Hi, I wanted to share how I got my diagnosis and what led up to it... Mostly for myself, but also for anyone else in the future who looks this up broad ligament fibroids too. I've heard they're a little rarer.
I'm a UK resident, 32 Y/O. Around four/five years ago, I started noticing a pain in my right side. It was so bad that I ended up getting prescribed cocodamol at the time. I ended up having a transvaginal scan that said I had an ovarian dermoid cyst and a few polyps in my uterus. Okay, fair enough, that probably explained it - I thought.
About three years ago, I went for another scan after I had several periods in a row that lasted around two months each and were heavy too. That scan came up completely blank, my dermoid cyst and the polyps were gone. But to me, it didn't make sense. The pain in my right side that I thought was just an ovarian cyst hadn't gone away, and was hurting during the day of the scan.
After that, I got referred to a Gynecologist because my bleeding issue wasn't explained. I went on the pill to manage it, and after a while I ended up on the waiting list for a Laparoscopy.
Fast forward to last November. I finally had my laparoscopy, expecting to find Endometriosis. I also thought they'd find something wrong with my ovary. They found nothing. What did get flagged was that I had a 'distortion' on my anterior uterine/vaginal wall that my Gyne said was probably just a natural deformation. I also had a bulge in my pouch of douglas, and that bulge was pronounced enough that they decided to send me to an MRI. (What I didn't confirm to them was that I was a little constipated on the day. I was worried that if I said that, they wouldn't run the MRI and I'd be left without an explanation for this pain in my side that I've now had for YEARS.)
I talked again about the pain in my right side, looking for an explanation. I was told in that appointment that it probably was just that 'ovulation pain hurts'. Admittedly I'm likely in the small subset of people that the pill doesn't stop ovulation for, but that seemed such a flimsy explanation to me.
A few days ago, I got my MRI results. They found a broad ligament fibroid on my right side exactly where the pain I've been feeling is. It's not very big (4x2x2) but given that I've been acutely aware of it for years, it's had a real impact on my life. I can't express how relieved I was to learn that I was right all along and that I shouldn't have taken 'ovulation pain' as the answer.
Having browsed this subreddit for a bit there are a lot of stories of bigger cases of fibroids whether larger or more numerous. I was wondering if anyone else had an experience like I did, where it was a fight to find out what was happening to you - please share if you feel comfortable. Any advice too?