Starting today I will be posting a series of installments of Erin’s Story, written by Erin, a patient who struggled with fibroids and has recently received treatment and now wishes to share her story.

“In 2007, when I was 33, after suffering for about a year with heavy menstrual bleeding and cramps, and having tried various forms of birth control pills which did nothing to help my symptoms, my OB/GYN performed a saline ultrasound and discovered a 5 cm fibroid, several polyps and one smaller fibroid in my uterus. She did not feel that the large fibroid was the cause of my bleeding, as she believed it was in the lining and not the cavity of my uterus. At her suggestion, I had a hysteroscopy, an outpatient procedure, wherein she removed the polyps and the smaller fibroid vaginally. My doctor said I would have some mild bleeding afterwards, for about a week or so, similar to a light period. Instead, I bled profusely for two months straight. When I complained to her about the prolonged and heavy flow, and asked whether that was normal, her exact words were “some people take longer to heal than others.” She suggested I get an IUD called Merena, which would release hormones into my uterus and might help with the bleeding. After doing lots of research online, I read various horror stories of other women who had tried that particular IUD and had intermittent bleeding, cramping, fever, nausea, and even hair loss. Merena was not for me.

My periods continued to get heavier and more painful, and no longer so trusting of my OB or of Western medicine in general, I sought alternative treatment. I went to an acupuncturist who specialized in fertility and women’s issues, and she gave me a mixture of Chinese herbs to take three times a day. She also advised me to switch to organic milk and meats, as the non-organics can contain lots of hormones which would help my fibroid to grow. I followed my acupuncturist’s advice, seeing her twice a month, and taking the herbs religiously. Seven months later, the worst of my cramps were gone, but nothing had eased the blood flow.

I had avoided going to a doctor for the last year and a half when in March of 2009, I started noticing a feeling of extreme dehydration, which caused me to drink five times more water than I normally had. I just could not quench my thirst. It all came to a head one day while I was hiking, and nearly passed out. I thought it was again dehydration, so I went to my GP. After running some blood tests, he informed me that I was severely anemic, and that I needed to take iron pills right away. At the same time, I had noticed I was urinating much more frequently, and I began to have hemorrhoids caused by constipation. I went to a urologist who told me my bladder was not emptying all the way, and that something (undoubtedly the fibroid) was probably putting pressure on it. Two of my hemorrhoids became extremely painfully thrombosed, and had to be incised. It seemed the fibroid was also pressing on my bowel. I even had a colonoscopy, just to be sure that the anemia wasn’t from a polyp in my bowel or something more serious. ”

Tune in next Thursday to see what happened with Erin’s colonoscopy and where her story goes from here.