Edina doctor offering non-surgical solution for painful uterine fibroids, allowing women to "wear white" again
EDINA, Minn. -- An Edina doctor is raising awareness about a procedure to treat a common health problem for many women. Uterine fibroids can cause a lot of pain and bleeding.
One option for treating these benign tumors was to remove a woman's uterus, but there is a less known, less invasive treatment available to you called Uterine Fibroid Embolization, better known as UFE.
Dr. Rochelle Wolfe, at Vascular and Interventional Experts (VIE) in Edina, is one of a few experts offering UFE.
"It's done in an hour or less, it's done in an outpatient setting," said Wolfe, "I call it a non-surgical procedure because really we only make about a 2-3 millimeter nick in the skin."
Wolfe says it takes no more than six days to recover from the procedure and allows women to keep their uterus. This is not only beneficial to women who hope to get pregnant but keeping your uterus also helps women of all ages avoid other issues, including mental health and cardiovascular impacts.
"The uterus helps support other organs in the pelvis, so when that's removed women can run into additional issues," said Wolfe.
Uterine fibroids are extremely common in women, as young as 20 years old. By the time women are 50 years old, fibroids are in 70% of White women and 84% of Black women.
One patient of Dr. Wolfe's who is a UFE success story is Angelique King, who lives in north Minneapolis. She went to VIE Wednesday morning for her one-year post-UFE procedure ultrasound to see that her fibroids were gone and her uterus size was significantly reduced.
When King turned 44, she started noticing the fibroid systems of stomach pain and uncontrollable bleeding.
"I call it my seven-year nightmare because I went through 7 years of hell," said King, "I started wearing diapers because I would get up and wherever was sitting there would be a puddle of blood."
King says she recovered in 3 days and is back to doing what she loves, which is playing with her granddaughters - Cheyenne and Miyani.
"I can go out and do things with them now, my life is back," said King, "My angel in disguise, Dr. Wolfe is my angel."
July is Fibroid Awareness Month. The staff at VIE are wearing white to spread awareness about uterine fibroid cures. For the first time in seven years, Angelique is wearing white without fear.
"It feels amazing. Now I'm going to buy more white," said King.
