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What Causes Fibroids and How to Address Them

Uterine fibroids are very common. By some estimates, up to 80% of women develop them by age 50. In fact, they are one of the most common types of benign tumors. In almost all these cases, these fibroids are noncancerous and aren’t associated with a higher risk of developing uterine cancer. Still, they can sometimes cause symptoms and other health issues, so in this article we’ll cover what causes fibroids and how to address them.

A fibroid is basically a growth of smooth muscle cells and connective tissues in or around the walls of the uterus. The ones that form on the outside of the uterus are called subserosal, and they’re the most common. Then you can get the intramural type, which grow inside the wall of the uterus. Finally, you can have the submucosal type, which grows in the space within the uterus itself.

You can have one or more uterine fibroids. They grow to varying sizes, from barely visible to so large that they increase your weight and expand your abdomen. The ones that don’t add weight or expand the size of your uterus and abdomen can go undetected, even if still large, because they often don’t present strong symptoms.

Symptoms of Uterine Fibroids

If they do present symptoms, those symptoms can range from mild to severe. And they include:

  • Heavy menstruation
  • Painful menstruation
  • Periods that last a week or more
  • Frequent urination
  • Difficulty urinating or emptying the bladder completely
  • Lower back pain
  • Pain in the legs
  • Painful sex
  • Constipation
  • Fullness, tightness, and swelling in the abdomen when the fibroids are large
  • Weight gain
  • Fertility issues

The number and severity of the symptoms will depend on how many fibroids you have, how large they are, and whether they are affecting other parts of your body.

But what many people miss is that what causes fibroids in the first place can also create other health issues, which then have their own set of symptoms. In that sense, you can have other symptoms that are indirectly related to fibroids, but directly related to what causes fibroids: hormonal imbalance – mainly estrogen dominance.

What Causes Fibroids?

An image of a pregnant womanAlthough no one can say for sure exactly what causes fibroids, the general consensus is that an increase in estrogen is a big factor. That’s why fibroids tend to grow more during pregnancy, when estrogen is quite high.

But estrogen doesn’t work alone. Estrogen and progesterone work by keeping each other in check. For example, estrogen creates fluid retention while progesterone is a natural diuretic. Estrogen proliferates the endometrium while progesterone restricts that growth. And estrogen can cause cysts and tumors in the breasts while progesterone protects against cancer.

As you age, both your estrogen and progesterone levels decrease, although that’s not a problem. The real issue is that they decrease at different rates, with progesterone declining at a faster rate than estrogen. This creates the relative dominance of estrogen over progesterone. Also, diet, lifestyle, and exposure to toxins can exacerbate this imbalance even further.

Estrogen dominance means that your progesterone levels are not enough to counteract the effects of estrogen. That’s what leads to the symptoms of estrogen dominance, including conditions like PMS, endometriosis, PCOS, infertility, fibrocystic breast disease, breast cancer, autoimmunity, and uterine fibroids.

So, in a way, fibroids themselves are a symptom of hormone issues and not just a condition that causes symptoms. It’s always important to get to the root of a problem rather than only work at relieving symptoms. And since estrogen dominance is so common and has such wide-reaching effects, it’s a good place to start when you want to know what causes fibroids and what to do about them.

Estrogen Dominance and Your Hormone Circuit

Your ovaries, which are the main producer of estrogen, are part of your NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) Stress Response’s. The NEM is your body’s global response to stress, and it’s composed of six circuits: The Hormone, the Bioenergetics, the Cardionomic, the Neuroaffect, the Inflammation, and the Detoxification circuits.

Specifically, your ovaries are part of the Hormone circuit. The other two components of the Hormone Circuit are the adrenal glands and the thyroid, two organs that also produce hormones. Whenever any of these components is not working optimally, it affects the other two. These three components are also linked via the Ovarian Thyroid Adrenal (OAT) axis as well.

This is why when you have Adrenal Fatigue (AF), you can see such varying symptoms – from fatigue, to hypoglycemia, to infertility. In fact, Adrenal Fatigue can be one of the contributing factors to what causes fibroids.

How Adrenal Fatigue Can Be What Causes Fibroids

An image of a female reproductive organ diagramAdrenal Fatigue occurs when you’re facing chronic stress, whether physical or psychological. Your adrenal glands have to produce more and more cortisol, your body’s main anti-stress hormone, to meet that growing demand. But when your cortisol levels are consistently outside of the normal range, it leads to dysregulations and imbalances in many of your body’s systems.

Symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue include fatigue, weight gain, difficulty losing weight, sleep problems, brain fog, anxiety, mild depression, dry skin, hair loss, PMS, loss of libido, infertility, salt and sugar cravings, hypoglycemia, lowered immunity, food and drug sensitivities, heart palpitations, blood pressure issues, and estrogen dominance. And, of course, along with the estrogen dominance comes all the problems it causes, including fibroids.

Again, the link here is that when your adrenals dysregulate, they affect the other two components of the NEM’s Hormone Circuit and the OAT axis – the thyroid and ovaries. It almost never happens that only one hormone goes out of balance and all the rest are spared.

So as your cortisol levels either increase too much or drop too low, your thyroid hormones and reproductive hormones will also dysregulate.

And although that can be disheartening to hear, there is some good news in this too. When you improve one hormone’s balance, the other hormones will be positively affected too.

And that brings us to the next important topic of this article – how to address uterine fibroids.

How To Deal With Fibroids and Their Cause

In many cases, you don’t need to manage a fibroid directly, such as with medication or surgery. Indeed, many fibroids do better by being left alone. They may eventually shrink away completely as your hormones rebalance or you when you reach menopause.

