Really worried about worsening condition on low fat diet...

[Jovegan]

Hi... I don't know what to do for the best and I'm hoping someone can advise me. I've been sub-10% fat for 4 weeks. I'm 44 and I have large uterine fibroids (10 years since diagnosis) and I'm hoping the McDougall Diet will heal them. I have been vegan for 5 years, and vegetarian for 20 years. I have dreadful periods every month. Since cutting out all fats and oils, including oily fruits and vegetables, I am having the worst period of my life. It just won't stop and I'm 10 days in now. I can't go to the doctors because they just tell me to accept the hysterectomy they keep offering me. This is my last hope, after 10 years of strife. I'm already anaemic and I'm taking ridiculous doses of iron supplementation, and I feel like my life is draining out of me, literally. It won't give up, and yet I am on the healthiest diet on the planet - all whole foods, lots of fruits and vegetables, and no fats - I don't eat gluten. I don't drink. I don't take any medication (except iron). I drink 2 litres of water every day. I don't take caffeine or cocoa. My diet is very simple. My family are telling me it is my diet causing the problem, and I don't know who to believe anymore.

I am hoping someone might have been through this and tell me it is normal for things to get worse before they get better.

Thank you for any help.

Best wishes. Jo.

[patty]

Are you familiar with Whole Woman Inc? https://wholewoman.com/ If not check them out. Christine Kent has a great interview with Nora Coffey https://wholewoman.com/newpages/video/coffey.html Nora Coffey is the founder of HERS (histrorectomies educational resources services). I was advised to have a histrorectomy 2 or more years ago. I have pop (pelvic organ prolapse) and I am doing fine. It is my understanding that fibroid tumors shrink after menopause. Continue to do your homework. Diet wise this is the best place:)

Aloha, patty

[GeoffreyLevens]

Must say my wife had very similar and nothing alt. we tried helped. Finally she had he hysterectomy and immediately felt so much better I practically had to tie her down so she would rest enough for the surgery to completely heal!

Diet will NOT cure everything. It is possible, that with perfect diet AND powerful, well prescribed by a practitioner herbal medicine you might get some relief but it would be a long journey and might not work.

Wish I had better to tell you but that's what I know. If you do end up getting the surgery, this diet will help you recover from it. Just be sure to shop around a bit and find a doctor who you really feel comfortable and confident with. My wife asked a number of women she kew (nurses and doctors) "If you had to have a hysterectomy who would you have do it?" Nearly every one of them gave her the same name! So she hired him for that and then a woman OB/GYN she really liked and trusted but who was not a surgeon to do here hormone prescriptions.

Note: if you have full hysterectomy and don't take replacement hormones you will instantly have the hormone levels of an 80 year old... There have been a lot of advances in the 20 years since all that took place though and it may now be quite possible to have only the fibroids removed and uterus and ovaries left in place! Or uterus removed and ovaries left...

[BroccoliForever]

. My family are telling me it is my diet causing the problem, and I don't know who to believe anymore.

Absolutely ridiculous. I have been following the McDougall diet for 10+ years. I thought I would get a free pass out of fibroid suffering despite extremely strong heredity issues. My mom and two sisters all had emergency hysterectomies due to extremely aggressive/alarmingly large fibroids. Now I too have been diagnosed with the same problem. I'm completely freaked out. It is so frustrating because I truly thought I would have been protected. As you know, no one "really" knows the true cause of these things. There has to be some very strong genetics happening that absolutely trumps diet. I know Dr Mc Dougall wrote an artical back in 1995 on this (newsletter archives). I just requested a copy of that today--I hope they still have it.

I wish I could offer some good advice...as i am sure you already know too, the options for fibroid removal are just about as scary as a hysterectomy. I am hoping to get a solution myself. I thought about going to True North to see if a water only fast would help, but my husband thinks I'm on the crazy train and is not supportive.

[Timaca]

I had extremely heavy periods....doctors could watch my Hct and Hgb fall after my menses. Sometimes I couldn't get off the bed due to the fatigue that the heavy bleeding caused. Even large doses of iron supplements didn't help. I ended up with a uterine ablation. Best thing I even did. It worked for me. Don't know if it works with fibroids or not but I sure was happy. It took awhile to build my iron stores back up but I'm fine now.

[viv]

This diet is not a cure all for everything that ails you. Sometimes surgery is a viable option. You have been basically hemorrhaging for the last 10 days and you say that you feel that the life is draining out of you. Because it is! It is not worth dying over something that can be helped by surgery. Maybe find out what the least invasive method is to help with the fibroids. As Timaca says what about an ablation? Seems to me you have suffered long enough trying to go the "natural" route, just thank your lucky stars you have a surgical option, women for thousands of years did not have that option.

