I appreciate any advice you can give me. It's almost impossible to shrink fibroids that large. After menopause, fibroids can tend to reduce in size because of significantly less estrogen stimulation but it is difficult to say whether or not this would make a difference in your case. Depending on your doctor and the part of the country, hysterectomies are routinely recommended, even though most fibroids can be removed with lesser surgeries. You may need another procedure called a sonohystogram in order to assess whether you are a candidate for one of these lesser surgeries.
Some newer techniques remove the fibroids only and leave the uterus, by using a laparoscope.
There is also hysteroscopic resection, which removes fibroids inside the uterus by going in through the vagina. This is only done on submucous fibroids, however. There are many other surgical options including the latest procedure called a uterine embolization. Well, we don't typically randomly remove body parts because they have a rare risk of acquiring a cancer. In very selected cases, such an approach may be warranted, but only for women at very high risks for ovarian cancer.