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extended bleeding and fibroids

I have had fairly regular periods as long as i can remember. I 47 and in November of 2008 I began bleeding and thought it was just time for my period until it continued into Dec. (it began around Thanksgiving) It completely stopped on Christmas eve day. I had nothing in January not even a period until the end of Feb. or first part of March It started again and has continued since. I had a pap today and the Dr. thought she could feel fibroids. She scheduled me for an ultra sound. I am very concerned. My daughter who is an RN seems to think i may be getting close to menopause and the symptoms i am having are very common. Has anyone had this same experience? If so how did you turn out? thanks much
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875426 tn?1325528416
I had a total hysterectomy at age 34.  I had plenty of scanty blood leakage in between periods.  My periods lasted typically 9-13 days.  I had 6 fibroids removed in the year prior to my hysterectomy, because one was so large it was causing major bladder symptoms.  If you are going into natural (versus surgical) menopause, the good news is fibroids, I've read, start shrinking naturally.

  I had severe endometriosis, which was causing me plenty of problems.  I didn't know I had this condition until an emergency surgery in the year before my hysterectomy.   I was also told before this that my brain and reproductive system weren't talking to each other and so the reproductive system was doing its own thing apart from brain signals.  It sure didn't seem to know what it was doing with all the days I had bleeding.

  Endometriosis typically isn't seen on ultrasounds or MRIs.  If you wind up having any surgery and they discover it, please be sure and ask them to excise it, not to ablate (laser burn) it.  The body views those laser burns as foreign entities, I read, and more scarring results.  I had burning done on me when I didn't know about it (during an emergency laporotomy), but when I had my hysterectomy, I asked for excision as much as possible of the endometrial imlants, because I had read up about it.
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ps.  you should have a complete iron count done including the ferritin level to make sure you are not anemic.  I take Slow Fe.    
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The ultrasound will pick up whether or not you have fibroids.   I just had one done and it gave the measurements of the fibroids, but it did not give their location, which is what I really wanted.    I talked to a top dr. tuesday about this and he said the only way to see WHERE the fibroids are exactly is to do an MRI, as I may be a candidate for the new procedure called Ex-Ablate, which is done in an MRI machine.   The dr. explained this has been used in Europe before it was approved in the US (figures).  And in Japan they are using the MRI to do brain surgery to get at certain tumors.    
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