You look at the calendar and realize your period is coming up soon and you prepare for another week-long battle against pain and heavy bleeding thanks to uterine fibroids.
More than half of pre-menopausal women in the United States have at least one of these growths in their uterus. For most women, uterine fibroids don’t cause any symptoms, but you’re not in this lucky group.
Instead, you have uterine fibroids that announce their existence each month in the form of heavy bleeding and painful cramping during your menstrual cycle. And you're tired of the monthly battle.
The good news is that there are solutions for troublesome uterine fibroids, including a minimally invasive surgical procedure to remove them called a myomectomy.
Under the expert and skilled guidance of Dr. Ulas Bozdogan, our team here at Advanced Endometriosis Center has helped many women put an end to painful periods with a myomectomy, and we might be able to do the same for you.
To kick off this discussion, we first want to touch on why fibroids can lead to painful periods, as well as abnormal bleeding, which affects about 30% of women with fibroids.
In most cases, uterine fibroids are benign growths in the walls of your uterus. If they get large enough, they can create issues like painful sex, or you may experience bloating or pressure in your lower abdomen.
During your menstrual cycle, the lining of your uterus thickens to prepare to receive a fertilized egg. When that egg doesn’t arrive, your body releases prostaglandins, chemicals that cause contractions in your uterus to shed this thickened lining through your period. When you have fibroids, there’s more surface area, so there’s more lining to shed.
Also, fibroids can interfere with the ability of your uterus to contract, which can lead to heavy and irregular bleeding, as well as discomfort.
There are nonsurgical ways you can address uterine fibroids, such as hormone medications that can shrink the growths. These hormonal medications are essentially birth control, so this solution isn’t great if you’re trying to have children.
In this case, a minimally invasive myomectomy might be a good solution. At our practice, Dr. Bozdogan is widely known for his skill with these types of gynecologic procedures and he uses the latest technologies available, including the daVinci® robotic surgical system.
With the daVinci system, Dr. Bozdogan only needs to make very small incisions through which he threads a high-definition camera that delivers real-time images to a monitor. Using these images to guide him, Dr. Bozdogan maneuvers the robotic arms to remove your fibroids as the arms translate the movement of his hands more accurately and in tighter spaces.
Thanks to this blend of human experience and robotic precision, Dr. Bozdogan can remove your problematic uterine fibroids during an outpatient procedure that only lasts 1-3 hours.
There are times when a fibroid might be too large for this approach or its location might be tricky and Dr. Bozdogan needs to resort to open surgery. Thankfully, the minimally invasive approach is feasible in a majority of cases.
After we remove your fibroids, your periods should go back to normal — which may still involve cramping, and most definitely will involve bleeding, but both should be lighter without the presence of fibroids.
If you’d like to explore whether a myomectomy is a good solution for your painful periods, a great place to start is to sit down with us for a consultation. You can schedule an appointment with Dr. Bozdogan today online or over the phone. We have offices in New York City and Hackensack, New Jersey.
