I've had 2 Lupron shots for fibroids, and I'm still bleeding.Why?My doc says thi!
Question:
I want to know the specifics of why Lupron shots aren't working for me. My doctor says it's prob b/c of the submucosal fibroids with lots of blood vessels. I have so many of them (20-30) and one large one and a few medium size ones. They cause so much pain and bleeding and I haven't stopped bleeding since Jan 24. I had a depo-provera shot on Jan 18, a Lupron shot Feb 8 and another March 9. I had my heavy period already after the 1st Lupron shot from March 1st-9th. Before Jan, I would stop bleeding for a week to 10 days a month but now it just won't stop bleeding. My blood count in Jan was 8.2 but it's at least going up slowly with the Lurpon shots and taking 325mg of iron 3x/day and folic acid 3x/day. Two weeks ago my blood was up to 10.2. I had fibroids transvaginally removed 2 1/2 hrs ago already but prob didn't get them all out. So this time I'm having abdominal surgery as well as a hysteroscopy. I'm just waiting for my blood level to go up now.
Answers:
Has your doctor sent you to a specialist? Doctors are not omniscient and should be able to recognize when they've reached their limits.
I will also point out that there are a couple more options available to you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibroids#Treatment
I had a similar (though not as bad) problem with fibroids. I had the uterine arterial embolization mentioned in the above article, and it worked outstandingly. Since the UAE, I have only enough period to let me know the plumbing is still working.
I did not have the HIFU treatment, but it sounds completely non-surgical and thus you wouldn't have to deal with the problems that other techniques have.
When I was researching the UAE, I noticed from some support groups this trend: women with a lot of small fibroids did better with UAE, while women with one large fibroid did better with myomectomy. And when I say large, I mean a fibroid that is being talked about in terms of months, e.g. one fibroid that makes a person look three or five months pregnant. The advantage that UAE has for the first group is that the UAE killed all of the fibroids no matter what size, whereas the myomectomy only addresses fibroids that can be seen.
However, at this point if I needed to be treated again, I would go with the HIFU first to see how that helped and then go with the UAE if HIFU didn't work. I personally would not even let the Lupron near me - that essentially creates an artificial menopause.
Note that I'm not even mentioning hysterectomy. I might have considered that if everything else failed, but it would have had to be a life-threatening, no other treatment had worked at all situation.
In the meantime, here's a couple more things I found:
Cholesterol is a precursor chemical to estrogen, and it is the estrogen that is causing the problems. I recommend highly that you go on a cholesterol reducing lifestyle:
1. Minimize animal fats - especially sausages, bacon and (sadly) cheese. I would not eliminate beef as it is high in dietary iron, which is absorbed more easily than supplements.
2. Eliminate ANY deep-fried foods. Even foods fried in unsaturated fat has excess amounts of trans-fatty acids that cause LDL cholesterol.
3. Take niacin in a time-released multi-B formula.
4. Exercise as much as you can.
5. Iron - vitamin C increases absorption and calcium reduces absorption. Add lemon or lime juice to steak and any other iron source you consume; if you are eating steak, don't have cheese or milk products, even if they are fat free. Also, don't take a calcium supplement when you take your iron supplement, and do take a vitamin C supplement.
Good luck, and I hope you get the treatment you need.
Answers: