XP: Experience with Fibroids?
Hi ladies,
Quick intro: I just had a natural miscarriage last week, at 8 weeks. Since I've been off B/C, I've been dealing with fairly heavy spotting for about 4-5 days before AF. I had 2 U/S before we even started trying to get pregnant, both of which showed fibroids, but 2 different doctors told me not to worry.
Now that I've miscarried, all of a sudden the fibroids are an issue and my doctors want me to do a special sonogram to measure them more carefully and determine whether I need to have them removed. One seems to be "peeking" into the uterine cavity, which seems to have raised concern.
Has anyone else had any experience with fibroid treatment and/or removal? If so, did your fibroids interfere with a pregnancy?
Thanks in advance for any responses.
Re: XP: Experience with Fibroids?
Three years ago I had surgery to remove a polyp from inside my uterus. Initially they they thought it was a fibroid. I also had two fibroids on the front of my uterus like a ball sac (sorry if tMI). I was told these should not effect my ability to get pregnant but if they did my doctor wanted to do myomectomy.
A myomectomy is a surgery to remove fibroids outside the uterus but it's the cut of a hysterectomy or c-section. I was told if this happened we would have to take a year off from TTC. Fast forward and it's been a year and my first appointment with my new doc is today.
I had an HSG back in September and it showed that my fibroids outside the uterus were no longer there. However I have four in my uterine walls one large one in the top of my uterus and three smaller on the sides. In theory they should impact my ability to get pregnant but I'm going in okay to find out the next steps.
But what I was told previously was that if I get pregnant they need to monitor the fibroids because the additional estrogen could cause them to grow larger. Hope this helps!
I'm lurking and I hope I haven't made it here too late for you to read this. First of all, I am so sorry for your loss. I had a large fibroid (8cm) growing into the wall of my uterus and pushing it out of the way. The doc believed mine was affecting TTC even though it didn't change the shape of the uterine cavity because it was pushing my uterus back and my cervix was way out of line.
If the fibroid(s) is small, it can be removed via hysteroscopy. Most docs will only go up to 3-5cm. Any bigger, an abdominal myomectomy is recommended. There are a lot of potential risks like scarring, not to mention time off work (6 wks) and time off TTC. The best option, in my opinion, is robotic myomectomy. It works like a laparoscopy with a few more incisions. The insert a device to cut up the tumor into pieces and remove it through the small incisions. Recovery varies from two to three weeks, the risk of complications is much smaller, and you can resume TTC after three months.
I had the robotic done a week ago and am feeling pretty good. Admittedly, I have a low threshold for pain, but I did have to spend the night in the hospital the first night for pain management and nausea. I am down to one or two pain pills a day and extra strength tylenol the rest of the time. I go back to work next Thursday, but really feel like I'd be ok to start back on Monday.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. Good luck to you!
Thanks so much for your response! From what my doctors have suggested so far, I would do a hysterocopy to remove the fibroids. There are 4, and there's only one that's about 1 cm, the others are smaller. But the one is the one that's giving concern. Right now it looks like I will have a saline sonogram, and then proceed from there.
Best of luck with your recovery!