Research and Experimentation on Intramural Uterine Fibroid using a combination of Vitamin D3, EGCG and B-complex: A personal study.

(Warning: Graphic descriptions lol 😛)

    I am making this post in hopes that the information may help anyone else suffering from fibroids (as they are VERY common in the female population between the ages of 18-45), and possibly provide another option for their reduction aside from surgery.

    At the beginning of this year, I started having abdominal symptoms that are unusual for me. It started with a random sharp abdominal pain that came out of nowhere while walking around, causing me to have a hard time moving and even breathing. I decided to rest and see what happens the next day as usually any odd things that happen (could be stress related) tends to go away with rest for me. When I woke up, I was still having abdominal pain. Since this was unusual, and I had no explanation for it that I could think of, I went to the nearby clinic to get it looked at. After a series of tests, they found nothing. No infection, no anything.

    Ok, so I left it alone. My boyfriend visited me out of concern and I talked to him about my symptoms. We decided to see if having sex would help make any of the symptoms go away, and though hesitant that I would hurt more, I agree because, duh. Who doesn't want to try that lol 😇. To my surprise, all negative abdominal symptoms went away. Cool. 😁 

    Several months later I started gaining abdominal weight every day (though I didn't eat much, and primarily ate very healthy). This was my first red flag, as I don't gain weight easily. I was always feeling full, and had no appetite as a result of that, so I technically should be losing weight as the amount of calories consumed was drastically less than what I was burning off via my regular daily schedule. I even went to another clinic to get tested for STD's or any other thing that could have invisible symptoms. Nothing came back except for "microscopic traces of blood in urine sample." 

    Of course after that, I went on Google to look up what all could cause blood in urine, aside from STDs, UTIs, etc that I already tested. This is where I started seeing information on uterine/ ovarian cysts/ cancer/ fibroids/ ect. I started paying close attention to any new symptoms in order to help narrow down which of the above it could be, so I could know which test to get seen for next, as I wanted to eliminate any of the smaller tests before requesting bigger tests.

    My second red flag came with my monthly period. Aside from the usual abdominal period pain, I now had extreme rectal pain to accompany it. It felt like lighting, or electrical shock inside your anus while doing simple things like sit down (which is all you want to do on your period). At this point, I scheduled an appointment with my OBGYN for a yearly pap. I told her what was going on, and what I suspect, and she told me that I would have to have an ultrasound done in order to further investigate it. Though my pap results came back really healthy, my uterus felt a bit enlarged and she can feel a lump via pressing on my lower abdomen.

    That's all I needed to know lol. Any hint of suspicion from a medical doctor that I may have (as I narrowed it down to) a uterine fibroid, caused me to immediately look up ways to make it go away. My ultrasound appointment was a month away (guh 😯😴) but I already started research and experimenting on myself the very same day with anything that I could find that didn't require surgery.

Here is some of the information that I found:

Journals posted on the National Library of Medicine had some interesting findings regarding Vitamin D, and Green Tea.

                                                    ------------------ Vitamin D ---------------------

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6619469/#:~:text=The%20significant%20role%20of%20vit,is%20associated%20with%20a%20reduced

"A double-blind clinical trial was performed on 69 patients. Group A (n=35) was treated with vit D 50,000 IU every 2 weeks for 10 weeks, while group B (n=34) received placebo with same color and shape. Fibroid size significantly changed in vit D group. Vit D group significantly decreased as compared to placebo group (52.58 vs 61.11 mm, respectively) (P=0.006), while by analyzing data with paired t test, the size of fibroid in control group did not change significantly (P=0.315)."

After talking to my boss, a pharmacist, he said to also look into studies on EGCG (found in green tea) and fibroids.

                                                   ------------------------ ECGC ------------------------

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3742155/#:~:text=Epigallocatechin%20gallate%20(EGCG)%20treatment%20decreases,%2C%20800%20mg%2Fday).

"A total of 39 reproductive-age women (age 18–50 years, with symptomatic Uterine Fibroid) were recruited for this study. All subjects had at least one fibroid lesion 2 cm3 or larger, as confirmed by transvaginal ultrasonography. The subjects were randomized to oral daily treatment with either 800 mg of green tea extract (45% EGCG) or placebo (800 mg of brown rice) for 4 months, and UF volumes were measured at the end, also by transvaginal ultrasonography. 

