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10 Main Treatments for Uterine Fibroids

Despite the fact that uterine fibroids are fairly common, dealing with them isn't always easy. The decision to treat these benign muscle tissue growths is based on a number of criteria, including when and how to try eliminating or shrinking them, as well as whether they even need to be treated in the first place.

By Amelia GrantPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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10 Main Treatments for Uterine Fibroids

We estimate that around half of all women have them, but only half of those women are symptomatic. That's one of the things that is interesting about fibroids: you can examine a patient and feel like the uterus is enormous, yet the patient is asymptomatic.

Now, if you have uterine fibroids, you might not find them exciting, but there is a lot of diversity in how women with fibroids experience them. Because the growths aren't malignant, there's also a wide range of treatment options.

Here's everything you need to know about uterine fibroids therapy, including pharmaceutical and surgical alternatives.

You must first decide whether or not you want to treat them before speaking with your doctor about treatment alternatives. In certain circumstances, doing nothing about your uterine fibroids is "100% " an option.

You may not want or need to treat your uterine fibroids if they aren't producing symptoms. Fibroids, on the other hand, can cause pain, cramps, irregular bleeding, and heavier or longer periods, among other symptoms, thus treating them can help you live a better life.

Your fertility, or your aspirations to become pregnant in the future, is another factor to consider.

Fibroids can still interfere with pregnancy (and, later, the birth of your kid) by predisposing you to preterm labor and abnormal bleeding during delivery, as well as raising the chances of having a baby who is born breech.

However, if during a visit to a fibroid doctor you have found that you have a uterine fibroid but you don’t experience any symptoms and are not planning to get pregnant in the near future, you and your healthcare provider might decide not to treat it. If you still decide to treat, there are some possible options.

Medications

There are no drugs that can "cure" or fully eliminate uterine fibroids. However, there are medications that can help with some of your worst fibroid symptoms and, in some cases, even decrease fibroids during treatment.

Over-the-counter medicines

Pain from fibroids can be treated with over-the-counter pain medicines such acetaminophen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen.

Iron supplements

These are occasionally prescribed if you bleed a lot during your period and are concerned about anemia.

Hormonal birth control

Some birth control methods can help with symptoms like pain and bleeding. Only some kinds of birth control, such as the combination pill and progesterone-only IUDs, are effective for symptom management. Other birth control methods, such as the progesterone-only pill, the implant, and injections, have not been shown to aid with symptoms.

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists

These drugs lower estrogen levels, making you feel like you're in menopause and causing your fibroids to shrink.

GnRH agonists are used to make fibroids smaller before a surgical operation or to keep them from causing problems until menopause, but this isn't a long-term solution (at which point they will probably stop causing symptoms on their own).

Blood loss therapy

Tranexamic acid is an oral medication used to treat heavy menstrual bleeding caused by uterine fibroids. This non-hormonal alternative was described as usually safe in a 2014 study published in the World Journal of Clinical Cases.

Surgery

The sort of uterine fibroid surgery you have depends on the location, size, and fertility preservation of the fibroid; your doctor can advise you on the optimal strategy based on these three aspects.

The size and position of the fibroid, such as if it is developing into the uterine cavity, affect the surgical strategy, including whether you have surgery and, if so, what type. If you want to have children, the operation focuses on eliminating fibroids rather than a hysterectomy.

Excision is the only known and safe approach to treat fibroids, thus the surgery may be laparoscopy, hysteroscopy, or laparotomy, which is an open incision, depending on the location and size of the fibroids.

Myomectomy

Myomectomy is a surgical technique that removes fibroids while leaving the uterus intact. Fertility-safe operations fall under the surgical category of myomectomy. Typically, the procedures entail:

- making a series of small incisions to allow for minimally invasive surgery with a surgical scope (laparoscopy)

- making a bigger incision to allow for hand removal of fibroids (laparotomy)

- a surgical scope is inserted through the vaginal canal into the uterus to remove fibroids from the uterine cavity (hysteroscopy)

Hysterectomy

The only way to prevent fibroids from recurring is to remove the uterus surgically. It's normally reserved for women who are approaching or have passed menopause, have large fibroids, excessive bleeding, or don't want to have children.

Other procedures

Other methods may be available if fertility isn't a concern. These are some of them:

- Uterine embolization is a technique that includes cutting off the uterus' blood supply to stop fibroids from growing.

- Radiofrequency ablation, or the use of high-frequency sound waves to break up the fibroid from the outside, is a procedure that uses high-frequency sound waves to break up the tumor.

- Endometrial ablation is a procedure that uses a probe to deliver an electrical current to the fibroid, causing it to stop growing.

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About the Creator

Amelia Grant

I am journalist, and blogger.

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