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Fixing Fibroids
– Reported, May 13 2014
Pilates studio owner Tonya Amos needs her body to run her business. However, the former professional dancer started feeling intense pain. A visit to her doctor revealed the cause.
She said, Does this hurt and she pushed on my abdomen, and I said, Yeah that hurts, and she said, Yeah thats a fibroid, Amos told Ivanhoe.
Amos had several fibroids. One of them was as large as a grapefruit.
What I heard over and over was you need a hysterectomy, Amos explained. That was not an option for me.
Dr. Vanessa Jacoby is studying new ways to shrink fibroids, without major surgery. With MR-guided focused ultrasound, an ultrasound beam focuses on the fibroid and creates heat.
That heat burns the fibroid cells and destroys them, Vanessa Jacoby, MD, MAS, Assistant Professor Obstetrician/Gynecologist, Dept. of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Services, University of California, San Francisco, told Ivanhoe.
Another method, laparoscopic radiofrequency ablation, requires three tiny incisions. A probe is placed in the fibroid.
We use radiofrequency energy to burn the fibroid cells, Dr. Jacoby explained.
With a hysterectomy, theres a three- to six-week recovery. The ablation is about a week. The ultrasound therapy is just two days.
Amos had the ultrasound treatment. It shrunk her fibroids.
It feels like my body again, Amos said. I got my body back!
Doctor Jacoby says not all patients with fibroids are candidates for these two new treatments. It depends on the size, location, and number of fibroids.
