examble of ayurveda shrinking fibroids

This article has an interesting example of ayurveda helping to shrink fibroids.

The description of late nights, too much alcohol, wrong kind of foods does indeed describe my Sex and the City type gal lifestyle for part of the time where my fibroids were growing...

affirmations may not work for everyone...

according to this Economist magazine article (they love to present the contrarian view)

participate in a research study of natural approaches to improved pelvic health

Info is here:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christiane-northrup/a-natural-approach-to-pel_b_293940.html.

Also describes the Center in NY that is doing it -- Laughing Sage Wellness Group -- sounds like the kind of place I was looking for when first was diagnosed with fibroids! It focuses on hormonal balance. They have a great-looking program that you can do remotely even if you don't live in NY -- http://www.laughingsagewellness.com/events_ind_rnh.shtml

changes to supplements

Made a few changes to the supplement regime:

1. Done with the grapefruit seed extract and the burdock root. The former seemed to upset my stomach.

2. Adding back some old favorites I had been taking a break from:

Chlorophyl, now one capsule per day
Theramedix DGX enzymes, with each meal
Fish oil Ultimate Omega, 3 per day
Royal jelly, 3 2000 mg capsules per day

And a new addition, Hemagenics support for red blood cell development, by Metagenics

activity report and this week's stats

I am thinking I am going to need to change my daily goal from 2.5 hours to 2, as 2.5 hours is just not realistic and it's even hard to hit 2 hours daily-- couldn't do so this week although was just off by an hour or so.

Picking up from the last post,
Thursday 2 hr 5 min abdominal massage, meditation, castor oil pack, hula hoop and yoga
Friday 1 hr 20 min self massage, hula hoop, walking
Saturday 2 hr 20 min meditation, walk, fertility bodywork DVD, meditation tape
Sunday 2 hr 25 min EFT and meditation, qi gong, bicycling, situps and stretching, detox bath with relevant reading

As for my stats, I gained nearly 3 pounds but my fat % is down and my water percentage is up, so still heading in the right direction? Plus my metabolic age is even lower.

weight 140
% fat 31.7
% water 47.5
bone 4.8
metabolic age 39

How to find an acupuncturist to help with fibroids

A comment just came in asking about how to find an acupuncturist, and thought I would include the info here as a post too. Note that the first two suggestions are USA-specific, there may be parallel ones in other countries of course but I am not familiar with them.

I would suggest looking at the website of ABORM, the board-certifying group for acupuncturists who specialize in fertility. Those will know the most about how to deal with fibroids, because they are experts in the female reproductive system and it's part of their curriculum. http://www.aborm.org/

If there is nobody in your area listed there, you can go to www.acufinder.com to search for acupuncturists by location.

You can also go to Google and type in "fertility acpuncuture" or just "acupuncture" and the name of your city. Or go to Google Maps and look up your city, then type in "fertility acupuncture" or just "acupuncture" and see what it shows on the map. (Note these two methods often come up with different results)

Also, since many fertility centers recommend the use of acupuncture along with IVF, you could contact a local fertility center and see if they have anyone they recommend.

activity records and this week's stats

Sorry to be so behind on posting. Ok, let's see where was I on the activity stats, very behind. Last week did not end up being as active as I hoped, because I was still battling that cold. I had a ton of mucus. Mucus seems to be my downfall and my acupuncturist and I have a theory that the fibroids are really just a bunch of conjealed mucus. Am currently on Shen Ling Bai Zhu San to try to get rid of the rest of the mucus from the cold, and hopefully it will help my underlying mucus problem too.

So, last week.
Tuesday 1 hour 50 min stretching, walking, meditation and castor oil pack
Wednesday 1 hour 30 minutes hula hoop, qi gong, EFT and meditation
Thursday 55 minutes castor oil pack, eucalyptus steam bath and full body scrub, walking
Friday 1 hour 25 min walking, jin shin jutsu
Saturday 55 min castor oil pack, eucalyptus steam bath, walking
Sunday 40 minutes EFT and jin shin jyutsu

But after that surprisingly on Monday morning all my stats had significantly improved! My best so far on any of them except the metabolic age. I think it may have been from eating less, the cold really wreaked my appetite...

weight 137.2
% fat 32.3
% water 46.9
bone 4.8 lbs
metabolic age 40

Doing ok on the activity levels this week

Monday 2 hours 5 minutes: meditation, self massage, detox bath with relevant reading, hula hoop, chi gong
Tuesday 1 hour 35 minutes walking, meditating, dancing
Wednesday 1 hour 55 minutes castor oil pack, meditation, yoga

The key is to keep up the activity during the week, so that I don't leave it all for the weekend...

natural fibroid shrinking story

This blogger talks about how she shrunk her fibroid naturally. Interesting she used ginger compresses rather than castor oil...

