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Fibroid: What to Do When Fertility Is Not on Your Mind

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If you have fibroids, you are probably saying a choice curse word every time you think of your little (and in some cases) big uterine friend(s). Like a bad house guest, they can be a big pain in the rear end. They can cause bleeding, pain, pressure, and infertility. Bottom line, they are not fun. And unfortunately, this un-fun party is very well attended; nearly a quarter of reproductive-age women have fibroids. Furthermore, fibroids are the cause for about 2% of infertility cases.

Simply stated, you are not the only person who RSVPed “yes” to the fibroid gala. While there are many ways to treat them, not everything works for everyone at every point in their life. Women at different stages of their lives (a.k.a. reproductive “stages”) and symptomology warrant different procedures. For those of you who are nowhere near ready for anything to do with the F word (FERTILITY) but want it in the future (be it near or distant), here’s what we recommend.

Fibroids can be treated medically and/or surgically. Medical treatments include oral contraceptive pills (a.k.a. OCPs or the pill), the intra-uterine device (a.k.a. the IUD), Lupron (a.k.a. “I feel like I am in menopause with these hot flashes and vaginal dryness”), progesterone receptor modulators (mifepristone or ulipristal acetate), SERMs (raloxifene), aromatase inhibitors (letrozole), and anti-fibrinolytics. While some of the medical options are better at improving some of the symptoms (for example, OCPs will improve heavy bleeding but not the pressure symptoms), they very rarely fix it all.

Just like when you’re selecting the OCP you want to marry, you may have to shop around for medical options before you land at your symptom-free spot. While Lupron (a GnRH agonist) will do it all, it will cost you in the side effect department. Hot flashes, sleep problems, vaginal dryness, muscle and bone pains, and even changes in mood/thinking often come along with the reduction in fibroid bleeding, pain, and pressure. It’s because of the side effect profile that we don’t go with Lupron as our first medical treatment.  

Surgically, the options are limited for women who have not yet had kids. It’s basically a myomectomy or bust. Fibroids have been nicknamed myomas; -ectomy means removal so myomectomy = fibroid removal. While a myomectomy is the only option for you ladies who are not yet ready to part with your uterus, what varies in the myomectomy part is how you “myomectomize.”

The procedure can be performed abdominally (through a bikini-cut incision), laparoscopically (through a camera), robotically (through a robot), or vaginally (no explanation needed!). The approach depends on the size of the fibroid(s), the location of the fibroid(s), and the number of fibroid (s). It also depends on your surgeon’s experience and preference. Make sure you are comfortable with all of the above before you commit to anything or anyone.

As with most things, there are pros and cons to both medical and surgical options. If you like lists (we love them!), here are the important points to note. For most young women who have not had kids but want them in the future, we like to go medical first. Most of the medical options are transient and provide birth control (killing two birds with one stone!). While they will not rid you of your “f”riends, they will decrease many of your symptoms:

Bleeding, check.

Pain, check.

Protecting your future fertility, check.

In many cases, with medical treatment, the fibroids will shrink. Fibroids feed off estrogen, so low estrogen equals famine for fibroids, and hopefully your symptoms will dissipate. If medical management doesn’t do much to alleviate your symptoms, you may have to amp up your treatment to surgery.

Surgery will almost definitely bring the bothersome bleeding, pain, and pressure to a halt. However, it can increase your chance for scar tissue (both within the uterus and the pelvis) and other surgical complications. Surgery, no matter who does it, is the real deal. For this reason, you want to avoid going under the knife unless it is absolutely necessary.

The only absolute cures for fibroids are menopause and/or a hysterectomy. For women who have baby making on their mind and in their future (be it near or distant), neither of the above is a good option: major con! It is for this reason that we need to find a way to temporize the symptoms until you get the pregnancy process started. We usually recommend starting low and going high, but only if you have to. Give the easy or simpler stuff a shot first before you shoot in out of the park.

Just a side note: while fibroids are pretty pesky for most of us, some women are completely unaware of their presence. They find out totally by accident during an ultrasound, a pelvic exam, or during pregnancy. And just like if it isn’t broken don’t fix it, fibroids that are causing no symptoms are really no big deal. They can hang with you for as long as you both shall live. No divorce in sight.

If they don’t bother you, don’t do anything with them until you have to. Prophylactic or preventative therapy to avoid future problems is not recommended—no pre-nup here! Fibroids need to be fixed only if you can’t take them anymore. Otherwise, do your best to forget they even exist!

Emergency Contraception: What to Do When You Are in a Big, Big Bind!