Still, this doesn’t mean you should allow what causes fibroids to run amuck. Estrogen dominance, and hormonal imbalances in general, should be addressed so they don’t cause other health complications.

So, let’s begin by looking at the more natural and holistic approaches to dealing with fibroids before getting into the more medical and surgical interventions. And the first stop is adrenal fatigue recovery.

Because Adrenal Fatigue is very common, we believe it is one of the biggest factors that contribute to estrogen dominance. Especially since a large majority of our adrenal fatigue clients are women that suffer from multiple hormonal problems. We’ve seen time and again that when you address one component of the NEM’s Hormone Circuit, you see improvement in the others.

Adrenal fatigue recovery is based on simple lifestyle changes that have lasting effects on not just adrenal fatigue, but on your overall health and wellbeing. It's also something that you and your health professional can customize to fit your needs and health issues.

Estrogen Dominance-Adjusted Adrenal Fatigue Recovery

The following are some of the adrenal fatigue recovery steps adjusted to help you deal with estrogen dominance and fibroids:

An image of a spoonful of supplement capsules with various vegetables in the background

  • An adrenal fatigue diet– This diet is anti-inflammatory and based on specific ratios of protein, vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Its main goal is to regulate your blood sugar levels, replenish your depleted nutrient and energy stores, and rebuild your gut’s microbiome. On top of that, this diet excludes all kinds of toxins, pesticides, and xenoestrogens that could be making your estrogen dominance worse. And you can make this diet even more helpful for estrogen dominance and fibroids by adding in some healthy phytoestrogens that compete with excess estrogen at estrogen receptor sites.
  • Gentle supplements – These supplements have two main purposes. The first is to fill in any nutritional gaps leftover from your diet. The second is to give a therapeutic boost to certain weaknesses in the system. For example, natural progesterone can really help balance out the excess estrogen. We recommend a 20 mg progesterone cream rather than taking an oral supplement.
  • Reduce caffeine and drink more water – Coffee and tea worsen Adrenal Fatigue, increase estrogen, and lower progesterone, so it’s a good idea to gently reduce your intake of them. Unfiltered water can contain chemicals that disrupt your hormones, so buy a good water filter with a triple-stage filtration system. Also, don’t use bottled water, as plastic can be a source of xenoestrogens as well.

Other important changes include getting enough rest and sleep, managing your stress levels, and doing gentle forms of exercise. Also, all of these changes will help you control your weight, which is another risk factor that causes fibroids.

Medication for Uterine Fibroids

There are a few different medications that can help you deal with uterine fibroids. They include:

  • Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) – These are painkillers that will just relieve you of painful fibroid symptoms, including painful periods, back pain, leg pain, and discomfort in the abdomen. They do nothing to help the fibroids directly, however. Just keep in mind that overusing them can actually cause other health issues, such as imbalances in the gut microbiome or liver problems.
  • Oral contraceptives (the pill) – These are hormonal birth control medications that contain specific ratios of reproductive hormones and can thus help regulate your cycle. That can then impede the growth of fibroids.
  • Progesterone intrauterine devices –These devices will increase your progesterone levels, which can then counterbalance high estrogen levels. They are also a form of hormonal birth control.
  • GnRH agonists – These are drugs that suppress the production of estrogen and progesterone. And when these hormone levels are low, the fibroids can shrink. As a side-effect, however, they stop your menstrual cycle and can even induce menopause-like symptoms. You should only use these for a short period of time as they can increase your risk for osteoporosis.

All of these medications should only be taken with careful consideration and a lot of caution, as they can mess with your already delicate hormone balance. If not done carefully and checked regularly, these medications can worsen hormone imbalances and cause other problems. Always ask your doctor before starting these medications.

Surgical Interventions

An image of a woman in the kitchen waving something with the word helpIf your fibroid or fibroids are numerous and/or large, and are not responding to any of the above methods, surgery might be called for. There are a few possibilities, each with its own pros and cons. They include:

  • Embolization, a chemical injection that cuts off the blood supply to the fibroid.
  • Surgically removing the fibroids from the uterus.
  • Endometrial ablation, which removes the lining of the uterus.
  • Hysterectomy, which is surgically removing part of or the entire uterus.

In Conclusion

Although what causes fibroids is still not well understood, estrogen dominance seems to play a key role. Other risk factors include genetics, being overweight, and pregnancy. Because estrogen dominance is something we see often with adrenal fatigue and NEM dysregulation, we propose that you deal with fibroids by addressing the hormonal imbalances at the root.

That includes adjusting your adrenal fatigue recovery program to be even more supportive of the estrogen-progesterone balance. Aside from this natural approach, if your fibroids are causing more severe symptoms, you may opt to take medications. If those fail, surgical interventions are also possible.

All of these methods, including the natural ones and lifestyle adjustments, should be done under medical supervision. Some medications can worsen hormonal imbalances, and people with Adrenal Fatigue are very sensitive to new medications and supplements, which can even cause an adrenal crash.

If you have any further questions about what causes fibroids, how to deal with them, and what to do about estrogen dominance, you can contact the Dr. Lam Coaching team. We can offer you a free** no-obligation phone consultation at +1-626-571-1234 where we will privately discuss your symptoms and what your options are. You can also send us a question through our Ask The Doctor system by clicking here.

© Copyright 2016-2021 Michael Lam, M.D. All Rights Reserved.

Dr. Lam’s Key Question

Although we can’t say for sure what causes fibroids, there is consensus that estrogen dominance plays a big role. And since this hormone imbalance can cause many other health issues, it’s important not to ignore it. Find out how to address this issue in a healthy, sustainable way.

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