Consuming Alcohol with Fibroids: What You Need to Know

Whether you have a high fibroid risk or already have these non-cancerous uterine tumors, it's important to carefully consider your alcohol consumption. You see, while we don't know the exact impact of consuming alcohol with fibroids, the evidence we do have suggests that it can make existing tumors grow larger, or increase your risk for future fibroid growth.

Consuming Alcohol with Fibroids

Alcohol consumption with fibroids can impact your health in several ways.

1. Hormone Disruptions

Estrogen plays a role in fibroid development, and consuming alcohol can lead to increased estrogen production in your body. It can also reduce your liver's ability to metabolize estrogen, furthering hormonal imbalances. As such, consuming alcohol with fibroids could lead to new tumor development; it could also make existing fibroids grow larger, meaning it could kickstart fibroid growth, causing new tumors to develop or making existing ones get bigger.

2.  Increased Inflammation

Consuming alcohol can affect fibroids by increasing inflammation in your body. If you then experience chronic inflammation, your body will produce more prostaglandins. (That's a substance that promotes tumor growth, including fibroids). Additionally, more inflammation in the body can worsen pelvic pain, a common fibroid symptom.

3. Gaining Weight

Wine and cocktails can be heavy on the calories, so consuming a lot of alcohol could lead to weight gain. Unfortunately, being overweight is considered a fibroid risk factor, due to the link between fat tissue and estrogen production. As such, the risk for gaining weight is another way in which consuming alcohol with fibroids could worsen your symptom burden.

4. Impact on Your Menstrual Cycle

When you drink too much alcohol, your menstrual cycle could be disrupted. In combination with common fibroid symptoms such as irregular or long periods and heavy bleeding, this could take a further toll on your quality of life.

Consuming Alcohol with Fibroids: Total Impact

When you have fibroids and consume alcohol, you increase your future fibroid risk; your existing fibroids could get bigger; and any fibroid symptoms you have right now could get worse.

As such, if you have fibroids and consume alcohol, you could experience:

• Increased bleeding
• Worsening menstrual cramps
• An increase in bloating, pressure and pain in your pelvis
• A more frequent need to urinate

Relieving Fibroid Symptoms

There are several ways you can relieve your fibroid symptoms. Following a fibroid-friendly diet that's rich in fruits and vegetables can help with symptoms, especially if you reduce fatty and processed foods and lower or eliminate your alcohol consumption. Regular exercise can also help, as can certain medications, including some forms of birth control. However, these approaches won't shrink your tumors, so they cannot provide lasting symptom relief. So, if you want to explore long-term solutions, we encourage you to contact the Dallas Fibroid Center. When you come in for a consultation, we can explore your candidacy for Uterine Fibroid Embolization (UFE), a treatment option that shrinks fibroids without invasive surgery or overnight hospital stays.