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Accidents happen to the best of us. Let’s face it: we all make mistakes. When owned and recognized early, they can frequently be fixed. Contraception (or lack thereof) can fail. Pills can be forgotten, condoms can be broken, and timing can be off. Luckily, emergency contraception is available and if used appropriately can effectively prevent pregnancy in the majority of cases. Emergency contraception comes in two basic forms—oral and intrauterine (the Copper T IUD). As the oral form was the original and is available over the counter for women above the age of 17, it is the form that is much more well-known. In fact, it’s fair to say that most women are unaware that there is even another option out there!

Furthermore, the IUD (a.k.a. the “other” form) requires a visit to your OB/GYN as it must be placed in the uterus by a medical professional. But common things being common, the most commonly used oral emergency contraception is either a combination estrogen and progesterone pill or a progesterone-only pill. One regimen requires two doses administered twelve hours apart, and the other, just a one-time dose. These medications are currently available to almost all in need at the nearby CVS or Duane Reade; where the medications will be placed (over-the-counter vs. pharmacist) is dependent on age. The line in the sand has been drawn at 17; women younger than 17 require a prescription to get the goods, while women 17 and older can pick up the medication without a prescription.

When the medication is taken or placed (in the case of the Copper T IUD) is key; the success of the drug is dependent on how soon in relation to the “event” (a.k.a. unprotected sex or contraception failure) it is taken. After 120 hours (five days), emergency contraception is virtually ineffective. Simply stated, you can take it, but it won’t work. If taken within 72 hours, the chance of success is really high—here are the stats. Data from research done by the WHO (World Health Organization) show that, if taken with 24 hours, 95% of pregnancies are prevented, if taken in 25–48 hours 85% of pregnancies are prevented, and if taken within 49–72 hours 58% are prevented.

After that, we still see success but at a much lower rate. Not surprisingly, an IUD placed for emergency contraception works almost in overtime; less than 1% of women who use the IUD get pregnant. And with the IUD, the hits just keep on coming. It not only works for that act of unprotected intercourse but also serves as excellent contraception for the future. While side effects do exist, they are generally mild and fairly tolerable. The most common include nausea, vomiting, and irregular bleeding. The medications can throw off your menstrual cycle, causing irregular bleeding. Both are transient and will resolve fairly quickly. If the nausea is bad, an anti-nausea pill can be taken to help you keep things down.

Emergency contraception can be taken more than once in the same cycle and, if need be, again in future cycles. The medical data do not show that multiple doses are unsafe. However, keep in mind that emergency contraception is best used in emergency situations. Additionally, it is less effective at preventing pregnancy than almost any other form of contraception, and therefore, if you continually find yourself scouring the aisles of your local drugstore, you are overdue for a visit to your OB/GYN to discuss a reliable form of contraception. Just to make sure we are all on the same page, emergency contraception is not the same thing as an abortion. An abortion terminates or ends an existing pregnancy. Emergency contraception prevents a pregnancy from happening. If an embryo has already burrowed its way into your uterus and has begun to grow, emergency contraception won’t work.

No one really wants to take the morning-after pill or have an IUD emergently placed. But stuff happens. There are ways to prevent an unwanted pregnancy that have a really good chance of working. Go the drugstore, call your OB/GYN—take action. While you may be ready for a baby in the future, today is likely not the day. Know what’s available to you, know how to safely get what you need, and know that you are not alone. You are not the first person this has happened to, and you certainly won’t be the last!

IUD: When Your Bumper Sticker Reads “Babies on Board and I Need a Break!”

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You know when you are out on one of those awkward first dates that are not going well? There are endless uncomfortable silences, those pregnant pauses that are just yearning for some interesting conversation. And then someone breaks the ice and says, “What animal would you be if you could be any animal?” And in that moment, you know: we are never going on a second date! But while the relationship may be over, you probably spit out something like a dolphin, maybe a horse, or even a dog. Those animals that sort of elicit a positive emotion in all of us. Come on, who doesn’t like dogs? We highly doubt that anyone has ever said a camel. I mean they have humps, they walk in the desert, and they can shut their nostrils in a sandstorm. But if you have or have ever considered using an IUD, you may be surprised to find out that the first IUDs were used in camels. Yup, camels. Story goes that many, many years ago traders put stones into their camels’ uteri to prevent pregnancy. It worked. And that, ladies, leads us to IUDs…

Fast-forward several hundred years, and IUDs (intrauterine devices) are one of the most popular forms of long-acting reversible contraception. Given that they take almost no thought (after placement), they do a pretty good job at preventing pregnancy. They allow a pause between pregnancies or a pregnancy pause that can go on between five and ten years, depending on which type you use!