Viv

[patty]

I work as a home health aide, and in my work I do personal care, bathing etc. Usually I can tell if someone has had a bypass, mastectomy or lumpectomy. Hysterectomy though I am not able to tell, but when I see a woman with the scar of a bypass I now ask if they have had a hysterectomy. And I am not surprised by the answer. At 80 or 90 these women and their husbands have nothing to lose by telling the truth… sex went out the window.. whole personality change. My daughter’s friend had a fibroid tumor removed and they nicked her bladder. Be very careful and do your research.

I love in the interview with Christine Kent when Nora Coffey shares a man wouldn’t spend a minute in a doctor’s office listening to a doctor telling him they want to remove a fibroid tumor from his penis. At first Nora Coffey thought doctors didn’t know about the after effects, then she realized they must, and there are more women gyns then men gyns. Then she thought it was about money, but socialized countries did just as many or more surgeries. And then she realized it was about Power to legally strip women of their sexual identity. I am sorry to say we live in a world that is a pecking order… and what woman wants to say they have been a victim.. as they still have to survive in it. It is common sense the body wouldn’t be able to deny it. That is why the increase chances of heart disease. It would have to be the hardest lesson. Are your issues life threatening? When i went through menopause I would bleed for months then skip months. In reflection I was so lucky I worked in a convalescent hospital. I remember a woman who had a stroke, half her body was paralyzed and was unable to talk, but they did a mastectomy on her.. she had a state trustee and her angry was visible after.

Nora Coffey would like a law passed that women watch a video about her anatomy before consenting to a hysterectomy or castration of her ovaries. Dr. McDougall assisted with Hawaii’s legislature that women in Hawaii have to be told before signing a consent form for a mastectomy they can have a lumpectomy. What kind of society do we live in that we have a law to be informed prior to signing a consent form for these procedures? Amazing.. men’s penises aren’t a issue:)

HYSTERECTOMY ALTERNATIVES AND AFTEREFFECTS
HERS FOUNDATION
It is just a 12 minute video
http://www.hersfoundation.com/anatomy/index.html

I am sorry if I sound cynical... do your homework:) Do everything you can to keep your body intact and if not you know you did the best you could with what information you had. I work with amputees and they would swear their limbs are still there. There is parts of us nobody can touch. Cats and dogs are my teachers.......



Aloha, patty

[GeoffreyLevens]

1) Your current health problems are not caused by the diet. The timing is coincidental. Fibroids take many many years to develop and are caused by hormone imbalance and no telling what else.

2) From the "front lines", as the husband (well, former husgand) of a hysterectomy patient (me), yes, her personality did change and it was much for the better i.e. happier, much more energy, surprising increase in creativity and interest in life, much less sadness and worry about personal health... And as for sex, of course surgery and major changes in hormone balance cut that off for a bit but over time it all came right back and now, nearly 20 years later (at age 63) she has the sex drive of a teenager, almost more than she can deal with!

So do get a 2nd and 3rd medical opinion, but it is not all gloom and doom. Health and enjoyment of life can return for you full force and then some. Just a bit more time and patient investigation...

[Jovegan]

Thank you so much everyone! I appreciate your replies very much.
I will report back in due course to update. Jo.

[lilypad]

Jo. I kind of had something similar- for a long time I was feeling ill, really tired and run down, and people pointed the finger at this WOE. Turns out I had a completely unrelated condition (neurological) that's been causing it.

I think it's important to realise that this WOE won't cure everything. I got very annoyed with another poster on here who claimed that this WOE would cure my condition (I have a joint and muscular condition that I was born with).

[Dougalling]

Hi
At this point, you may need a blood transfusion. See your doctor or go to emerg.

[VeggieSue]

I know Dr Mc Dougall wrote an artical back in 1995 on this (newsletter archives). I just requested a copy of that today--I hope they still have it.

I was hoping I could help you there. I have back issues from 1993, then from July 1998 on, but nothing for 1994 thru the beginning of 1998. Sorry. Maybe one of the other old-timers here still has the issue you need if the office can't get a copy for you. Start a new thread in the Lounge asking for it.

[MINNIE]

Jovegan, please get medical help.

You can't blame your diet or yourself for this.

Sometimes things happen that lifestyle alone cannot help.

[ETeSelle]

I agree with others. Your diet has nothing to do with this, and changing your diet won't fix it.

You probably need a hysterectomy. Why not have one?

But stay on the plan. Eating this way WILL make you healthier and happier, once the source of the immediate problems is gone.

[John McDougall]

After menopause fibroids shrink (usually disappear). Unless the woman takes hormones.

Eating the Western diet and / or being overweight delays menopause.

This issue is discussed in my Women's Book - available in my e-store or used book stores (amazon).

So expect success. But it is often hard to keep the surgeons away in the meantime.

John McDougall, MD