Fibroid — The bane of many women

Isaac Yeboah Health Aug - 10 - 2013 , 18:05

Doctors performing a surgery to remove fibroid. Once in church a woman testified of how she had been pregnant for the past three years but was unable to deliver.

She was of the belief that her in-laws had bewitched her and therefore her baby could not come out.

She said scan after scan in the earlier stages of the pregnancy showed that she was pregnant.

The bulkiness of her stomach was also evident enough for all to believe that she was pregnant.

According to Dr Henry Aidoo, a physician, there are many women walking around with fibroids without knowing because they have not sought medical care.

Fibroids are non-cancerous (benign) tumours that grow from the muscle layers of the uterus (womb). They are also known as uterine fibroids, myomas or fibromyomas.

Symptoms

According to Dr Aidoo, some of the symptoms of fibroids are pain and heavy menstrual bleeding.

Fibroids, he said, could also put pressure on the bladder, causing frequent urination, or the rectum, causing rectal pressure.

He said when the fibroids got very large, they cause the abdomen (stomach area) to enlarge, making a woman look pregnant.

Such women, he said, were suffering from a condition known as pseudocyesis. The condition, according to him, makes them feel as though they are pregnant and therefore they exhibit symptoms of pregnancy, which include vomiting and nausea.

Fibroids, he said, varied in size, from that of a bean to as large as a melon.

It is estimated that about 80 per cent of women develop fibroids by the time they reach age 50.

Fibroids are said to affect at least 20 per cent of all women at sometime during their life.

Women aged between 30 and 50 are the most likely to develop fibroids, whereas overweight and obese women are at significantly higher risk of developing fibroids, compared to women of normal weight.

Although all these ages are scientific facts, according to Dr Aidoo, the youngest fibroid patient he has attended to was 18 years.

Complications

Dr Aidoo gave some of the complications associated with fibroids as the obstruction of bowels and infertility in some cases.

When a woman with fibroids became pregnant, Dr Aidoo said, the chances of such a woman going through caesarean was greater than having a normal delivery.

According to him, there is the perception that more people are developing fibroids than it used to be but it is because there are more cases being recorded now due to the availability of modern ultra scan machines.

Treatment

According to Dr Aidoo, treatment for fibroids is mainly surgical. However, he says there are drugs which could be given to patients whose condition cannot permit surgery, such as people who bleed a lot.

These drugs, he says, help in shrinking the fibroids but due to the numerous side effects that patients went through, it is not widely used in the country.

He also said the cost of the drug was a hindrance; a monthly course could cost as much as GH¢600.00.

On the use of traditional medicine, Dr Aidoo said since their efficacies had not been studied and documented on, it was difficult for him to talk about them.

Some traditional medicines are said to be able to melt the fibroids but according to Dr Aidoo, there is no clear scientific proof of such claims, although they could be true.

Experiences

Twelve years ago, Adwoa Dora, a trader at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra said, she had a surgery to remove her fibroids at the Bator Catholic Hospital in the Volta Region and she has since been free of the growth.

Recounting how she used to suffer, she said before the surgery she was diagnosed of having fibroids and since she was through with child birth she decided not to do anything about it.

By then, her doctor had told her that the fibroid was small and therefore she could ignore it.

However, after five years, she started having some unbearable pains in her stomach.

The pains were so excruciating that her doctor decided that she should go for a scan.

Low and behold, the fibroids had degenerated so much so that it was almost the size of a watermelon.

Before the pains became unbearable, she said her stomach became very big but she was always attributing it to a Caesarean performed on her during the birth of her last child.

Little did she know that the fibroids were what had made her stomach that big.

Baaba, a 32-year-old secretary in Accra, said after having painful and heavy bleeding for sometime, an ultra scan showed that she had fibroids.

“Luckily for me, I got married around the time I was diagnosed and became pregnant within months.”

According to Baaba, her doctor assured her that the fibroids would be taken care of after delivery.

She was billed to undergo a Caesarean and so on the day of the surgery, her doctor took out the fibroids as well as the baby.

“What marvels me is that the thing looked like a baby.

“I could not believe that that thing was in my womb, it looked strange,” Baaba said.

According to her, the best way she could describe it to her husband was that the thing looked “demonic.”

Another young lady, Kafui, 36, and unmarried, says she has been experiencing pains in her abdomen for a while.

Although she suspects it to be fibroid, she always prays that it is not.

According to her, her mother and two aunties have all had surgeries due to fibroids and she knows the difficulties they went through.

She says she is yet to see a doctor but for now she has been depending on a particular traditional medicine which, according to her, is believed to melt fibroids away.