About Uterine Fibroids you must know

• According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists or the ACOG, uterine fibroid tumors or leiomyomas are “clinically apparent in 25 to 50 percent of women.” However pathological examinations of removed uteri show that the prevalence of uterine fibroid tumors may actually be as high as 80 percent.
• Uterine fibroid tumors or leiomyomas are estrogen dependent – they thrive on estrogen. In fact, uterine fibroid tumors never develop before the onset of menstruation when the female body begins producing estrogen. During pregnancy, fibroid tumors often grow extremely fast due the extra estrogen produced by the body during pregnancy. Most women who have fibroid tumors and who are able to wait until after menopause discover their uterine fibroid tumors shrink and disappear once estrogen production stops in the body. Because of estrogen’s affect, both women who currently have fibroid tumors and those who've had uterine fibroids in the past need to pay particular attention to the potential side effects of estrogen-containing medications.
• Fibroid tumors are the most common solid pelvic tumors in women. Because it is not uncommon for women with uterine fibroid tumors to experience none of the symptoms often seen in women with fibroids, treatment is unnecessary unless bothersome symptoms develop before natural menopause. The two most common symptoms of uterine fibroid tumors that cause women to to seek the advice of their health care providers are:
  -excessive uterine bleeding or menorrhagia that lasts longer than seven days
  -a feeling of pelvic pressure – somewhat like the pressure experienced during pregnancy when the uterus grows larger.
• Often excessive uterine bleeding causes the development of anemia or iron deficiency. Other consequences that may occur due to pressure on adjacent organs include:
  
  urinary and bowel problems
  
  painful sexual intercourse or dyspareunia.
  While these symptoms can indicate the presence of leiomyomas, they are not definitive symptoms. Other possible causes for these symptoms should be ruled out before a diagnosis of uterine fibroid tumors is made.
  
  
• It is extremely rare that uterine fibroid tumors are cancerous. In a study cited by the ACOG, sarcomas or cancer is present in only about .002 to .003 percent of cases of leiomyomas. Leiomyomas that are cancerous are called leiomyosarcomas.
• The most common reason given for hysterectomy is uterine fibroids. Today several alternatives are available for the treatment of fibroid tumors. However, many of these treatments have side effects and complications that you should learn about before making your decision about treating your fibroid tumors. Make sure talk to your health care provider about which alternative may or may not be the right treatment choice for your situation. The only "cure" for uterine fibroids is hysterectomy. However, you should know that hysterectomy is considered “elective” surgery by most insurance providers. The only non-elective reasons, according to most insurance providers, for hysterectomy are cancer and hemorrhaging that cannot be stopped by other measures.
• Uterine fibroid tumors come in several types:
  -subserosal,
  -submucosal,
  -intramural,
  -pendunculated,
  -interligamentous,
  -parasitic fibroids
• It's not unusual for women to have more than one type of uterine fibroid tumor. The type of fibroid, as well as the size and location of the tumors, affect which treatment option is best for you.
• Subserosal or Subserous fibroids grow on the outer wall of the uterus and usually cause no symptoms until they grow large enough to interfere with other organs.
• Submucosal fibroids These fibroids occur just below the lining of the uterus and can cause menstrual problems, including pain as they grow and move around the pelvic area.
• Intramural uterine fibroid tumors are round leiomyomas located within the uterine wall and which can cause and increase in uterine size as they grow.
• Pendunculated leiomyomas develop when a subserous These fibroids develop when a subserous fibroid grows a peduncle or stalk that grows larger and may become twisted, causing severe pain.
• Parasitic uterine fibroids are the rarest type of leiomyomas and develop when a fibroid tumor attaches itself to another organ.

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Diagnosis of Fibroid Tumors

Diagnosis of fibroids is generally made by your physician during your annual gynecological exam when your physician feels a mass, they often are found when your physician is looking for something else or may never be discovered if you do not experience symptoms. However larger fibroids may make examination of your ovaries impossible if they grow near your ovaries.

