I first ever heard about fibroids shortly after giving birth to my daughter. I was told that it was small and I had nothing to worry about. My mum had shared that she had fibroids but was able to heal her body and they eventually dissolved. Hearing this my initial reaction was “ok mum” with a slight shrug and roll of the eyes. I was clearly being ignorant. I hadn’t realised that my mum was onto something. Is there really a way you can heal yourself from this unwanted, unwelcome energy that is leeching onto my body?!
Years went by and it wasn’t until 2017/18 which was the year I started to feel a change in my body. It was acting out in ways where I just knew “something was off”.
I started to notice a change in my periods in relation to the flow. It was extremely heavy and was now affecting me at work. I have worked in corporate for over 11 years and it can be a challenging industry to work in. You don’t want to feel like an inconvenience to your team.
My periods heaviness was uncontrollably taking over where I began to bring a change of clothes to work, extra underwear or even at times having to tell my manager I needed to go home. Often times my managers were male. So they probably felt just as embarrassed as I did and never questioned it.
I got through this time with just an acceptance that this is just how my periods will be from now. Speaking with family and friends it often felt like this was the “norm” because “every woman had periods”. What I think wasn’t highlighted or even understood was that we shouldn’t be in pain when on our periods and it definitely shouldn’t be this heavy.
It wasn’t until I had a “hernia” operation back in 2020 where it first highlighted from my blood test, my iron levels were dramatically low. The doctor advised me that I would need to get to the hospital immediately for an iron infusion.
The iron infusion (which made me vomit) was definitely something I never thought I would experience. My iron levels got to its “safe zone” and the operation went well as it could have. The doctors later told me that he couldn’t find a hernia but he had just put a mesh in the area that I was feeling the discomfort. So yea.. who knows what that operation was for.. but I’ll leave that story to another day.
Post my operation I reached out to my GP with a telephone appointment (this was during the tail end of the scam-demic where doctors were not providing face-to-face appointments). I spoke to two different doctors. The first was a male doctor who walked me through my whole experience of heavy periods and my history of fibroids. He arranged for me to have an ultrasound scan and offered that I start taking contraception to help manage my heavy periods. I was reluctant to go on the pill as I felt that it was just a plaster on the situation.
The 2nd doctor was a female doctor who seemed uninterested and clearly didn’t know what to suggest. I had called to have a follow-up with the previous doctor but he was not around and I was passed to a different doctor. Her only option for me was contraception. I was in tears by the disappointment of the lack of support this female doctor was giving me. I felt like I was on a conveyor belt and told to live with this condition with no further investigation. I pushed and pushed until I was referred to a gynaecologist who performed a myomectomy and told me that my fibroids shouldn’t return. There was no change to my heavy periods and they did in fact return.
This condition affected me not only physically but socially, mentally and emotionally. I have to plan any meet-ups around my periods dates due to the uncertainty of having any “accidents”. This is the same for work, I’ve had to provide the disclaimer after being accepted for the role that I’m dealing with fibroids. By this time they are so eager for someone to start the role that it’s not a concern until it becomes a concern.
Holidays are risky. It’s always a Russian roulette, you can plan as far as you can and gauge the dates by your Flo apps, but there never is a guarantee that you will start or end your period when the app says.
I’ve gone through a year of no meat and being pescatarian worried about the hormones within the meat I was eating that could attribute to the fibroid growth. I wasn’t getting enough iron my body needed and due to the heavy flows, I became anemic. I lost ALOT of weight. Every 6-8 weeks I would have a checkup on my bloods and I’d be rushed to a&e to have 2-3 units of blood transfusions. This was happening so frequently that I’m now scared of needles. Being poked and prodded is not the best experience and I’m happy to say I haven’t had to have a blood transfusions for a year.
Due to my last experience being in hospital away from my family, being poked and prodded. I decided that I need to get control of this condition. I’ve reintroduced steak and started juicing with mainly iron packed juices such as beetroots and spinach. I am also researching vitamins that will help to shrink the fibroids. It broke my heart for my daughter to see me in hospital like that with tubes in my arms. To her I wasn’t home, I was in hospital and I shouldn’t be there.
Like as my mum did, I’m on a mission to heal my body. I believe this is not only physical but also a spiritual attachment from past trauma that I need to release from the inside out.
So I’m really interested in finding my soul tribe to join me as I navigate through this. I’ll be looking at food, vitamins, fitness, exploring spiritual and scientific research and information that relates to how trauma plays out in alignments. I’ll be sharing my life as a mother, wife, sister and daughter and hopefully you’ll be able to share your story too and we can exchange notes and words of encouragement because phew… this is a journey!
Let’s get to healing, we have tings fi do.
