Acupuncture and Herbs for Fibroids: Learn how to shrink fibroids naturally

Have you been recently diagnosed with uterine fibroids and wondering what’s the next step?

Uterine fibroids are benign (non-cancerous) growths that occur in the uterus. They are incredibly common amongst women, and many will have the fibroid without even knowing it because they don’t show any symptoms.

While finally gaining an answer to what’s been causing your symptoms can bring relief, it is often followed with the uncertainty of how to proceed – especially if you’re interested in holistically approaching the situation & wanting to shrink fibroids naturally.  

In this article, we’ll take a look at the basics behind uterine fibroids from both a western & Chinese medicine point of view. You’ll learn:

1. How acupuncture and Chinese herbs can help fibroids
2. When you should consider a holistic approach to your treatment
3. Self-help strategies to assist your treatments
4. How Chinese Medicine helped two different fibroid patients in our clinic   

If you’d like to skip ahead and learn about our process specifically and how we approach uterine fibroids in our clinic, click here. 

Chinese Medicine for Fibroids: Clinical Experience

Many of the women I see in my clinic with uterine fibroids aren’t coming in primarily for the fibroid itself. In fact, a lot of them had no idea they had a fibroid to begin with. They had a persisting menstrual-related issue that was getting worse over time, and when they got it checked out with their gynecologist, turned out there was also a fibroid. The most common symptoms secondary to fibroids that I see are:

• Excessively heavy menstrual bleeding accompanied with anemia
• Periods that last longer than 7 days
• Lower abdominal pressure and swelling
•  Menstrual cramps
• Low back pain
• Infertility

Chinese medicine is amazing at working on the above issues while simultaneously working on the fibroid. The reason is simple. Our goal is not to just reduce the fibroid, but to understand the hormonal imbalance causing the fibroid growth. This imbalance is also most likely causing your problem with heavy flow or cramps or infertility.

In the world of Chinese medicine, using acupuncture and herbal medicine to work on uterine fibroids is nothing new. Treatments are most effective at helping with small to medium size fibroids. This means a fibroid up to around 5 cm, which is about the size of a lemon.

If the size of the fibroid is large (upwards of 7 cm and more) and it’s causing a lot of pain, having it removed through one of the various surgical treatments seems to be the norm. Another reason to consider immediate surgical removal of the fibroid is if the location of the fibroid is sensitive. For example, the fibroid is pressing on the intestines or bladder causing problems there. Or it may be located in the inside layer of the uterus making it difficult to fall pregnant. In those situations, removing the fibroid would give you a rapid solution and relief.

So the main question here is why take the holistic approach?  

If you’d like to skip ahead and learn about our process specifically and how we approach uterine fibroids in our clinic, click here. 

The holistic method: shrinking fibroids naturally

One of the main reasons to consider a holistic approach to fibroids is their high rate of recurrence. Different studies have shown the recurrence rate to be as high as 30% in some instances. Basically what this means is that simply removing a fibroid doesn’t guarantee that it’s gone for good. Many women have had their fibroids surgically removed, only to have new ones show up on their ultrasounds a few years later. It is for this reason that women who aren’t interested in getting pregnant or are done having kids, are routinely recommended to have a complete removal of their uterus (hysterectomy) to prevent recurrence.

The reason for these recurrences are simple: if you don’t change the environment which created the problem in the first place, it is highly likely the issue will recur. When treating fibroids we have to dig deep and understand what environmental and hormonal factors contributed to the creation of this tumor. If we don’t remove the environmental toxins and correct the hormonal imbalances, we are not taking care of the situation from all angles.

One of the biggest issues when it comes to fibroids is your exposure to estrogen. It’s well established that estrogen can promote fibroid growth. In holistically treating fibroids, we need to understand whether your body’s exposure to excess estrogen is caused by outside factors (like foods / chemicals / etc) or from the body’s inability to properly metabolize it.

If you’d like to skip ahead and learn about our process specifically and how we approach uterine fibroids in our clinic, click here. 

Chinese Medicine and Fibroids: Causes

In Chinese medicine, fibroids are said to be caused by two different imbalances: stagnation of blood in the uterus or an accumulation of dampness.