An ultrasound scan is often ordered when such masses are felt by your physician to determine the cause of the mass, however some fibroids appear on sonograms as ovarian tumors and surgery is the only way an accurate diagnosis can be made.

Although most fibroids cause no symptoms, the estimated 25 percent of women who do have symptoms may have abnormal bleeding, pain during menstruation, and as the fibroid tumors grow larger, women will often experience a swollen abdomen.

Larger fibroids may cause frequent urination or an inability to control your bladder, either the ability to control the urge or in severe cases, a women may find that she is unable to urinate at all. If a fibroid extends towards a woman's back it may push on the bowels, causing constipation and a backache.

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What are the symptoms of fibroids?

Most fibroids do not cause any symptoms, but some women with fibroids can have:

• heavy bleeding (which can be heavy enough to cause anemia) or painful periods
• feeling of fullness in the pelvic area (lower stomach area)
• enlargement of the lower abdomen
• frequent urination
• pain during sex
• lower back pain
• complications during pregnancy and labor, including a six-time greater risk of cesarean section
• reproductive problems, such as infertility, which is very rare

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Who gets fibroids

Who gets fibroids?
There are factors that can increase a woman's risk of developing fibroids.

• Age. Fibroids become more common as women age, especially during the 30s and 40s through menopause. After menopause, fibroids usually shrink.
  
• Family history. Having a family member with fibroids increases your risk. If a woman's mother had fibroids, her risk of having them is about three times higher than average.
  Ethnic origin. African-American women are more likely to develop fibroids than white women.
  
• Obesity. Women who are overweight are at higher risk for fibroids. For very heavy women, the risk is two to three times greater than average.
  
• Eating habits. Eating a lot of red meat (e.g., beef) and ham is linked with a higher risk of fibroids. Eating plenty of green vegetables seems to protect women from developing fibroids.

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Types of Fibroid Tumors

Types of

Fibroid Tumors

Submucous Fibroids
These fibroids occur just below the lining of the uterus and can cause menstrual problems, including pain as they grow and move around the pelvic area.

Intramural Fibroids
A round fibroid most often within the uterine wall which can cause enlargement of the uterus as they grow.

Subserous Fibroids
This fibroid grows on the outer wall of the uterus and usually causes no symptoms until it grows large enough to interfere with other organs.

Pedunculated Fibroids
These fibroids develop when a subserous fibroid grows a peduncle (stalk), as they grow larger they may become twisted and cause severe pain.

Interligamentous Fibroid
A fibroid which grows sideways between the ligaments which support the uterus in the abdominal region. This type of fibroid is especially difficult to remove without the possibility of interfering with the blood supply or other organs.

Parasitic Fibroid
The rarest form of fibroid tumor occurs when a fibroid attaches itself to another organ.

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What are uterine fibroids?

Fibroid tumors are usually benign (non-cancerous) tumors found, most often, in the uterus of women in their 30's and 40's, although they occasionally develop on other organs which contain smooth muscle cells.

Fibroid tumors are solid tumors which are made of fibrous tissue, hence the name 'fibroid' tumor. Most often fibroids occur as multiple tumor masses which are slow-growing and often cause no symptoms.

The size of fibroids varies immensely among women and some are so small that a microscope is required to see them. However some women experience a single large fibroid tumor the size of a grapefruit or a fibroid which is so large it encompasses the entire abdominal area. Such large tumors can weigh as much as 50 pounds; the largest, reported, fibroid ever recorded weighed in at 140 pounds.

No one is sure why fibroid tumors develop, but some facts are quite clear-- they do not develop before the body begins producing estrogen during the onset of menstruation-- estrogen, such as in birth control pills and taken for menopausal symptoms, does cause fibroid tumors to grow and fibroid tumors will grow very quickly during pregnancy when the body is producing extra estrogen-- they often shrink and disappear after menopause when the body stops producing estrogen--a woman will almost never develop fibroid tumors after menopause.

The estrogen connection appears to be quite clear, although there are still some who doubt the role estrogen plays in the development of fibroid tumors because women with fibroids often have blood levels which reveal normal amounts of estrogen.

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