I am always suspicious about people who link to Shola Oslo's stuff, because she has a program where people earn comissions for plugging her e-book and thus there are lots of kind of worthless articles about fibroids out there that have a link to her book at the end. But this one looks like a legit blogger and sounds like a legit story.

activity record for past few days, and this week's stats

I was doing well last week, with a full 2.5 hours of activity on Thursday, then caught a terrible cold and spent much of the weekend in bed! So much for healing activity...

I was feeling better yesterday and got back on track with 1 hour 55 minutes of activity -- meditation, eucalyptus steam bath, Yamauma foot walker, walking, Jin Shin Jyutsu, and stretching.

My stats are also looking a bit better

weight, down to 138.6 (no appetite while sick helped!)
fat % 33.1
water 46.4
bone 4.8
metabolic age 42

I think I was trying to fight that cold off for awhile, and now that I'm almost done with it am planning on bouncing back quickly!

good resource for avoiding gluten while eating out

http://www.glutenfreetravelsite.com/index.php has listings of restaurants where you can have gluten free meals, based on user reviews posted.

A good reference for finding places to eat out!

Book review -- The Fibroid Cure

You've probably seen advertised on the internet an e-book called The Fibroid Cure byShola Oslo.

Curious as I am, I had to get it and see what it's about.

It's ok, but no earthshattering news. Exercise regularly, eat organic foods, take supplements, do cleanses to detox, try acupuncture and Chinese herbs. The basics, presented in an organized way, but nothing new to me except a couple of specific recipes for different detoxes you can do (which mostly involve drinking various combinations of lemon juice and olive oil, and drinking herbal tea).

In short, pretty much the same info you can find on this blog, or in Healing Fibroids: A Doctor's Guide to a Natural Cure.

Vitamin D may help shrink fibroids

This study showed that Vitamin D helped shrink fibroid tissue in vitro.

There was also a paper looking at the hypothesis that Vitamin D protects against uterine fibroids. Unfortunately however one has to pay to view it.

This article suggests that the high rate of fibroids among African American women may be linked to vitamin D deficiency.

In January of this year I was getting a bunch of blood tests done and my acupuncturist thought to check my Vitamin D levels. Indeed they were low and I have been on supplementation ever since. The sad thing is, why didn't anyone think to check this years ago?

good article on alternative approaches for fibroids

Interestingly he mentions many of the things I had discovered along the way -- including intestinal health, heavy metals, and chakras. The practitioners I was working with at the beginning of my fibroid journey were just focused on estrogen dominance, as he points out there is so much more to to the picture. Read article here.

bromides, iodine, thyroid and fibroids

Yet another thing to worry about -- bromides crowding out the iodine in your system.
Note the discussion of fibroids in the comments after this article.

activity record for past few days

Doing somewhat better this week!

Monday 2 hr 15 min -- hula hoop, walking, stretching, meditation
Tuesday 1 hour 10 min -- meditatation, self-massage, Qi Gong, hula hoop, meditation
Wednesday 1 hr 15 min -- meditation, walking, stretching, lymphatic drainage massage

and 2 hrs 15 min so far today....

new acupuncuturist and revised supplement regimen

First of all, some news, I have a new acupuncturist. Actually, it's a bit complicated, I actually see two acupuncturists. One, J, is more like a naturopath and she works with the BioSet and BioMeridian machines. She focuses on that and doesn't do the needles and herbs, so in order to get that I also see a fertility acupuncturist. I have switched around fertility acupuncuturists a bit, trying to find just the right fit. The new person I am seeing, R, was a sub at my regular fertility acupuncturist, and I decided her approach was better for me.

R and I had an interesting conversation. I have some immunity issues in terms of being sensitive to foods, things in the environment, etc. -- always some new sensitivity that J with the BioSet keeps finding. R says that many of the women with fibroids who she sees have immunity issues. She's going to work on that. She also honed in on the phlegm issue that I have written about here before, and gave me some herbs aimed at that. She didn't tell me the name, but promised she would email them, will post when I get it.

Rejiggered my supplements with J, and first one on the list is a new one recommended by R, an OPC which helps keep the blood flowing and is also good to help preserve ovarian reserve.

Apex Energetics X-FLM (K-37) 2 per day
HMD heavy metal detox 9-10 drops per day
Methy-Guard by Thorne, 1 per day
DHEA .5 mg by Pure Encapsulations, one every 3rd day
Fergon iron supplement, 2 per day
Black currant seed oil by Pure Encapsulations 2 per ay
Glycine by Thorne 3 per day
Serraptase 2 pills per day
BioSet probiotic 2 pills per day
Calcium Magnesium Citrate by Pure Encapsulations, 2 twice per day
Bio-D-Mulsion by Biotics Research, 1 per day
Pure Encapsulations Ulta Nutrient 2 per day
Bach flower remedies Walnut, Wild Rose, and Vervain