Bethenny Frankel Reveals Her Mystery Illness
Bethenny Frankel has mentioned numerous times in the last few months that she was dealing with a health issue that many women experience. In recent episodes of Real Housewives of New York City(RHONY), it has been mentioned, but Frankel’s diagnosis has not yet been revealed on the show. Page Six is reporting that the condition that caused Bethenny’s frightening symptoms is uterine fibroids. Frankel was diagnosed with uterine fibroids in 2013 and chose to deal with them privately, out of the eye of the camera. After a very difficult several months this year, however, she decided to include it on the show as it became clear that her treatment would need to be adjusted and in order to share her experience with female viewers who may have also been diagnosed with uterine fibroids.
Bethenny spoke to People about her condition and said that pain and excessive bleeding landed her in the emergency room over the last year, so doctors conducted a sonogram that revealed that their treatment plan needed adjusting. Doctors discovered that her uterus had doubled in size and that she had lost almost 10 percent of her blood volume. Frankel initially attributed her fatigue to stress from her busy life that includes appearances on RHONY and running her SkinnyGirl business. Excessive bleeding and anemia were the real causes, though, and Bethenny was advised to create a living will in order to protect her daughter, 6-year-old Bryn, in case anything were to go wrong as she underwent treatment. Frankel underwent surgery in May to remove some fibroids. She remained in the hospital for three days following the surgery. The recovery period is six weeks.
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Bethenny also appeared on Good Morning America recently, and shared some of her experience.
“The bleeding was so excessive and I was so weak and I felt like I looked so haggard and had such black circles under my eyes that I had to take care of it… It was part of the show and it was affecting the way I was acting on the show and I was very stressed and I couldn’t hear something that Luann was talking about. I felt, like, zoned out because when you’re iron-deficient and you’ve lost so much of your blood, you’re just depleted, and I just felt really terrible. I was always cold. I’m still cold a lot.”
This isn’t Frankel’s first battle with health issues related to her reproductive system. In the past she has been diagnosed with endometriosis and cysts. Bethenny believes that her fibroids contributed to a miscarriage she had in 2012.
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In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Bethenny Frankel talked about her miscarriage and how she dealt with it at the time it happened.
“I definitely felt like I went through that alone, that was definitely a negative time in my house… Based on things that were going on in my personal life and my marriage, I think that later, I sort of just marketed to myself as that was not meant to be. Because it would have made things even more difficult than they already were.”
Now separated from estranged husband Jason Hoppy, Bethenny is in a new relationship and says she is happier than she has been in a long time. Frankel has made a decision to keep her relationship private this time and not share it with the RHONY viewing audience. Although her experience with fibroids is a very personal one, Frankel indicates that because it’s a problem many women have, she hopes that sharing her experience will help other women feel like they aren’t alone and make people more willing to talk about this and other women’s health issues.
[Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images]
