By Mercy Matonga
As dozens of women seek to get rid of the strange pain in the pelvis and stomach, they climb hills to offer a word of prayer.
And, every year, many more are going through the knife to remove tumours. Prayer or knife, the emotional trauma remains.
Often, the women are ignorant on what is attacking their bodies until in late stages when the pain becomes unbearable and their reproductive health comes under severe strain.
That’s the brutal blows of fibroids. For years, even after discovery of fibroids, the condition which usually attacks uteruses of women aged between 15-49 years old, many often suffer silently.
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Ruined happiness, productive lives
So, Lizdel Lupiya, 42, a mother of three and a technical journalist working with Nation Publications Limited in the Blantyre, had enough of this.
“It was in 2012. I had woken up one day feeling a bit ill. I felt some sharp pain below my belly button, and as a woman, I thought maybe it was period pains. But it was not. So, I was worried,” Lupiya recalled in an interview.
She consulted one of her best friends and workmates.
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The friend also suspected the pain was related to menstruation.
But when Lupiya’s explained it, the friend urged her to consult a gynaecologist.
Days later, the gynaecologist told Lupiya that she had developed tumours in the uterus.
It was the first time for her to hear the term fibroids.
“The gynaecologist assured me that the tumours were small and, with some medication, they could clear away on their own. I started taking the medication but by November 2014, the tumours had worsened and I was bleeding even when I was not on my period.
“I tried herbals but could not help. I suffered from back pain, severe bloating, exhaustion and cramps. The condition worsened. I was losing weight and feeling sick almost every day. My work, social life and religious life were all affected,” Lupiya recounted.
Lupiya lived in pain for three years. The medication did not work for her.
Therefore, she decided to visit the gynaecologist again, and this time she changed the treatment, and still it didn’t work.
In June 2015, she changed the doctor and met Professor Frank Taulo at Mwaiwathu Private Hospital in Blantyre, who advised her she needed myomectomy—the surgery to remove the uterus fibroids.
That’s how she got her relief.
What are fibroids?
Lupiya’s experience is increasing among women today.
Between 20-80 percent of women develop fibroids during their reproductive years, according to health experts. Yet fibroids rarely get attention.
According to Dr Lameck Chinula, an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Global Women Health at North Carolina, this is the case because fibroids are almost always—around 99 percent of the time —harmless.
In simple terms, uterine fibroids are benign growths that commonly develop in the uterus.
They can range from the size of a pea to weighing more than 9 kilograms.
Although some women never experience symptoms at all, others, like Lupiya, struggle to get through the tasks of daily life.
According to experts, symptoms of the condition include heavy and prolonged menstruation, fatigue, pain during sex, frequent urination, constipation and/or bloating, pain in the pelvis or lower back, increased menstrual cramping and stomach swelling, among others.
Fibroids’ harm on social lives
While fibroids are not as fatal as other health conditions, one of the devastating impacts is on reproduction capacity.
At 41, Alice (not her real name), is a single mother of two adopted girls.
She has suffered the full blunt of fibroids both physically and emotionally.
She asked for identity to be concealed so she can speak freely. Alice had dreams and hopes of having her own children.
She got married at the age of 26. But she couldn’t get pregnant until sometime later. The she had a miscarriage. After medical scans, she was informed she had fibroids.
“He (the doctor) assured me that once I go through an operation to have them removed, I will conceive easily. I went for an operation; days turned into weeks and weeks into months and I still couldn’t get pregnant,” she added.
As time went on, the affection in Alice’s marriage started deteriorating; the language changed, and the marriage fell apart.
“They say ‘love is between two people’ and that’s what my husband once claimed. But living in a culture where having kids defines a marriage, ours couldn’t survive,” said Alice.
Checking fibroids for conception?
Chinula said it is interesting that some women, and actually most women with fibroids, are able to conceive and keep their pregnancy to term.
“However, there is no evidence that checking oneself for fibroids before trying to conceive is predictive of one’s chances of successful conception. I guess what I am saying is that it is not recommended to go for a checkup just to rule out fibroids if one is planning pregnancy,” said Chinula.
He added: “This is because even with fibroids, a good number of women are able to conceive. It is only when a couple, and I would like to emphasise, the couple, is failing to conceive after at least one year of regular sexual intercourse it could seek medical attention.”
Lacking attention
Advisor to the President on Maternal Mortality and Reproductive Health, Dorothy Ngoma, bemoaned the impact of fibroids on women’s reproductive health. But she conceded that the condition is not getting adequate attention.
“This is not a disease like HIV that can be transferred from one person to another. Awareness on the disease happens when lives of many people are at stake,” said Ngoma.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe said, currently, there is no proper research done on levels of awareness of fibroids across the country.
“In terms of awareness—that’s an area that has not received a lot of attention, there are so many areas that we have to increase awareness on, and for the fibroids, it may not have received the attention it deserves because of its magnitude,” said Chikumbe
