Dr. Hsu discusses UFE for uterine fibroids
If you have uterine fibroids, you may dread the bleeding and pain that comes with your monthly cycle. Interventional radiologist Dr. Connie Hsu introduces uterine fibroid embolization or UFE, a simple and effective treatment for fibroids that reduces or eliminates symptoms while letting you keep your uterus. If you are considering a hysterectomy, you need to be informed about UFE.
Dr. Connie Hsu:
I think as any physician, that we go into medicine wanting to make a difference. So when I have a patient who has been bleeding for months on end, as a woman, I feel for her. And as a physician, I know that I can help her by the procedures that we do.
My name is Connie Hsu. I’m one of the Interventional Radiologists with ARA.
And what is Interventional Radiology? It’s this really cool field where we can go in, via image guidance, into the body and treat disease.
Fibroids are growths by uterine muscle cells in the uterus. They’re not cancerous at all. But with time, when they get bigger, they can create problems. A lot of women have fibroids. However, some of those women will not have any symptoms related to the fibroids, and others will. It’s based on location and also size. And if they do produce symptoms, you’re gonna have some women that have worsening of their menstrual period, where it’s getting heavier, more frequent and longer. And then you’re also gonna have some women that have pelvic pain related to the fibroids, where when they have their menstrual monthly cramps, it’s just getting progressively worse and worse.
So Uterine Fibroid Embolization is done with moderate sedation. Sometimes it can be an outpatient or inpatient procedure. When we do a Uterine Fibroid Embolization, we go into the bilateral uterine arteries and we deliver FDA-approved particle beads that go into the fibroids themselves. Preferentially, preserving the rest of the uterus. And these fibroids, because the blood supply is cut off from them, they will shrink with time.
After the procedure, I tell a lot of my patients that you’re gonna experience some pelvic pain because those fibroids are dying. But that’s a good thing. And each hour that passes, it gets better and better. When you have a non-surgical treatment option, your recovery period is gonna be a lot shorter. So we’re talking about one to two weeks. We have the latest state-of-the-art angio equipment available so that when we treat our patients, we have the best equipment possible to take care of them. And it’s really a luxury to have these state-of-the-art tools available to us. We can do the best we can for our patients. But that said, we can’t do it without our specials techs and our paramedic and nurses.
And I think that our patients really have a good experience and they’re able to get back to their normal lives and have more energy doing that.
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