Women's Health
Painful periods (Dysmenorrhea)
For those who experience menstrual periods with mild pain, it can be hard to believe how serious painful menstruation can be. Some women experience cramping and pain so severe they are unable to go to work, go to school, or care for their families. Pain can be accompanied by nausea, upset stomach, headaches and all-over body aches and pains and can be severe enough to affect overall health and wellbeing. Hypnotherapy can help you learn to control the pain and resume a normal life at times of the month when the pain seems unbearable.
Uterine Fibroids
Heavy menstrual. Painful periods. Fatigue from anaemia. Spending hundreds of pounds a year on tampons and pads because you have to wear both. These are just a few examples of what it's like to live with uterine fibroids, a topic nobody wants to talk about. Uterine fibroids are very common non-cancerous tumours that develop in the muscles of the uterus and can change the quality of your life. Uterine fibroids are the most common reason why a woman will have a hysterectomy is the second most common surgical procedure in premenopausal women (first is a caesarean section for childbirth). About 70% of women will have uterine fibroids at some time during their lives, though not every woman will have symptoms.
Fibroids are one factor that can affect your fertility or potential infertility, but certain types of fibroids can affect fertility differently. There are three types of fibroids, based on where they are found:
Subserosal: Found in the outer wall of the uterus
Intramural: Found in the muscular layers of the uterine wall
Submucosal: Found in the inner lining of the uterus and may protrude into the uterine cavity
Fibroids are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the womb (uterus).
The growths are made up of muscle and fibrous tissue, and vary in size. They're sometimes known as uterine myomas or leiomyomas.
Many women are unaware they have fibroids because they do not have any symptoms.
Women who do have symptoms (around 1 in 3) may experience:
tummy (abdominal) pain
lower back pain
a frequent need to urinate
pain or discomfort during sex
In rare cases, further complications caused by fibroids can affect pregnancy or cause infertility.
Why fibroids develop
The exact cause of fibroids is unknown, but they have been linked to the hormone oestrogen.
Oestrogen is the female reproductive hormone produced by the ovaries (the female reproductive organs).
Fibroids usually develop during a woman's reproductive years (from around the age of 16 to 50) when oestrogen levels are at their highest.
They tend to shrink when oestrogen levels are low, such as after menopause when a woman's monthly period stops.
Who gets fibroids
Fibroids are common, with around 2 in 3 women developing at least 1 fibroid at some point in their life. They most often occur in women aged 30 to 50.
Fibroids are thought to develop more frequently in women of African-Caribbean origin.
It's also thought they occur more often in overweight or obese women because being overweight increases the level of oestrogen in the body.
Women who have had children have a lower risk of developing fibroids.
Fibroids and Fertility
Fibroids can affect your fertility in several different ways, depending on their size, location, and type. Submucosal fibroids specifically—a type of fibroid that bulges into and/or grows in the lining of the uterine cavity—may contribute to infertility or pregnancy loss.
The location of fibroids can have an impact on fertility. Some fibroids may block the fallopian tubes or change the shape of the uterus to prevent embryo implantation, for example. The size of fibroids can impact fertility, too. Uterine fibroids larger than four centimeters are associated with lower pregnancy rates.
Hypnotherapy and Fertility
We provide Specialist help in this area, by providing a ‘mind’ fertility Hypnotherapy programme to help you to become the Mother and/or Father you would like to be. We can help prepare you in advance of getting pregnant, whether this is naturally or prior and during IVF.
Hypnotherapy and Fibroid
In my therapy practice, I use hypnotherapy to teach women how to regain control over their bodies, reduce Fibroid pain tackle insomnia, relax and reduce stress and anxiety.
The first thing that I explain is the breathing technique. Why breathing? Because it can be very effective at switching off the anxious feelings we get when stress begins to build. In women with fibroids, it is also a very valuable way of switching off the stress response that makes an impending fibroid pain and can even stop it in its tracks. Breathing in deeply and then breathing out for twice as long as you breathed in is the key to turning off the stress response.
The premise of hypnotherapy is to change the way individuals perceive pain messages to reduce the intensity of what they are feeling. We use CBT based on hypnotherapy allows you to feel safe and confident in meeting that challenge in a way that is most effective for you as an individual. In Cognitive Behaviour Hypnotherapy, hypnotherapy is added to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to provide a new powerful dimension. Hypnotherapy is used to integrate healthy beliefs into your belief system. Hypnotherapy seeks to strengthen healthy beliefs and weaken unhealthy beliefs. Hypnotherapy makes this therapy 70% more effective than Cognitive Behaviour Therapy alone.