Blood stagnation: refers to a lack of smooth blood flow in the pelvis. The flow is so unsmooth that it is causing blockages and obstructions. Think of a freeway where cars begin to drive erratically and chaotically – an accident is bound to happen and once it does, there are major traffic jams. This is the type of environment that engenders fibroids. The fibroid is essentially a more tangible and physical manifestation of these obstructions. It is interesting to note that the blood stagnation imbalance shares many of the same symptoms of estrogen dominance (excess estrogen): painful cramps, pms symptoms, heavy bleeding. In a sense, they are east-west parallel versions of each other.

Dampness: refers to impaired fluid metabolism in the body because of poor digestion. In Chinese medicine, the digestive organs are responsible for refining food and drink into nutrition and transporting it to the different parts of the body. When this factory process is messed up, your body produces dampness. When you bloat or feel sluggish after eating even the lightest meals, this is a manifestation of that dampness.

Your intestines play an incredible role in metabolizing estrogen: excess estrogen in the body is inactivated by the liver and removed from the body via the stool. If your digestive health isn’t optimal, it’s possible you’re holding onto more estrogen than you need, and this can be fueling fibroid growth.  It is for this reason that if dampness is a presenting factor in your case, your digestive health must certainly be addressed.  

If you’d like to skip ahead and learn about our process specifically and how we approach uterine fibroids in our clinic, click here. 

Self-Care Strategies for Fibroids

Improve Pelvic Blood Flow

Like we talked about earlier, Chinese medicine views poor blood flow as one of the main causes behind fibroids. The impaired flow eventually leads to blockages and ultimately the growth of fibrous tissues. In such situation try:

• Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine: both are amazing at promoting blood flow in the uterus and helping to reduce fibroid sizes
• Apply heat packs to the lower abdomen: heat helps to promote movement of blood and improve circulation. This is especially effective for women who get menstrual cramp relief from heating pads.

Keep your Liver Happy

Like we talked about, your liver is responsible for metabolizing and inactivating excess estrogen in the body. If your liver is not happy, you will be holding on to more than you need and this can encourage fibroid growth.

In Chinese medicine, when we treat gynecological issues, one of the most important organs we looks at and treat is the liver. It’s incredible because the traditional doctors from hundreds of years ago had no idea about the liver’s role in estrogen metabolism, and yet, the medicine recognized its importance in menstrual health.

Things you can do to keep your liver happy are:

• Avoid alcohol: alcohol keeps your liver from functioning optimally. Sub-optimal liver performance puts you at risk for estrogen excess and fibroid growth. 
• Avoid excessive medication usage: this is not in reference to medications necessary to manage a health issue. This is more about liberally taking over-the-counter pain killers, cold medicines, acid blockers, etc. Most drugs need to be metabolized by the liver and over time, excessive usage can lead to liver injury and hence, impaired estrogen metabolism.
• Eat REAL food: fermented foods, fruits, nuts, seeds, cruciferous vegetables, dark leafy greens, good quality protein, wild caught fatty fish are all great foods that support a healthy liver

Exercise

Excess body fat can cause your body to produce too much estrogen. If you have fibroids this can be an issue because that extra estrogen can be fueling their growth.

Exercise also helps improve insulin sensitivity. When insulin sensitivity improves, your body properly uses the sugar in your blood as energy instead of storing it as more fat in the body. So this helps decrease excess body fat and hence, excess estrogen production. 

Say NO to Xenoestrogens

Xenoestrogens are foreign estrogens – meaning they come from outside the body through food, environment, etc. Their name is derived from the fact that they mimic estrogen because of certain similarities, and as a result, they are able to trigger similar hormonal responses in the body. The difference is, however, that they exert an effect much stronger than your body’s natural estrogen. This leads to an over-dominance of estrogen in the body. Xenoestrogens are considered endocrine disruptors, which basically means they mess with the normal functioning of your body’s hormones.

Here are some simple ways to reducing your exposure:

• Switch your plastic containers to glass ones
• Avoid foods sprayed with pesticides. Eat organic when possible.
• Check your beauty and household cleaning products for phthalates and parabens (two notorious endocrine disrupting chemicals)
• Hormonal contraceptives: if you’re not using the pill for contraceptive purposes, but for menstrual issues, consider holistic methods of treatment first
• Eat grass-fed, organic meat: this has more to do with what the animal you’re eating has been fed and exposed to. Animals that aren’t grass-fed, organically raised tend to be fed with pesticide ridden grains and injected with growth hormones. When we eat these animals, those very toxins are then transferred into our bodies.

