Natural Treatments for Fibroids

There are some herbs and supplements I love to use. Like I mentioned, vitamin D. You want to get your levels like 60 to 80. And then I love to support the estrogen metabolism in the liver with diindy methane, indel 3, carbinol sulforaphane from broccoli extracts. All of those are going to help you metabolize your estrogen more efficiently so that you decrease that bad 4 hydroxy estrone that can feed those fibroids. And the other piece of it is that we have different types of estrogen receptors in our body. We have estrogen receptor alpha and estrogen receptor beta cells. Alpha receptors are more often associated in the breast and uterus, whereas beta receptors are, are in other places like our bones, our brain or cardiovascular system. What's really interesting is the colon only has estrogen receptor beta. And so that's why in the studies that were done on hormone replacement therapy, hormone replacement actually decreases your risk of colon cancer because it's stimulating those beta receptors. So opposite of breast and uterus. And the other cool thing is that phytoestrogens from plants actually bind to the beta receptors and not the alpha receptors. So less stimulation of breast and uterine tissue with phytoestrogens than regular estrogens. So going back to fibroids, you want to make sure that you're not stimulating too much of the alpha receptors. What happens is if you don't have enough natural progesterone production and you're only getting estrogen, estradiol and estrogen production, those alpha receptors actually upregulate and you make more alpha receptors. Whereas if you have progesterone, progesterone actually down regulates those alpha receptors and you make more beta receptors. And so estrogen is kept in check by progesterone. And progesterone protects the uterus and the breast tissue by decreasing the amount of alpha receptors available. And so, you know, that's just one way that progesterone is protective against breast and uterine cancer. So, and I'm not talking about synthetic progestins, it does not do that. I'm talking about bioidentical progesterone. So progesterone is key to keeping these fibroids from growing, from overgrowing. And the other piece of it is zinc is necessary for the activation of the receptors. So you want to have enough zinc in your diet or in supplementation as well. Zinc is necessary for so many other things as well. I could go on. It's for like thyroid hormone and everything else. So that was just A little side note. So there was actually a study that showed black cohosh was helpful in the treatment of fibroids because it's binding those beta receptors and downregulating those alpha receptors. So there was a study in 2014, and it gave women black cohosh every day, 40 milligrams, and they had an average decrease in fibroid size of 30, 30% after three months. So that's pretty impressive. That's awesome. So obviously, you shouldn't use that in pregnancy, but if you are using micronized progesterone and black cohosh and maximizing the good metabolism of your estrogens through liver support and watching your diet, decreasing your inflammation and getting rid of those xenoestrogens, all those chemical endocrine disruptors in your diet, you can positively make an impact on those fibroids. And they will. Their growth will slow down and sometimes they'll even regress. So I want to give you more options than just a synthetic pill or surgery. The best thing to do is to tackle these things before they get too big. So I do recommend regular pelvic exams, because I will tell you as a physician, if I do a pelvic exam, I can feel the uterus and know whether it feels like a normal shape and size or not. And if it doesn't, then we can order an ultrasound and you can know that you have fibroids when they're a lot smaller. And you can get proactive and do all the things we just talked about as opposed to waiting. Like the poor patient I just saw this week who, you know, all of a sudden had 8 and 10 centimeter fibroids. Like, they're big. They're the size of a cantaloupe. So be proactive in your health. If you aren't comfortable, you know, going to the doctor, talk to your girlfriends, talk to your family members, talk to your coworkers, see if you can find another physician that you are comfortable going to. They are out there. There's tons of amazing doctors who want to help women. They're. They might be stuck in a broken system and be dealing with the confines of that, but they're out there. So advocate for yourself. Make sure you're getting exams, making sure you're getting checkups, all of that good stuff.