Fibroids and Alternatives to Hysterectomy?

I am 35 and am being sent for an ultrasound to see if my extremely heavy periods are being caused by fibroids. I have been married for a year and my husband and I might want children, but I want to return to school next year to take a 2 year course first so I can get a better job before we have kids. Most of the info I've read about fibroids says hysterectomy is the normal course for this disease. 90% of the women in my family have had to have them. I simply refuse. My question is, other than annoying symptoms, or possibly pain, is there any other severe risk of just leaving them be? I was reading that they can sometimes shrink of their own accord at menopause. If it turns out that I have them, can I just live with them until I go through menopause? I have personal and religious reasons for not wanting to have my reproductive organs removed. Could this be fatal? Even if it was, it wouldn't change my mind, I would just like to know.

I can relate myself with you! I had many big fibroids inside my uterus, first detected when I was 24 years old. I had mayomactomy then. I became pregnant with the fibroids when I was 27 and gave birth of a low birth premature baby this July 2007. I had to take leave from my study. I had surgery that time and had hysterectomy. There was no other option.

I think if you keep the fibroids and they grow fast then it will be unbearable for you. It will cause so much heavy bleeding that you will have severe anemia. You will not be able to go anywhere during your period. Its better for you to have a treatment for your firbroids.

It is not fatal, just uncomfortable. It may interfere with your ability to carry a pregnancy to term, but it depends on the size and number of fibroids. There are dietary measures that can be take to reduce the size of the growths, and the fibroids themselves can be removed while leaving the uterus. A woman I worked with had this done (after she greatly reduced the size of the fibroids with diet) in her mid to late 30s and has had 2 children since. Discuss it with your doctor and if he doesn't like the idea, find another doctor. Arm yourself with knowledge from the internet.

Best of luck,
c-ya

If you have fibroids, find a hospital in your area that does Uterine Fibroid Embolectomy. We do these in Interventional Radiology as a outpatient. Very simply, the doctor will numb the area in your groin over the femoral artery, acess the artery with a needle, pass a wire thru until it reaches the artery feeding the fibroid, then coils are injected in to this little artery and the blood flow stops, fibroid dies. This sounds painful, but most of our patients only complain of bad menstrual cramps during the recovery phase. They go home that evening on some meds and it's very sucessful without surgery or losing your reproductive organs. Check it out!