Maintain Gut Health

We talked about this before. Your gut plays an integral role in estrogen metabolism. If your body isn’t pooping out that extra estrogen then your body ends up accumulating too much in the body.

How to keep your gut healthy:

• Avoid antibiotics when possible: antibiotics destroy your gut bacteria and this seriously compromises its ability to properly metabolize estrogen
• Eat resistant starches: these are starchy foods that resist digestion in the small intestine and ferment in the large intestine. This fermentation feeds the good bacteria in your intestines. Examples of resistance starches are:
  • Legumes such as beans, lentils, chickpeas
  • Green bananas (unripe bananas)
  • Whole grains such as oats  
  • White rice that is cooked and cooled

Reduce Inflammation

Inflammation becomes a problem when it tends to linger on long-term in your body. Short bursts of inflammation to manage acute situations like injuries or infections is normal, but when it keeps going on and on it’s going to wreck havoc. For a person with fibroids this is important because chronic inflammation can make your body’s estrogen receptors more sensitive to estrogen. This hypersensitivity causes your body to have an extra-strong reaction to even normal amounts of estrogen in the body. This in turn can fuel fibroid growth.

Ways to reduce inflammation are:

• Reduce dairy consumption: for some people, dairy can create inflammation because of their body’s sensitivity to a protein called A1 casein. Consuming dairy on a daily basis can then perpetuate these daily bouts of inflammation in the body. Check out dairy alternatives like almond milk or oat milk.
•  Eat those veggies: vegetables are rich in phytonutrients that help lower inflammation. The one caveat are nightshade vegetables. These are tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and potatoes. They are said to aggravate inflammation in some people.
• Ditch the vegetable oils: cooking oils such as canola, corn, and cottonseed oil contain an abnormally high amount of omega-6 fatty acids. High amounts of this fatty acid can encourage inflammation. Try cooking with olive oil, coconut oil, or avocado oil instead.

Be Honest with your Emotions

In Chinese medicine, emotional health can be a big contributing factor in the formation of fibroids. It’s not so simple as getting angry will magically make a fibroid grow. Rather, holding on to strong emotions long term like anger or sadness will slowly start to compromise the physical functioning of the body.

Intuitively this makes complete sense. Think of people who have lost the will to live and see how soon after they pass. There are very clear connections between the mind and the body.

In the clinic, I’ve found that for women with fibroids there is always an important emotional component that needs attention. It’s important to acknowledge and explore these emotions. 

If you’d like to skip ahead and learn about our process specifically and how we approach uterine fibroids in our clinic, click here. 

Chinese Herbs for Fibroids

If you seek Chinese medicine treatments, an integral part of your holistic treatment plan will be Chinese herbs. There is no single herb or collection of herbs that is always used for uterine fibroids. It always depends on your specific constitution and root cause.

Of the many types of herbal formulas that can be used to shrink fibroids, one of the most common formulas are Cinnamon & Poria Pills. Much research has been done on this formula and its effect on uterine tumors over the years. A 2019 research article explored the pharmacological effects of this formula on fibroids and discovered that the possible mechanism by which it works is that it induces apoptosis (the death of cells) within the fibroid tumor (1). Other studies purport its usefulness in treating fibroids because of its anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory effect (2,3).

Case-Studies

Case study #1: Beth

Beth came in to the clinic because she had extremely heavy periods for the past 3 years. She had always bled on the heavier side, but when it started to get worse, she went to her Obgyn for a check-up and was diagnosed with uterine fibroids via ultrasound. Her heavier bleeds were accompanied with period cramps and low back pain. Since the largest fibroid measured around 4cm, they decided to wait and see how the fibroids progressed: would they grow or stay the same? The idea was if the discomfort wasn’t detrimental, then she could avoid surgery.

