Why do fibroids affect black women and what can reduce the risk?   Lilly- not her real name was operated on to remove a tumor th...

Why do fibroids affect black women and what can reduce the risk?

 

Lilly- not her real name was operated on to remove a tumor that had grown inside the uterus.

''I was going to lose my life or have surgery.

 

You can't tell everyone about the bleeding, not even your husband.''

Lilly says since she was a child, she was suffering from what they call kwait in Ghana (Candidiasis), in the local language it is called odepu.

"I didn't take it seriously, because it was a normal thing."

 

She says they tried to treat the condition by using hot water and other things, but when she grew up and began to menstruate, it was very heavy.

 

"I found out that I had cervical cancer when I was 25 years old. We tried to treat it by buying medicine, we also tried traditional medicine, but we didn't succeed."

But after a thorough medical examination, the doctors decided that the tumor should be removed. Lilly would have lost her life in sport if she had not undergone the necessary surgery.

But what are Fibroids?

Fibroids are smooth muscle tumors with connective tissue that grow in a woman's uterus.

In recent years there have been many women who suffer from this problem and among them end up undergoing surgery to remove the tumor.

 

What causes fibroids?

The exact cause of fibroid growth in a woman's reproductive organs is still not well understood, although it is known that each fibroid tumor originates from a muscle cell of the uterus that has decided to behave differently from the others and began to grow rapidly due to the presence of the estrogen hormone. .

Women nearing menopause appear to be at greater risk of developing fibroids because they have lived with the hormone estrogen for a longer period of time.

Women of mixed descent from Americans and Africans (black Americans) also seem to suffer from fibroids more than other women although the reason is still unknown.

Research has also shown that the number of women suffering from fibroids in the group of women who have given birth to at least two live children is half compared to those who have not given birth even once.

Here it is not clear whether giving birth prevented these women from getting fibroids or fibroids prevented the women of the second group from giving birth. Research on this is still ongoing.

Symptoms Of Fibroids

• Heavy bleeding during menstruation
• Irregular bleeding between the days of the month
• Hip inflammation (swelling that compresses the hip joints)
• Frequent urination
• Back pain
• Pain during intercourse
• Anemia due to heavy bleeding during the day
• Headache
• Pain in the legs
• Swelling of the lower abdomen (large fibroids)
• Problem parenting
• Troubled pregnancies
• Not getting pregnant
• From frequent pregnancy

Source: NHS

Treatment of Fibroids

If a woman does not experience any kind of disturbance in her normal activities, she may not be given any kind of treatment even if it has been discovered that she has a fibroid tumor because when a woman approaches menopause, the fibroids dry up on their own and sometimes disappear completely.

If treatment is necessary, he may be given medication or surgery due to the existing condition.

The main treatment for fibroids is using GnRHA (gonadotropin released hormone agonist) drugs which are given as injections.

This drug causes the woman's body to reduce the production of estrogen, thus causing fibroids to wither in the uterus.

Other treatments are Tranexamic acid, painkillers, birth control pills (preventing a woman from having a period) and LNG-IUS (Levonorgestrel intrauterine system) which is a plastic device placed in the

If drug therapy fails to work, the patient undergoes surgery to remove the tumor.