    In the placebo group (n = 11), fibroid volume increased (24.3%) over the study period; however, patients randomized to green tea extract (n = 22, 800 mg/day) treatment showed significant reduction (32.6%, P = 0.0001) in total UF volume. In addition, EGCG treatment significantly reduced fibroid-specific symptom severity (32.4%, P = 0.0001) and induced significant improvement in HRQL (18.53%, P = 0.01) compared to the placebo group. Anemia also significantly improved by 0.7 g/dL (P = 0.02) in the EGCG treatment group, while average blood loss significantly decreased from 71 mL/month to 45 mL/month (P = 0.001). No adverse effects, endometrial hyperplasia, or other endometrial pathology were observed in either group."

    After reading that journal article, I came across another study that included BOTH Vitamin D3, Green Tea, and now added Vitamin B6.

"RESULTS: One Uterine Fibroid developed in the control group, but none in the treated group. UF size significantly decreased from 10.73 ± 5.52 cm3 at baseline to 7.98 ± 4.00 cm3 after 4 months of treatment (p<0.0001), while it remained unchanged in the control group (10.21 ± 5.83 cm3 at T0 to 10.62 ± 6.28 cm3 at T1). Menstrual bleeding and anemia ameliorated only in the treated women.

    The treatment group shows a reduction of 35% in the UF volume size after treatment with EGCG, vitamin D and vitamin B6 for four months. Instead, the control group received no treatment (following the “wait and see” approach) and experienced a 4% increase in the UF volume size."

https://www.ijmdat.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/03/e300.pdf

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    That was enough statistically significant results for me to start seeing what I can do to my own fibroid. I decided to take a prenatal multivitamin, 4,000 iu of Vitamin D3, 1,000 mg of Green Tea capsules, 250mg of Magnesium (because "muscle health"), 1 capsule of Vitamin B-Complex (which contains 100mg of B-1, B-2, B-3, B-5, B-6, B-12 each, 100 mg of Biotin, 100 mg of Inositol, an 20 mg of Choline) every single day (with food, because for some reason the B complex specifically made me sick to my stomach if I didn't). Here are my daily vitamins to test myself with (I am not affiliate with any of these brands, but I do love Alive! vitamins in general lol) :

    About 1 week of doing this, all of my abdominal symptoms went away. I didn't have weight gain (was actually losing weight now), didn't feel full, didn't have a loss of appetite, etc. My abdominal area was feeling normal. Could be the result of placebo effect, but time will tell. 

    Finally, my appointment came along, and I had an ultrasound done. Turns out that I in fact do have a non-cancerous uterine fibroid (intramural specifically- in the uterine muscle walls, at the back of my uterus which may push on my bladder or give me back pain should it grow larger), and a rather large one at that (8 cm x 6 cm x 7 cm- about the size of an apple). Any options suggested to me were pretty much surgery only, as anything else would either prevent me from being able to have kids (I currently don't have any, but also don't want to rule it out either), or force me into menopause prematurely. Fibroids tend to grow with hormones (estrogen primarily that is known as of yet), and menopause reduces hormones, thus, reducing fibroids. Also, if you have fibroids, you are highly likely to also be Vitamin D3 deficient. Any surgery to remove them can always cause cancer to develop, or even cause the fibroids to grow back, so the cons for surgery outweighed the pros for me. I don't see the point in removing them, if they may grow back and possibly cause me to have cancer from surgery on my uterus. 

    Here are my ultrasound photos of the fibroid:

    I don't want to have surgery, don't want to be out of work for 6 weeks (the minimal amount of down time for the smallest surgery option), don't want to not be able to have kid, and don't want to go into menopause, so I asked my doctor if I can re-schedule another ultrasound 3 months away to see if I can reduce the size on my own (similar time frame to the studies I posted). She said yes. I don't know what size my fibroid was a month ago when she first suspected that I had one, and I started taking the vitamins, but the primary symptoms that originally caused me to see several doctors did go away so I would like to think that it was likely larger to some degree. As of right now, I know its current size, so I have numbers to work with.

--- Will update increase or decrease in size results at the end of November 2022 when I get my ultrasound results back. 😊---

--- Update 1: Appointment was pushed back until December 9, 2022 due to hurricane. Will post  results then.--- 

--- Update 1a: Nov 30, 2022- Current observational symptoms: All negative primary symptoms are still gone. I still have bleeding in between periods (period ends, then no bleeding for 4 days, then light bleeding again for 4-5 days. Bleeding stops completely around ovulation and doesn't return until period starts) though severity is decreasing. The amount of bleeding in between periods seems to lessen every month from originally bleeding like a second period, to now somewhat bleeding one day and spotting the rest. -- 

--- Update after appointment follow-up: ---

Doctor said that the size is exactly the same. She stated that fibroids don't shrink (which is odd to me because studies show that they have), but she did say that it is a good thing that it hasn't grown at all in the 5 months that I have been experimenting on myself, and that I should keep doing what I am because it is at least keeping it at bay.