Beth’s situation is not all that uncommon. While her symptoms weren’t detrimental to her daily life, they most definitely affected her quality of life physically and emotionally. Having to use both a pad and tampon for the first few days and changing them almost every 1 hour was incredibly stressful while she was at work. In the nights, the bleeding could be so heavy that she would place towels on the bed for the inevitable leakage that happened while she slept. The cramping and lower back pain left her no choice but to take Advil multiple times a day. She didn’t want to have the surgery, but she definitely didn’t want to have to keep going through this torture every month.

Based off of her history, constitution and symptoms, we decided to take a two-pronged approach: we needed to improve the poor blood circulation in the pelvic area. This was contributing to the fibroid growth and the pain she was experiencing around her periods. Second, we needed to tackle her digestive health. Her chronic digestive issues were definitely a factor in how her body was poorly metabolizing estrogen. When estrogen metabolism is disrupted, the body can hold on to more estrogen than needed, and this over-accumulation can promote fibroid growth.

We began with a weekly regimen of acupuncture & herbal medicine to enact the approach described above. The first symptoms to improve were her digestive issues: less bloating along with more comfortable & regular bowel movements. Her second period since beginning the acupuncture was when her period symptoms began to improve. The first significant change was a major reduction in her overall pain: no more ovulatory pain, much less period cramping, and no more lower back pain. As the months progressed, the bleeding amount also began to change. No more leakages at night, she could go for 2-3 hours before having to change pads. The biggest change here was that she wasn’t feeling incredibly anxious and emotional around her periods. Her overall experience of life surrounding her periods was shifting from something chronically negative to more positive and normal. It is now 1 year since she first came in to our clinic, and we are happy to report that her period bleeds have returned to their normal amount from before the fibroids.     

Case Study #2: Flora

Flora came in for what at first she thought was just really bad period cramps. She was in her mid-40’s and had started experiencing cramping for the first time in years. The pain was unbearable: she was unable to go to work, it radiated to her back and down into her legs. After she went to the doctor and had an MRI done, they discovered a uterine fibroid measuring close to 6cm. This was about the size of a lemon!

This wasn’t the first time she was diagnosed with fibroids. She had one when she was in her 20’s and it was surgically removed. As mentioned before, fibroids have a high rate of recurrence, and this was exactly such an instance. Due to the size of the fibroid and degree of pain, her doctor recommended they do surgery. This time, however, the doctor recommended they do a hysterectomy (complete removal of the uterus) to 100% prevent the recurrence of a fibroid. Her surgery was scheduled for two months away.

Flora basically came in to find a way to naturally manage the pain until her surgery. She came in right as her period was beginning and the pain was at it’s height. We used acupuncture to activate her body’s natural painkillers, boost blood flow quality in her uterus, and reduce the pain. After 30 minutes of napping with the acupuncture points in her body, her pain level had reduced from an 8/10 to 0/10. It was an incredible result. The following week she reported that while she would normally have pain for a full week, that she had no more pain in the days following the acupuncture treatment. Instead of 7 days of pain, she only had 1. We repeated this protocol for her next cycle with similar results. Our goal was to keep her out of pain and her body strong going into her surgery. It is an amazing experience to share because even though the fibroid is still there, we were able to modify her body’s perception of pain to such an incredible degree! 

If you’d like learn more about our process specifically and how we approach uterine fibroids in our clinic, click here. 

Medical Disclaimer

Information in this post and on this web site is provided for informational purposes only. This information is not intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional or any information contained on or in any product label or packaging. Do not use the information on this web site for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing medication or other treatment. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before taking any medication or nutritional, herbal or homeopathic supplement, or using any treatment for a health problem.

References

1) Chen N. N., Han M., Yang H., Yang G. Y., Wang Y. Y., Wu X. K., et al. (2014). Chinese herbal medicine Guizhi Fuling Formula for treatment of uterine fibroids: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials. BMC Complement. Altern. Med. 14, 2. 10.1186/1472-6882-14-2 

2) Yao Z, Shulan Z. Inhibition effect of Guizhi-Fuling-decoction on the invasion of human cervical cancer. J Ethnopharmacol. 2008;120:25–35. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2008.07.044.

3) Li TJ, Qiu Y, Mao JQ, Yang PY, Rui YC, Chen WS. Protective effects of Guizhi-Fuling-Capsules on rat brain ischemia/reperfusion injury. J pharmacol Sci. 2007;105:34–40. doi: 10.1254/jphs.FP0070450.