Cynthia Baileycan still remember the physical and mental drain from having fibroids — even though it’s been a decade since they were treated.
The formerReal Housewives of Atlantastar says that having the benign tumors growing in her womb left her in a “dark place” mentally and impacted so many aspects of her life that she felt like a “disaster.”
“It’s very hard to be in a good space mentally when you’re bleeding all the time and when you don’t have any energy, and you’re anemic and you don’t have the sex drive you used to have,” Bailey, 55, tells PEOPLE.
“Mentally, I found that I was just in a dark place without really knowing I was in a dark place. When I look at photos of myself during that time, it was like the light was gone because I was bleeding to death in a lot of ways.”
Cynthia Bailey was a star on The Real Housewives of Atlanta when she was treated for uterine fibroids.Wilford Harewood/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty
The former model is reflecting on that time of her life during Women’s History Month for a special reason. She has teamed up withUSA Fibroids Centersto educate women about a non-invasive, non-surgical way to treat the condition that plagued her for 14 years.
Robin L Marshall/WireImage
“My periods were always super heavy,” says Bailey, who remembers having to change her tampon every one or two hours, often suffering accidental leaks even though she wore sanitary pads as well. “I basically never had white sheets on my bed. I was always bleeding out.”
“Work wise it was very difficult to even work the first two or three days of my cycle, because my bleeding was just so heavy. I was anemic, so I had no energy, very low sex drive.” When she did have sex, Bailey says it was painful.
“It not only affected me. It was affecting my family, my husband, my sex life,” she says. “I was moody. I was exhausted. I was anemic. I was bleeding all the time. I was a disaster.”
Bailey was still married to Peter Thomas when she had the uterine fibroid embolization procedure.Prince Williams/Getty
Having a hysterectomy— completely removing the womb and thus her fibroids — did come up as a possibility. “But that was…something that I really didn’t want to have,” she says, adding, “I wanted to be open to having more children if I wanted to. Even if I didn’t want to, I just wanted the option.”
Dr. Yan Katsnelson, the founder of USA Fibroid Centers, which has clinics across the country, tells PEOPLE: “[The] procedure is done through [a] catheter. They enter in the wrist or in the groin and the catheter goes around, [into] the blood vessels towards the origin of the arteries that feed the fibroids.”
Using minute beads, they “clog the vessels that go to the fibroids, and the fibroids just die and disappear.” “Think [of it] like [you] stop watering the plant or the field of grass. The grass dies,” he says. “It’s exactly the same thing. Without sufficient blood supply the tumors stop functioning and just get absorbed the body.”
When Bailey had the procedure, which takes about 40 minutes, she did it while theRHOAcameras rolled.
“The experience was great,” says Bailey. “I went in, they gave me some light anesthesia. I don’t remember the procedure.” She did suffer cramping but, after resting at home for two days, she was back at work filmingRHOA.
Within two or three months, Bailey says her menstrual flow became lighter, and her period went from lasting eight to nine days to just three to four. She describes it as being “like a miracle.”
Even though she had the procedure so many years ago, Bailey is still passionate about letting fibroid sufferers know thathaving a hysterectomyis not the only option.
“I use my celebrity to keep the information out there for women to understand that they do have options and they do not have to suffer in silence,” she says. “And they do not have to have their uterus removed to deal with their fibroid situation. That should be a last resort if it even needs to happen at all.”
source: people.com