IUDs come in two basic “flavors” (think your local soft-serve shop in the summer)—the Copper T or the Mirena. Recently two more IUDs have come on the market, the Skyla and the Liletta (they are very similar to the Mirena). While the three hormonal options (Mirena, Skyla, and Liletta) differ in a few minor ways—size, the amount of progesterone they release, and the length of the time they will be good at putting baby making on hold, when it comes to the major stuff, they are pretty much the same!

The Copper T is a T-shaped device wrapped in copper. It does its job (a.k.a. no pregnancy) in a couple of different ways. First, it holds the SLOW DOWN sign to both sperm and egg. By slowing down the swimming of sperm as well as changing the speed at which the egg moves through the tubes, fertilization is delayed. However, it not only acts pre-fertilization but also post-fertilization, that is, it can damage or destroy the fertilized egg. Pretty smart, huh? It is important to remember that everything that the IUD does (both the hormonal and non-hormonal types) happens before an embryo implants. The Copper T is your steady eddy or your tortoise in the tortoise and the hare race…it is good for 10 years. But while it lasts and lasts, symptoms are not uncommon. Women often complain of irregular or heavy bleeding and occasional pain. However, the majority of women are pretty pleased with their selection and don’t even know that it’s there.

The other options on the table are the hormonal IUDs, the Mirena, the Skyla, and the Liletta (the levonorgestrel IUD). They are also T-shaped, but rather than being wrapped in copper they are wrapped in hormone: progesterone (levonorgestrel). Despite these differences, the two work in a similar fashion. Both limit egg and sperm movement and, thereby, fertilization. While the Mirena has a shorter half (five years) and the Skyla and Liletta even shorter (three years) they come with fewer side effects—primarily, less bleeding. The progesterone in these IUDs thins out the uterine lining, something that is particularly good for women who have a tendency to develop thick linings from irregular periods.

A thin lining = not so much to shed = fewer annoying bleeding episodes!

News flash: most women who use IUDs still ovulate. Therefore, when the time comes, and you get ready to pull it, pregnancy can potentially happen pretty quickly because ovulation is not suppressed.

Nobody is perfect; everyone and everything has their flaws. Trust us, we have several! The same goes for seemingly flawless medical devices and treatment plans. The IUD is pretty picture-perfect…it prevents pregnancy, you don’t have to remember to take it, and when you are ready to have a baby, you just remove it and are off to the races. What could be bad?

While IUDs are pretty easy to place (most OB/GYNS learn in their first year of residency), there are occasions where a uterine perforation (hole in the top of the uterus) can occur. The perforation rate is about 1/1000. So basically, you have about the same chance of an asteroid hitting the Earth in 2182! Bottom line, it is likely not going to happen. Additionally, there is a small risk of expelling the IUD—this happens more frequently (between 2–10% can dislodge in the first year). Last, if pregnancy should occur while an IUD is in place, calling all of you super-fertile women, you are at a slightly higher risk for an ectopic pregnancy. When things (eggs, sperms, embryos) move slowly down the tubes, they may get sidetracked and start to sightsee. This delay in transit (hello, subway system!) can increase one’s risk for an ectopic pregnancy. So while IUDs don’t cause ectopic pregnancies, if you get pregnant while an IUD is in place, the chance of an ectopic pregnancy is slightly higher. This caveat is not meant to scare you, but it is meant to have you take a pregnancy with an IUD in place seriously.

Historically, IUDs got a bad rap. When you mention, “Mom I am going to get an IUD,” she may have a visceral reaction. In the 1970s, they were blamed for everything from infertility to infection and got the “I definitely don’t want to use that” verdict from many women. However, changes in the design, particularly the string that comes off of the IUD, made them much more attractive to potential users. Now even women who have never had a baby (medically termed nulliparous) as well as adolescents are cleared for boarding. There is no good data that IUDs cause infection or infertility and as a result are “in play” for almost anyone. And bonus— routine antibiotics are no longer needed when placing an IUD.

IUDs are a great go-to for women who want an extended baby-free break. Whether these are young women who are not ready, women who have a baby and want a big-time breather, or women who are done and done, it works. Placement can be performed at any time of the cycle, although right after the period is usually preferable. While we may not have inspired you to use an IUD, we probably gave you some good dinner-party conversation (#camels) or a fighting chance when watching Jeopardy. When having kids or more kids or more and more kids feels harder than trekking across the Sahara Desert without water, think about that camel. And ask your OB/GYN about the IUD.