: avoid birth
control pills, ERT/HRT, estrogen-mimicing residues from herbicides and
pesticides used on food crops (eat organically-raised products). Tampons
that are bleached with chlorine may mimic the bad effects of estrogen, too.
² Lupron (leuprolide acetate), a drug which induces "artificial
menopause" by shutting down the body's production of estradiol causes a
significant decrease in fibroid size within 8-12 weeks. Fibroids do regrow
to about 90 percent of their original size when the drug is withdrawn
however.
² Major advances have been made in surgical treatments for women with
fibroids. There are many options now besides hysterectomy (removal of the
uterus), including hysteroscopic resection, uterine embolization,
myomectomy, and suprecervical hysterectomy. Since these are fairly new
procedures, take the time to find a surgeon who is skilled in the procedure.
² Hysterectomy can be a life-saving procedure, but by the age of
sixty, more than one-third of American women will have given up their wombs
to the surgeons. The presence of non-symptomatic fibroids is never
sufficient reason, to my mind, for a hysterectomy. Of my students and
apprentices who have had hysterectomies because of fibroids, those who "did
their homework" - that is, helped themselves before and after their surgery
with all the tools at their disposal - seemed to fare much better than those
who did not.
² With very few exceptions, no woman is healthier without her ovaries.
So, even if you elect a hysterectomy, keep your ovaries.
These Wise Woman ways, and lots more, are in my book New Menopausal Years
the Wise Woman Way, available from www.ashtreepublishing.com. They are
arranged in order of risk: the safest first, the most dangerous last. If you
have a uterine fibroid and it is a problem, begin with the mildest remedies
first. Set a time limit for your use of any remedy, but, except in an
emergency, don't go on to stronger remedies until you are sure the safer
ones aren't effective for you. As with any advice, you are the best judge of
what works for you.
Susun Weed
PO Box 64
Woodstock, NY 12498
Fax: 1-845-246-8081
Visit Susun Weed at: www.susunweed.com and www.ash-tree-publishing.com
For permission to reprint this article, contact us at: lynpb@powerup.com.au
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RESOURCE BOX - Susun S. Weed
Help for Women with Fibroids
by Susun S. Weed, author and herbalist. Write to: lynpb@powerup.com.au for
permission to reprint this article.
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