Vicki Iovine’s Story
| Name: | Vicki Iovine |
| Age: | 58 |
| Occupation: | Model, Writer, Lawyer |
I’d always had what I called “vivid” periods, Super Tampons were my best friend. Then, in my late forties, I unconsciously adjusted to needing two Supers and then an additional pad or two.
Who had these kinds of periods? Was I sick? Was I the only one affected this way? Heavy bleeding isn’t the kind of thing one brings up at cocktail parties or PTA meetings, so I stayed silent. I never mentioned it at my annual gynecological exams; often because I forgot about it and, more often, I was afraid it meant something bad.
My husband was the one who finally insisted that I confess my monthly hemorrhaging to my gyno. I guess he’d finally noticed that I slept in sweatpants on a beach towel several days each month. I nearly wept when I told my doctor, but his response left me breathless and feeling faint with relief. He told me that what I was experiencing was not only normal but common with women like me. I didn’t have fibroids or cysts, but my body was having a hard time making the transition to menopause.
Birth control pills were his first suggestion. Ugghh! A hysterectomy was another, to which I replied, “I’m too young to lose my uterus!” His third option, saving the best for last, was NovaSure endometrial ablation. “Huh?” I asked. He told me how it worked and I was on board within seconds.
The day after my procedure, I was up and alert and back to my regular life. I don’t think I even had occasion to mention it to my older kids who were away at college. By the third day, I was heading to a family vacation and a week of scuba diving and diving off the top of the dive boat on a dare from my kids. I kept waiting for something to happen and it never did.
Best of all, my big bleeds never happened again. I got my periods with the regular PMS symptoms of lower back sensitivity and a little crankiness, but there was almost no real flow—EVER. I no longer endure those isolating, frightening and debilitating hemorrhages again. It was a liberation that I could never have imagined and only wish I’d discovered earlier.