Acupuncture Update; Stress and Cortisol and Fibroids?

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I haven't posted in a while and thought I would post some of the

things I've been thinking about.

My acupuncturist has me on herb that " break the blood " . They are

strong and I took a month off after my bleeding episode last cycle.

My period this cycle was less clotted though and it was a little

shorter, I think it may be related. The acupuncture has helped to

reduce my pelvic pain quite a bit, still I have pains from time to

time and I do notice that my fibroid seems to go from nothing to huge

in the space of a week of my cycle as my hormones peak. I can feel it

when I press on my belly when I'm laying on my back in bed, but

sometimes it is small and sometimes it feels large. I didn't have a 3-

month u/s check up since CD3 was over the weekend and my mother was

in town.

I've been feeling a little anemic still and I'm trying to be a good

girl and take my vitamins every day. I've got my blood samples kit in

the mail from Brigham and Women's Hospital for the " sister " study and

maybe I'll have them check my iron levels at the same time.

I recently read " The Gift of Fear " (great book to read) and the

author mentioned that one of the affects of cortisol on the body is

to increase coagulation time. This got me thinking of all of the

women who have noticed their fibroid, seemingly because they grew

rapidly, around some stressful times in their lives -- divorce,

deaths, etc. Maybe there is a correlation between coagulation and

fibroid formation somehow?

(to see a list of the physiological affects of steroids, aka

cortisol, see: http://www.krcintranet.com/new_page_4.htm and scroll

down to ADRENAL)

The adrenals produce progesterone in small quantities, cortisol,

testosterone and adreneline. Stress over long periods of time causes

the adrenals to shift over into higher production of cortisol.

Cortisol is synthesized (would you call it?) from progesterone, and

cortisol can bind with progesterone receptors in the body, so lots of

stress may mean that your progesterone levels might be thrown off.

Progesterone receptors have been implicated in fibroid growth for

some women as well, but not necessarily all women with fibroids (as

evidenced by the fact that some pregnant women's fibroids don't grow

and others grow rapidly).

It all just makes me wonder if they look deeper into the affects of

stress on women's bodies they might possibly see a correlation

between bleeding and hormone problems, such as what we see in women

with fibroids. Sometimes it seems like they can't see the forest

through the trees. I've tried to see if there are any connections

between cortisol and fibroids but it is a difficult area to search.

Let me know if you come across anything.

On a related note, researchers have been able to identify differences

in men who have poor sperm production. I wonder if they can find

things that make women with large symptomatic fibroids special as

well:

Men With Abnormal Semen Profiles Are Psychosocially Different From

Men With Normal Semen Profiles

(De Gennaro, et al, Psychosocial factors discriminate oligozoospermic

from normozoospermic men, Fertility and Sterility, Vol.79, Suppl.3,

June 2003.)

http://www.obgyn.net/displayarticle.asp?

page=/infertility/news/asrm_0603#3

[link will break -- copy both halves into the browser window to view

article]

--Ann